Overlawyered

Claim: link on our name pointing elsewhere infringes trademark

Walter Olson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:48:55 +0000

Attorney John Dozier has already made a couple of memorable appearances in this space, first when he asserted in a cease and desist letter that it would violate copyright law for his target to post the text of that cease and desist letter in part or in full on the web, and shortly thereafter when one of the clients of his Dozier Internet Law firm, an outfit known as Inventor-Net, purported to “strictly prohibit any links and or other unauthorized references to our web site without our permission”; Dozier’s own site had a user agreement which purported to ban linking to the site, using the firm’s name “in any manner” without permission, or even looking at the site’s source code.

Now the Virginia-based attorney is attracting attention with a new legal battle against Ronald J. Riley, a Michigan inventor and patent-law activist who has harshly criticized Dozier (and many others) in online posts and comments. Among other tactics, Riley has set up “sucks” websites that vilify Dozier and his law firm and turn up in search results on Dozier’s name. Dozier’s lawsuit against Riley invokes not defamation law, as might have been expected, but trademark law, and its most curious provision is #25, which complains that it is a trademark violation for Riley’s site to base a hyperlink on the phrase “Dozier Internet Law” and have it lead to Riley’s own attacks on the Dozier firm rather than to the Dozier firm’s site. Of course it’s long been common in online commentary to link on someone’s name and have the link point somewhere scathingly critical of them (e.g., “Erin Brockovich“). Dozier claims, perhaps implausibly, that potential clients will suffer confusion between Riley’s services and his own.

Paul Alan Levy at Public Citizen’s Consumer Law & Policy Blog writes (Oct. 2):

Although Dozier filed his lawsuit, he does not seem to have served it on Riley. Instead, he has used the making of a claim for trademark infringement to warn the hosts of Riley’s web site that if they do not take the web site down they risk a further display of Dozier’s wrath, directed at them. See here, here, and here. And his invocation of trademark law was very crafty, because although the Communications Decency Act immunizes ISP’s from liability for most claims based on the content of web sites that they host, that immunity does not extend to trademark claims.

Public Citizen has now sued for a declaratory judgment that Riley is not liable to Dozier on trademark grounds. The conflict has even aroused sympathy for Riley on TechDirt, among whose editors he had been anything but popular before.

Tags: Communications Decency Act, Dozier Internet Law, online speech, Public Citizen, trademarks

U.K.: Tories vow to roll back police workplace-safety rules

Walter Olson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:46:20 +0000

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said if the Conservatives return to power they will amend the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974, sections of which have applied to police work since 1997. The much-criticized results have included refusals to allow police officers to venture into potentially dangerous crime scenes and rescue situations. The party also pledges to curtail a trend toward the filing of official charges against citizens who intervene in efforts to stop crimes. (James Kirkup, “Tory conference: Dominic Grieve promises to scrap police health and safety laws”, Telegraph, Sept. 30). See also Jun. 30, 2003 (police not warned that climbing on roofs was dangerous).

Tags: police, safety, United Kingdom, workplace

Cuomo suit: minority listeners undercounted in radio ratings

Walter Olson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:06:36 +0000

The office of New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo “said it planned to file a lawsuit this week against Arbitron, the company that compiles the data, because of concerns that minority listeners were not being adequately represented. … Recruiting and retaining enough respondents from these demographic groups [blacks and Hispanics] has proved difficult for Arbitron, leading some stations that cater to urban and ethnic audiences to claim that they are not being sufficiently counted.” (Brian Stelter, “Cuomo to Sue Radio Ratings Company, Claiming Minorities Are Underrepresented”, New York Times, Oct. 7).

Tags: attorneys general, broadcasters, New York

NPR on high court docket

Walter Olson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:26:13 +0000

They quote Ted twice.

Tags: on TV and radio, Ted Frank

“I am sorry….”

Walter Olson — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:04:10 +0000

Houston lawyer Jeff Murphrey apologizes (or doesn’t really) in a deposition scheduling dispute with a Dallas lawyer (Nicole Black, Legal Antics, Oct. 6).

Tags: civility, Dallas, Houston, Texas

October 6 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:41:25 +0000

All-blog edition:

Judges overheard chatting in coffee shop about sweetheart class settlement [WageLaw via Paul Karlsgodt's weekly class action blog roundup]
More attempts to sue/uncover anonymous blog commenters: “I was subpoenaed for a discovery deposition about one of my posts on this blog.” [Medblogger Dr. Wes]
Thoughts prompted by the latest (NYC) round of litigation over “ladies’ nights” at drinking establishments [David Giacalone, f/k/a]
Head of state (Bolivia’s Morales) to his lawyer: “If it’s illegal, go ahead and make it legal. That’s what you went to school for.’” [Cato at Liberty]
Everybody run! Perennial Overlawyered mentionee Steve Berman has a blog [Class Action Law Today via his P.R. guy in Kevin O'Keefe comments]
When infamous NYC lawyer Burt Pugach calls, hang up [Greenfield]
Colleague described as “a soap opera doctor” elects to spend more time in the courtroom than in the operating room [Throckmorton]
Dear Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee: “Please resist the efforts of vaccine-injury plaintiffs’ advocates to define themselves as representatives of ‘the autism community.’” [Kathleen Seidel, Neurodiversity]

Tags: autism, bloggers and the law, class action settlements, expert witnesses, ladies' nights, NYC, on other blogs, Steve Berman, vaccine

Ontario forensic pathologist scandal

Walter Olson — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:39:43 +0000

“Ontario vowed to overhaul its pediatric forensic pathology system yesterday following a highly critical report citing the ‘woefully inadequate’ training of pathologist Dr. Charles Smith and the inaction of his supervisors in the coroner’s office who ‘actively protected’ him despite ‘warning signs’ about errors he made that led to wrongful prosecutions.” A 1,000-page report by Justice Stephen Goudge found that Smith’s testimony blaming child deaths on family members resulted in numerous wrongful prosecutions and erroneous convictions, including that of William Mullins-Johnson of Sault Ste. Marie, who “spent 12 years in prison after he was convicted of murdering his four-year-old niece. The conviction was quashed last year after the expert evidence was dismissed as unreliable.” (Jordana Huber, “Inquiry blasts Ontario pathologist”, Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 2; CBC; ABA Journal; Goudge inquiry website and report).

Tags: Canada, child protection, crime and punishment, expert witnesses

Microblog 2008-10-05

Walter Olson — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:59:59 +0000

Are Citi-Wachovia-Wells Fargo doomed to relive Texaco-Getty-Pennzoil in court? [Ethan Leib, Prawfsblawg; more here, here] #
GOP petrified at prospect of filibuster-proof Democratic Senate [Politico] #
Iceland’s once high-flying banks: will bailout needs overwhelm small nation’s govt? [Salmon] #
Splog rips off Blawg Review #175 in its entirety from rightful author J. Spencer. Will Blogspot do anything? [don't give 'em a direct link] #
A peek at a revamped Amazon Kindle due out for Xmas? [Carnoy, CNet "Crave"] #
Courtesy Kevin O’Keefe, “Beer for Bloggers” event in Manhattan Monday evening [see you there?] #
Good article on pressures on Fannie Mae to plunge into risky lending 2005-08 [Kudos to NYT] #

Tags: mortgages, Twitter

Mental health “parity” insurance mandate

Walter Olson — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:01:46 +0000

This was the week that Congress passed and the President signed a new law requiring that most health insurers (if they cover mental health treatment at all) pay for lots and lots of talk therapy and addiction rehab the same way they pay for lots of angioplasties or appendectomies, in the name of “parity” and “nondiscrimination”. Very optimistically — it won’t be Congress writing the checks — the ten-year cost is projected at only $3.4 billion. (Judith Graham, “Triage”/Chicago Tribune, Oct. 3). Next week lawmakers will go back to complaining that health insurance has become prohibitively expensive and that much of the population is priced out of buying it altogether. Mickey Kaus remembers where we’ve seen this sort of feel-good short-circuiting of underwriting standards before (Oct. 2).

Tags: insurance

Annals of traffic-cams

Walter Olson — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:10:18 +0000

The traffic camera automatically recorded the license plate of the vehicle going too fast, so the owner (in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa) was automatically mailed a ticket. The only problem: the vehicle was being towed by a tow truck at the time. (Stumblng Tumblr, Aug. 5).

More from commenter Cathy Gellis: “I know someone who canceled her Fastrak/EZ Pass automatic toll account and was charged when the device passed through a toll while being mailed back.”

Tags: red light cameras, South Africa

Overlawyered

Claim: link on our name pointing elsewhere infringes trademark

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