Salvatore (”Toto”) Cuffaro, a senator from Sicily, doesn’t seem to take well to criticism. [BoingBoing]
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Posts tagged as:
Italy
A Queens, N.Y. man has sued Starwood Hotels and American Express, saying that at an Amex-recommended hotel in Sardinia he and his sons were held hostage by hotel staffers, sometimes at gunpoint, and forced to spend upwards of a hundred thousand dollars on hotel, jewelry, boutique and nightclub charges. [Adam Klasfeld/Courthouse News, New York Post] Cityfile expresses a marked degree of skepticism toward Alexander Maryasin’s story and links “13 different lawsuits that [he] has filed in Queens alone in recent years”.
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- Find me someone who speaks Mixtecan, fast: under new California law health insurers must provide patients with certified language interpreters [Ventura County Star]
- “Law Prof’s Article on His Jury Experience Leads to Overturned Verdict” [ABA Journal]
- Quick, lock up the Internet: Harvard Law’s John Palfrey wants to unleash child-endangerment suits against online providers [Citizen Media Law]
- “Another Lesbian Visitation Case has Liberty Counsel Spouting Nonsense” [Ed Brayton; earlier Miller-Jenkins case]
- “Jury awards need to be fair, not lucrative” [Jackie Bueno Sousa, Miami Herald]
- Aussie strip club disagrees with exotic dancer on whether faulty pole caused her injury [Brisbane Courier-Mail]
- Hasbro nastygram over “Little Mr. Monopoly” use [Bob Ambrogi, Ron Coleman]
- No, “crash of ‘09″ doesn’t refute “capitalist system”, any more than “car wreck” refutes “auto-based travel”.
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- Probate court in Connecticut: bad enough when they hold you improperly in conservatorship, but worse when they bill you for the favor [Hartford Courant]
- Does “Patent Troll” in World of Warcraft count as a character type or a monster type? [Broken Toys]
- 102-year-old Italian woman wins decade-long legal dispute, but is told appeal could take 10 years more [Telegraph]
- “This Cartoon Could Be Illegal, If Two Iowa Legislators Have Their Way” [Eugene Volokh]
- David Giacalone, nonpareil commentator on attorneys’ fee ethics (and haiku), has decided to end his blog f/k/a. He signs off with a four-part series on lawyer billing and fairness to consumers/clients: parts one, two, three, four, plus a final “Understanding and Reducing Attorney Fees“. He’s keeping the site as archives, though, and let’s hope that as such it goes on shedding its light for as long as there are lawyers and vulnerable clients. More: Scott Greenfield.
- Even they can’t manage to comply? Politically active union SEIU faces unfair labor practice charges from its own employees [WaPo]
- Judge in Austin awards $3 million from couple’s estate to their divorce lawyers [Austin American-Statesman]
- “Keywords With Highest Cost Per Click”, lawyers and financial services dominate [SpyFu]
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- Net present value of a J.D. degree $470,000? [TaxProf Blog] #
- Lawyer busted after sending identical twin sister to cover court appearance [Stumblng Tumblr] #
- MoFo analysis of some bailout & crisis legal issues, thanks @stevematthews [JDSupra] #
- Follow my old friends at libertarian magazine Reason on Twitter [@reasonmag]#
- Ninth Circuit, Kozinski, J., rules 8-3 that Roommates.com can be found to have violated fair housing law by asking users to sort themselves according to their wish to room with males or other protected groups; the court distinguished the Craigslist cases [L.A. Times, Volokh, Drum]
- Class-action claim: Apple says its 20-inch iMac displays millions of colors but the true number is a mere 262,144, the others being simulated [WaPo]
- U.K.: compulsive gambler loses $2 million suit against his bookmakers, who are awarded hefty costs under loser-pays rule [BBC first, second, third, fourth stories]
- Pittsburgh couple sue Google saying its Street Views invades their privacy by including pics of their house [The Smoking Gun via WSJ law blog]
- U.S. labor unions keep going to International Labour Organization trying to get current federal ground rules on union organizing declared in violation of international law [PoL]
- Illinois Supreme Court reverses $2 million jury award to woman who sued her fiance’s parents for not warning her he had AIDS [Chicago Tribune]
- Italian family “preparing to sue the previous owners of their house for not telling them it was haunted”; perhaps most famous such case was in Nyack, N.Y. [Ananova, Cleverly]
- Per their hired expert, Kentucky lawyers charged with fen-phen settlement fraud “relied heavily on the advice of famed trial lawyer Stan Chesley in the handling of” the $200 million deal [Lexington Herald-Leader]
- Actor Hal Holbrook of Mark Twain fame doesn’t think much of those local anti-tobacco ordinances that ban smoking on stage even when needed for dramatic effect [Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times]
- Six U.S. cities so far have been caught “shortening the amber cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners.” [Left Lane via Virtuous Republic and Asymmetrical Information]
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- This tale of a class-action settlement over male, uh, enhancement products sure looks like a parody, and yet…. Please let it be a parody [Magill/DirectMag, Levine/CircleID, LEMSettlement.com]
- Big law firm partners say million a year really isn’t enough to keep up social status in Manhattan or Silicon Valley [ABA Journal]
- Clerical error results in Disney characters’ getting subpoenaed in Italian criminal case [USA Today]
- We’ve slipped to second place in this Blawg 100 contest thing, don’t you like us? [vote here]
- Update on Miami’s fire-fee scandal (Sept. 19): law firm of Adorno & Yoss, which once sought $2 million fee, will now pay taxpayers $1.6 million; bar probe continues [Miami Herald, Florida Masochist]
- Wife had begged him not to go kite-surfing in Long Island Sound in winter, but still sues town over its failure to warn against taking such risks [Conn. Post]
- “I don’t do any medmal,” lawyer hastens to make known as he’s being stitched up in ER [GruntDoc]
- Very expensive speech: “beyond cruel” shock-jock comments ridiculing Albany, N.Y. burn victim end in $1 million settlement, spoliation also raised as issue [ABA Journal]
- Hassle of dealing with regs in charming Old Town Alexandria is one that only chain outlets may be up to shouldering [Balko, Reason]
- Turkish lawyer sues Italian soccer team, deems its “Crusader-style” red crosses “offensive to Muslim sensibilities” [Times Online, UK]
- Plaintiff’s lawyers tend to throw the most opulent holiday parties in Texas, but our readers knew that already [Houston Chronicle via Lat]
- Two men shot in suspected drug deal win $1.7 million in negligent-security suit against hotel [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
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Welcome BBC listeners; more on the blind shoppers’ suit against Target here. Most of our material on this site originates in the U.S. but we do have a page of British items, and here are some more:
- Sheffield-based clown “Barney Baloney” finds it harder to amuse children now that liability insurers have vetoed his bubble machine and supermarkets bar him from using allergenic latex balloons [Daily Mail, Telegraph, AFP/Breibart, Lowering the Bar; video at Breitbart.tv]
- Good opinion column prompted by above: “the fear of legal action is not a fantasy of liberal killjoys … what has really happened is that a small minority of the population have become accident-intolerant and are prepared to enforce their utopia through the courts.” [Mark Lawson, Guardian]
- Furor over official ruling that man who killed London headmaster can’t be deported back to Italy without violating his human rights “as he no longer has strong family ties there” [Telegraph]
- Scandals about groundless expert testimony in infant death prosecutions lead to calls for importation of Daubert rules, maybe even national institute of forensic science [Times Online]
- Labour government will propose bill to halt prosecution of homeowners who defend themselves with “proportional” force against burglars, home invaders [Telegraph] while Tories pledge to end “compensation culture” in school governance [likewise]
- State of UK law blogs, and link to a list of them [Nick Holmes via Kevin O'Keefe]
- Please, please don’t: leading consumer group calls for adoption of U.S.-style class action system in which lawyers can represent everyone who doesn’t affirmatively opt out [Times Online]
Elsewhere around the world Ferrero Group, the Italian candy company, sells (with a suitable warning label) a treat called Kinder Surprise which consists of chocolate surrounding a small toy. However, the product is said to be illegal for sale in the United States: according to Donald Mays of Consumer Reports, “a nonfood item cannot be imbedded in a food product” under a law dating back to the 1930s. (”Choking-Hazard Easter Eggs Appear On Store Shelves”, WNBC, Apr. 5). If accurate, this would help explain something we’ve noted a couple of times in earlier posts (Feb. 1, 2002, Jan. 18, 2007), namely that store-bought Mardi Gras King Cakes do not have the little figurine baked into their batter that is found in the more authentic New Orleans versions.
Usually it’s Ted who posts these, but I don’t see why he should have all the fun:
- Latest ADA test-accommodation suit: law school hopeful with attention deficit disorder demands extra time on LSAT [Legal Intelligencer]
- John Stossel on Fairfax County (Va.) regulations against donating home-cooked food to the homeless, and on the controversy over Arizona’s Heart Attack Grill
- More odd consequences of HIPAA, the federal medical privacy law [Marin Independent Journal via Kevin MD; more here, here]
- UK paternalism watch: new ad rules officially label cheese as junk food; breast milk would be, too, if it were covered [Telegraph; Birmingham Post]; schoolgirl arrested on racial charges after asking to study with English speakers [Daily Mail via Boortz]; brothers charged with animal cruelty for letting their dog get too fat [Nobody's Business]
- Stanford’s Securities Class Action Clearinghouse reports impressive 38 percent drop in investor lawsuit filings between 2005 and 2006, with backdating options suits not a tidal wave after all [The Recorder/Lattman]
- Ohio televangelist/faith healer sued by family after allegedly advising her cancer-stricken brother to rely on prayer [FoxNews]
- Legislators in Alberta, Canada, pass law enabling disabled girl to sue her mom for prenatal injuries; it’s to tap an insurance policy, so it must be okay [The Star]
- California toughens its law requiring managers to undergo anti-harassment training, trial lawyers could benefit [NLJ]
- Family land dispute in Sardinia drags on for 46 years in Italian courts; “nothing exceptional” about that, says one lawyer [Telegraph]
- “For me, conservatism was about realism and reason.” [Heather Mac Donald interviewed about being a secularist]
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Now it’s a group of Italian female lawyers who are suing to suppress that particular variety of commercial speech. (Nick Pisa, “Parking is no joke as Italy’s women sue over beer ad”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Sept. 17). For earlier precedents in the U.S. (Stroh’s sued over “Swedish bikini team”) and Canada (Ontario vs. Molson’s and Labatt’s ads), see Carlin Meyer, “Sex, Sin, and Women’s Liberation: Against Porn-Suppression”, Texas Law Review, April 1994 (PDF), at footnote 314. Another example: RealBeer.com, July 16, 1999 (Venezuela).
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A reader asks me to blog about an expose in this Sunday’s New Orleans Times-Picayune, calling it “appalling.” In 2003-2004, one judge (presumably the highest-spending judge) spent $16,717/year on travel, compared to the average $8,000 spent by other judges.
I don’t know whether this is a good judge or a bad judge, but that shouldn’t matter to my analysis. I’m less appalled. Someone has to be the highest-spending judge, and this one doesn’t appear to have violated any rules. $4,400 in taxpayer money was spent to teach a course in Colorado, but if the judge had been reimbursed by the Louisiana Association of Defense Counsel, different people would be complaining about the supposed conflict of interest. The newspaper successfully nitpicks rental-car and airport transportation costs—but the judge must have travelled coach, because there’s no complaint about his airplane tickets. One can question the political savvy of a judge who doesn’t realize that his expense account reports are going to be scrutinized. One can also complain that the money comes from civil district court filing fees, but, at the end of the day, money is fungible and it doesn’t really matter what pot the money comes from. It would probably be more efficient to end travel reimbursements and just raise salaries—but because of tax implications, maybe not.
Louisiana state judges make less than first-year associates in private law firms, and I’m not about to complain that a judge was a little generous with himself in taking advantage of available and legal perks to the tune of a few thousand dollars. There appears to already exist a check in the system, in that this judge’s request for a week-long educational trip to Italy was rejected.
Or am I so overly jaded by plaintiffs’ bar abuses in the billions that I should be more appalled? Feel free to comment in the comment section, but be polite and on-topic.
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Gadfly Signor Cascioli has engaged in three years of litigation against local priest Father Enrico Righi on the grounds that Christianity violates Italy’s version of consumer fraud laws. A court of appeal reinstated the suit after the trial court threw it out. (Richard Owen, “Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest”, The Times, Jan. 3; Phil Stewart, “Did Jesus exist? Italian court to decide”, Reuters, Jan. 3) (via Bashman). Update Feb. 11: case thrown out again.
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Gunner at No Quarters (Jul. 13) rounds up material on underground restaurants in the U.S. and Italy. One factor operating in their favor: the chance to set smoking policies that please the clientele as opposed to the authorities.
Blasphemy laws vs. free speech: The courageous Italian journalist has been ordered by a judge in Bergamo, Italy, to stand trial on charges of defaming Islam in her book “The Strength of Reason”. (Marta Falconi, “Judge Orders Italian Author to Stand Trial”, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, May 25; Stefan Beck, New Criterion “Armavirumque”, May 25; Jun. 11-12, 2002). For more on European blasphemy and “hate speech” laws, see Aug. 23-25, 2002 (prominent French author tried and acquitted on charges of “insulting Islam”); Mar. 17, 2005. For similar proposals in Great Britain, see “Rushdie fears govt bill will undermine freedom of speech”, ABC (Australian), Jun. 10; Jul. 16, 2004.
“A new law that took effect in Italy [last month] brands border collies, corgis and St Bernards as dangerous dogs which children and criminals are barred from owning.” (Bruce Johnston, “Italy out to end the corgi menace”, Daily Telegraph (UK), Sept. 15).
