A House hearing last week did not go well for advocates of the speech-suppressing “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act.” [David Kravets, Wired.com "Threat Level" via Kerr, Volokh and Greenfield]
{ 2 comments }
Posts tagged as:
bullying
“Cyberbullying Bill Gets Chilly Reception”
by Walter Olson on October 5, 2009
August 21 roundup
by Walter Olson on August 21, 2009
- NYC criminal defense lawyer and TV commentator Robert Simels convicted of witness tampering in closely watched case [NY Daily News and more, NYLJ, Greenfield, Simon/Legal Ethics Forum]
- Title IX suit says harassment by other students pushed school girl into anorexia, school should pay [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
- Federal judge upholds some Louisiana restrictions on lawyer advertising, but says rules on Internet communication unconstitutionally restrict speech [WAFB, Ron Coleman]
- “Woman Claims Display Was So Distracting, She Fell Over It” [Lowering the Bar; Santa Clara County, Calif. Dollar Tree]
- Associated Press now putting out softer line on blogger use of its copy, but is it a trap? [Felix Salmon, earlier]
- Update: Google ordered to identify person who set up nasty “skank” blog to attack NYC model [Fashionista, earlier here and here]
- Some speak as if lawsuits over “alienation of affections” a thing of the past, alas not so [Eugene Volokh, more, yet more; earlier]
- Connecticut: “State Holds Hearing On Whether Group Can Hand Out Food To The Poor” [Hartford Courant; "Food Not Bombs" group at Wesleyan]
Note: post was mistakenly titled as “August 22 roundup” at first, now fixed; thanks to reader Jonathan B. for catching.
Tagged as: alienation of affection, bullying, Connecticut, copyright, defense lawyers, ethics, Google, Louisiana, Pittsburgh, Title IX
{ 2 comments }
Member of Congress defends speech-ban bill
by Walter Olson on May 7, 2009
Although the proposed Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act would criminalize a wide range of online speech that leads to emotional distress, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) says we should rest assured that judges in their discretion will apply it only to nasties who are bothering our children — except that the bill is in no way limited to that type of speech. Eugene Volokh dissects (earlier here and here).
Tagged as: bullying, online speech
{ 6 comments }
March 15 roundup
by Walter Olson on March 15, 2009
- “Intellectual Easter egg hunt”: great Michael Kinsley column on Wyeth v. Levine and FDA drug preemption [Washington Post]
- Negligent for the Port Authority to let itself get bombed: “Jury Awards $5.46M to 1993 WTC Bomb Victim” [WINS, earlier]
- “How following hospital quality measures can kill patients” [KevinMD]
- Owner of Vancouver Sun suing over someone’s parody of the paper (though at least it drops the printer as a defendant) [Blog of Walker]
- Court dismisses some counts in Billy Wolfe bullying suit against Fayetteville, Ark. schools [NW Arkansas Times, court records, earlier here and here]
- Law bloggers were on this weeks ago, now Tenaha, Tex. cops’ use of forfeiture against motorists is developing into national story [Chicago Tribune, earlier here and here]
- Can hostile blog posts about a plaintiff’s case be the basis for venue change? [IBLS]
- Calls 911 because McDonald’s has run out of chicken nuggets [Lowering the Bar]
Tagged as: bullying, forfeiture, free speech in Canada, McDonald's, parody, Port Authority, preemption, terrorism
{ 5 comments }
March 9 roundup
by Walter Olson on March 8, 2009
- “Attack on Inflatable Easter Bunny Might Be a Hate Crime” [Obscure Store; Westchester County, N.Y. Journal-News]
- Unclear on the concept? Judge resigns from Ethics Commission and backdates her letter doing so [Hartford Courant]
- Stephen Spruiell, Health Care Is Not a “Right” [NRO "Corner"]
- Christopher Fountain: Proud to have switched from lawyer to realtor, at least I escaped being in the same profession as those Seattle water class-action guys [For What It's Worth]
- Why include Facebook as defendant in teenage “cyber-bullying” case? Ron Coleman has a theory [Likelihood of Confusion]
- Bill protecting Good Samaritans from lawsuits passes California Assembly Judiciary committee [California Civil Justice]
- Author/labor lawyer Tom Geoghegan had all the good writers on his side, so of course he lost big in replace-Rahm primary [Mickey Kaus, earlier]
- Three pro wrestlers thrown out of court in employment suit against World Wrestling Entertainment [Daniel Schwartz, earlier]
Tagged as: bullying, Connecticut, Facebook, Good Samaritan
{ 2 comments }
Expelled from Miss Porter’s — but it was the Oprichniki’s fault
by Walter Olson on December 19, 2008
The family of Tatum Bass of South Carolina has filed a federal lawsuit over her dismissal from Miss Porter’s, the all-girls private school in Farmington, Connecticut. The suit “acknowledges that Bass was suspended from school this fall for cheating on a test. But the lawsuit contends that Bass only cheated because she was frazzled by” belittlement and bullying from a clique of other girls who are said to have called themselves the “Oprichniki,” after the secret police in czarist Russia. (Vanessa de la Torre, “Miss Porter’s School Sued Over Expulsion”, Hartford Courant, Dec. 10).
Tagged as: bullying, Connecticut, schools
{ 2 comments }
“Jury convicts mom of lesser charges in online hoax”
by Walter Olson on November 26, 2008
“A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyberbullying case was convicted Wednesday of only three minor offenses for her role in a mean-spirited Internet hoax that apparently drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide.” Numerous critics had assailed the prosecution of Lori Drew as based on overbroad criminalization; we covered the controversy here, here, and here. (Greg Risling, AP/Buffalo News, Nov. 26).
Tagged as: bullying, Missouri, MySpace, suicide
{ 3 comments }
Anonymous school-bullying snitchline
by Walter Olson on October 29, 2008
The innovation might itself prove to be quite an effective weapon for use in tormenting hapless victims (Feral Child, Oct. 14; Ki Mae Heussner, “Calling Out Bullies Incognito: New Site Lets Students Report Bullying, Harassment Anonymously”, ABC News, Oct. 16; more on snitchlines here, here, and here).
{ 4 comments }
April 11 roundup
by Walter Olson on April 11, 2008
- Plenty of reaction to our Tuesday post questioning the NYT school-bullying story, including reader comments and discussion at other blogs; one lawprof passes along a response by the Wolfe family to the Northwest Arkansas Times’s reporting [updated post]
- Geoffrey Fieger, of jury-swaying fame, says holding his forthcoming criminal trial in Detroit would be unfair because juries there hate his guts [Detroit News]
- Another Borat suit down as Judge Preska says movie may be vulgar but has social value, and thus falls into “newsworthiness” exception to NY law barring commercial use of persons’ images [ABA Journal]
- Employer found mostly responsible for accident that occurred after its functionaries overrode a safety device, but a heavy-equipment dealer also named as defendant will have to pay more than 90 percent of resulting $14.6 million award [Bloomington, Ill. Pantagraph]
- New Mexico Human Rights Commission fines photographer $6600 for refusing a job photographing same-sex commitment ceremony [Volokh, Bader]
- “Virginia reaches settlement with families of VA Tech shooting victims” [Jurist]
- Roger Parloff on downfall of Dickie Scruggs [Fortune]
- Judge in Spain fined heavily and disbarred for letting innocent man spend more than a year in jail [AP/IHT, Guardian]
- Hard to know whether all those emergency airplane groundings actually improved safety, they might even have impaired it [Murray/NRO "Corner", WSJ edit]
- “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value” — tracking down the context of that now-celebrated quote from a Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator [Volokh]
- Who was it that said that lawyers “need to be held accountable for frivolous lawsuits that help drive up the cost of malpractice insurance”? Hint: initials are J.E. [three years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as: Arkansas, Borat, bullying, Canada, deep pocket, Detroit, Dickie Scruggs, Europe, FAA, free speech, Geoffrey Fieger, joint and several liability, New Mexico, roundups, Spain, third party liability for crime, Virginia Tech
{ 7 comments }
Workplace bullying bills
by Ted Frank on February 7, 2008
As a Tennessee appellate court noted in rejecting Joan Frye’s lawsuit against her hospital employer, “[T]he fact that a supervisor is mean, hard to get along with, overbearing, belligerent or otherwise hostile and abusive does not violate civil rights statutes.” Some legislators are trying to change that (excited in part by Suffolk Law Professor David Yamada’s theory of making “bullying” actionable). The ABA Journal is the latest to note the trend. (The article unfortunately repeats the false smear against my colleague John Bolton.) As we noted last May,
Enactments of this sort could result in a large new volume of litigation; the ample scope for differences of opinion about what constitutes hurtful sarcasm or a humiliating memo style could turn the courts into ongoing “superpersonnel departments” dispensing financial balm for injured feelings in the workplace.
Employment attorney Richard Block is more blunt in the ABA Journal: “You’re talking about a lifetime annuity of work for employment lawyers.” Bills are pending in thirteen states.
Tagged as: bullying, hospitals, Tennessee, trial lawyer earmarks, workplace
{ 7 comments }
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t files: “Cyber-bullying”
by Ted Frank on December 7, 2007
School districts have learned that they cannot discipline students for abusive Internet postings they make off-campus. Layshack v. Hermitage Area School District, No. 074465 (pending 3d Cir.); Dwyer v. OceanPort School District No. 03-6005 (D. N.J.) ($117,500 settlement to student suspended over web site). “Lawyers say school districts are in a legal quandary: If they punish a student for something they did off school grounds, they could get hit with a freedom of speech claim. If they do nothing, they could get hit with failure to act litigation.” (Tresa Baldas, “As ‘cyber-bullying’ grows, so do lawsuits”, National Law Journal, Dec. 10).
Tagged as: bullying, schools, sued if you do
{ 2 comments }
November 13 roundup
by Walter Olson on November 13, 2007
- Ethical questions for Vioxx lawyers [WSJ law blog] And who’s going to make what? [same; more from Ted at PoL]
- American lawyers shouldn’t get all self-congratulatory about the courage shown by their Pakistani counterparts [Giacalone; more]
- Just another of those harmless questionnaires from school, this time about kindergartners’ at-home computer use. Or maybe there’s more to it [Nicole Black]
- Probe of personal injury “runners” bribing Gotham hospital staff to chase business nets another conviction, this one of a lawyer who stole $148,000 from clients [NYLJ; earlier]
- Facebook sometimes sends text messages to obsolete cellphone numbers relinquished by its users, so let’s sue it [IndyStar]
- Series on defensive medicine at docblog White Coat Rants [first, second, third]
- Arm broken by bully, student wins $4 million verdict against Tampa private school; bully himself not sued [St. Petersburg Times]
- Washington, D.C. reportedly doing away with right to contest a
trafficparking ticket in person [The Newspaper, on "the politics of driving"] - “Walking headline factory” Scruggs to be arraigned November 20 [Rossmiller]
- More on whether government’s refusal to alter paper currency discriminates against the blind [Waldeck, ConcurOp via Bader; earlier]
- Eric Turkewitz hosts a truly marathon Blawg Review #134 [NY Pers Inj Law Blog]
Tagged as: ATRA, bullying, chasing clients, defensive medicine, Dickie Scruggs, Facebook, hospitals, paper currency and the blind, roundups, third party liability for crime, Vioxx
{ 6 comments }
