Nocturnal ramblings of a less-than-conscious nature during a business trip to Africa were misportrayed by the company as sexual harassment or something else improper, argued the mining exec. A jury awarded him €10 million, by far a record for an Irish libel case. [Telegraph, Eichler/Atlantic Wire]
Posts tagged as:
harassment law
- “Court Vacates $99,000 Fee to Counsel for Plaintiff Who Won $650″ [NJLJ]
- Libel-suit target: “Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science” [Wired]
- No, they weren’t “worst”: RIP injury lawyer who hyped “10 Worst Toys” list each Christmas [WSJ Law Blog]
- New credit card regulations squeeze small business [John Berlau letter in Washington Post]
- District attorney’s case intake desk should screen out many unjust prosecutions, but often doesn’t [Greenfield]
- AGs’ campaign to drive sex pros off Craigslist has failure built in [William Saletan, Slate; LNL; Declan McCullagh]
- “Nursing Home Company Settles $677 Million Lawsuit for $50 Million” [AP]
- “Judge accused of sexual harassment once helped women sue” [Orlando Sentinel]
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- Former producer at “Oprah” show — yearning for the simpler life? — takes job at rough blue-collar outfit. One $500K harassment settlement later… [Des Moines Register]
- “Insurer writing ‘loser pays’ policies to defendants” [LNL]
- “$1.4 Million Award Reversed due to Attorney’s ‘Inflammatory’ Comments” [DBR]
- New book examines shaky evidentiary basis of international criminal law convictions [Nancy Combs]
- Litigation slush funds, cont’d: new Department of Justice rules steer public settlement money to private advocacy groups [York, Examiner]
- Second Circuit upholds Judge Weinstein’s steps to curb conspiracy to evade protective order in Zyprexa case [Drug and Device Law, Dan Popeo, NYLJ] More from the busy Dr. David Egilman: “Plaintiff’s Expert Files Appeal in ‘Popcorn Lung’ Lawsuit” [On Point News and more] Also: “Being an Expert Expert Doesn’t Make You an Expert” [Zacher, Abnormal Use]
- “FTC Seeks to Clarify — and Justify — Its Blogger Endorsement Guidelines” [Citizen Media Law]
- “Winnebago cruise control” and suchlike urban legends are purposely devised and spread by sinister interests, or so claim L.A. Times and Prof. Turley [five years ago on Overlawyered]
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William Saletan investigates a curious genre of harassment case [Slate; more at Atlantic Wire]
- Lawyer sued for sexual harassment countersues, wins $1.55 million in damages [The Recorder]
- Court rejects another challenge to tobacco multistate settlement agreement [Sullum, Reason]
- European human rights claim: “Fury as German doctor seeks injunction against victim’s sons” [Daily Mail]
- New CPSC rulemakings on CPSIA testing frequency and component testing could sink many small businesses [Woldenberg]
- Connecticut AG Blumenthal picks fight with life insurers [Hartford Courant, with comments]
- Undies moral: “Excess litigiousness is part of the whole shebang of dangerizing everything.” [Skenazy, Free-Range Kids]
- “False-Marking Suits Head for a Showdown” [Robbins, Texas Lawyer]
- “I think my years in the [adult film] industry will make me a great lawyer.” [Above the Law]
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Over dissents from two justices, the New Jersey Supreme Court has declined to disbar an attorney who made “repeated, demeaning and offensive suggestions to his clients” in “an effort to barter his professional services for sexual favors.” The punishment instead: suspension for a year and required sensitivity training. Solangel Maldonado at Concurring Opinions thinks the court was too lenient, arguing that an employer charged with similar conduct toward an employee would have faced extensive liability under sexual harassment law.
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Daniel Schwartz doesn’t think much of this private venture.
P.S. A moving target, it seems.
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A lab technician in Bolton, Lancashire, U.K. kills himself after an offhand joke at his workplace is denounced as insensitive [Telegraph, Mail]
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Tony Judt reflects on many bemused years in a history department, and commenters have their say [NY Review of Books Blog via Amy Alkon]
- Jury orders Dutchess County, N.Y. school district to pay $1.25 million for not adequately addressing classmate harassment of “very dark skinned” half-Latino student; district protests that it had extensively pursued diversity/sensitivity programs [Poughkeepsie Journal]
- More unwisdom: “Oklahoma House of Representatives Proposes Ban on Use of Foreign Law in Oklahoma Courts” [Volokh, earlier on Arizona bill]
- Update: California environment czars won’t ban black cars, but watch out for what reflective-layer window mandates might do to cellphones and tollgate transponders [ShopFloor, earlier]
- “Firm Sanctioned for ‘Perfect Storm’ of Improper Practices in Debt Collection” [NYLJ]
- Critic of lie detector technology says U.K. libel law has silenced him [Times Online] Science journalist Simon Singh says fighting chiropractors’ libel suit is so draining that he’s quitting his column for the Guardian [Guardian, Citizen Media Law]
- Florida: father who lost wife, son in murder/suicide at gun range drops lawsuit against the store [Orlando Sentinel]
- Appeals court declines to overturn Mary Roberts sextortion conviction [MySanAntonio.com, opinion, related, earlier]
- Corporation for Public Newspapering? Stimulus bucks go to “public-interest investigative journalism” [SFWeekly]
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A new book on the Paula Jones/Bill Clinton legal mess [Janet Maslin, New York Times; my views back when]
- “U.S. Still Won’t Join International Criminal Court” [Julian Ku, Opinio Juris via Adler] International jurisdiction is a bit of a crime in itself [Stuttaford, NRO "Corner"]
- “Tourette’s Sufferer Sues Starbucks for Discrimination” [Seattle Weekly]
- Colorado: “Science Fair Bans Most Science” [Free-Range Kids]
- For best results in lawsuit against “Girls Gone Wild” producer, it helps not to have made X-rated films [OnPoint News]
- New Mexico revolt against Feds’ takeover of community bank [Bank Lawyer's Blog, more]
- Citizen’s United decision continued: “Yes, money is speech” [Rick Esenberg, Point of Law] “When Individuals Form Corporations, They Don’t Lose Their Rights” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato at Liberty]
- Thomas Lenard and Paul Rubin, “In Defense of Data: Information and the Costs of Privacy” [SSRN last year]
- Sex-harassment charge against six-year-old boy will cost Brockton, Mass. taxpayers $180,000 [Brockton Enterprise]
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They’ve contributed to a recommended three-year suspension for San Francisco attorney Philip Kay. “Kay rose to fame with the Baker & McKenzie suit, earning him a reputation as the go-to plaintiff lawyer for sexual harassment suits.” [Mike McKee/The Recorder, California Civil Justice]
More: Via a commenter, this is said to be the official statement released by the office of Philip Edward Kay:
“This decision admits it used default, as punishment, in violation of Business & Professions Code §6068(i), because I asserted constitutional and statutory rights of attorney client privilege and work product before answering questions, and demanded the right to have these issues heard and determined by an article VI court of general jurisdiction to determine whether the questions sought privileged information, pursuant to State Bar Rules. The State Bar Court did this knowingly to allow the Office of Chief Trial Counsel the ability to lie about what the Superior Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court found in their orders and opinions regarding these important civil rights cases.
In these matters, only after the trial judges were reversed on appeal and disqualified, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §§170, et seq., did they claim misconduct. So, either these judges lied in their orders denying misconduct, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §657(1) – “irregularities in the proceedings,” OR they lied in their testimony in the State Bar trial. This will create an uncertain and chilling effect by allowing unfit and disgruntled judges to lie about the record and impugn lawfully obtained civil rights verdicts, which have been upheld by the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. The State Bar Court has allowed these disqualified judges to attack and undermine the very verdicts, which, they could not touch in the trial court under statutory and case law in California.”
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I’m quoted by Ben Brody in this month’s Westchester Magazine in an article about fear of harassment charges in the workplace.
Boston lawyers recall a very strange sexual harassment lawsuit in which the defendant’s CEO “wore a different Halloween costume to each day of his [six-day] deposition”. [Zach Lowe, AmLaw Daily]
- California: “Feds Say Lawyer Took Bribe to Encourage Client to Lie in Immigration Case” [NLJ]
- “Before you celebrate [the] seemingly wise anti-litigation statement [of the "Skanks in New York" blogger], take note that she’s suing Google…” [Althouse, earlier here, here, etc.] Dispute is female-vs.-female, but feminist lawprofs inevitably spot gender discrimination [Citron, ConcurOp; Greenfield]
- “Ousted members of Florida chess board sue to reclaim their volunteer positions” [St. Petersburg Times]
- Man freed after serving 22 years on dubious child abuse charges, but prosecutor who went after him is doing fine [Radley Balko, Reason "Hit and Run", Bernard Baran case, Massachusetts]
- Khalid bin Mahfouz, plaintiff in celebrated “libel tourism” case against Rachel Ehrenfeld in England, is dead at 60 [Wasserman/Prawfsblawg]
- Colorful University of Connecticut law professor lands in a spot of bother again after girlfriend’s arrest [Above the Law]
- Federal judge says prosecutor in Chicago U.S. Attorney’s office allowed witness to testify falsely [WSJ Law Blog]
- Deja vu? “‘Seinfeld’ joke gets man canned for harassment” [Des Moines Register, earlier Wisconsin case; & see Ted's caveat in comments]
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