- Alleged wife murderer “sues J.P. Morgan for cutting off his home equity line of credit.” Reason cited: “imprisonment”. [Joe Weisenthal, Business Insider via Fountain]
- Charles Krauthammer on the need to “reform our insane malpractice system. … I used to be a doctor, I know how much is wasted on defensive medicine.” [Der Spiegel interview]
- Popehat looks back on turning two, in customarily entertaining fashion [unsigned collective post]
- Sigh: “Chamber of Commerce Sues ‘Yes Men’ for Fake News Conference” [ABA Journal]
- Coverage mandates explain a lot about why health insurance is so much costlier in some states than others [Coyote] More: Tyler Cowen (autism treatment)
- Watch out for those default judgments: PepsiCo hit with $1.26 billion award in Wisconsin state court, says word of suit never got to responsible officials within the company [National Law Journal]
- Ohio appeals court: characterizing incident as “Baby Mama Drama” is not prosecutorial misconduct [The Briefcase]
- Ideological tests for educators? On efforts to screen out would-be teachers not seen as committed enough to “social justice” [K.C. Johnson, Minding the Campus]
Tagged as:
banks,
defensive medicine,
insurance,
mortgages,
Ohio,
on other blogs,
prosecution,
schools,
soft drinks,
Wisconsin
PIRG be not proud: “Until recently, I had high hopes that this law would be amended. …
We do not mass produce our products, for that our customers love us, and for that congress has made it impossible for us to continue selling our toys without breaking the law.” — Tammy Bowles, founder of the Ohio-based educational plaything line StoryBlox, whose former line can be browsed here. More: Ken at Popehat.
Tagged as:
CPSIA,
CPSIA and toys,
Ohio,
PIRG
“School board members in Mount Vernon agreed Wednesday night to resolve a federal lawsuit by paying $5,500 to the boy and his family and $115,500 to their lawyers.” [AP/NBC4i] We covered the case, in which a teacher is alleged to have branded a cross onto a pupil’s arm, in July; the teacher, John Freshwater, has himself filed a civil rights action against the school district charging religious discrimination, and a suit by the parents against Freshwater remains ongoing.
Tagged as:
attorneys' fees,
Ohio,
schools
“A hearing-impaired Ohio State University football fan has sued the school, arguing that the university should offer captioning on the scoreboard and stadium televisions because he can’t hear the announcers.” [Akron Beacon-Journal]
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
Ohio,
sports
On Point News has an update on the defense’s motion for a new trial in the unusual federal case (with spy-thriller overtones) we covered in January. “The defense has already gotten some post-trial relief. In a May 13 order, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Rose threw out the $2.3 million award on the criminal theft claim, leaving intact the $1.7 million for conversion and $8,400 for unjust enrichment.”
Tagged as:
damages,
Ohio
[See important P.S./correction at end] No, this isn’t new, it’s a year old in fact, but I must have somehow overlooked Radley Balko’s account of it: Jeff Brown of Columbus, Ohio, was arrested and convicted for operating a vehicle under the influence after walking a bicycle across his own front lawn*, then refusing a breathalyzer test from a cop who said the bicycle was missing a required headlight and that Brown seemed impaired. Things could be worse, though: a Florida woman won dismissal of 2005 charges of operating her own wheelchair while intoxicated.
*Important P.S.: I should have caught this earlier (via Balko’s “Hit and Run” followup, h/t reader Nicolas Martin in comments) but the appellate court accepted a version of the facts that differs from Brown’s on key points [emphasis added]:
The record contains scant details of the underlying facts of this case, but it appears appellant was riding a bicycle on a sidewalk on December 18, 2004, when he was detained by a police officer.
Absent some indication that the appeals court erred, Brown’s doesn’t look like the case to cite in illustrating the farthest reaches of impaired-bicycle legislation.
Tagged as:
alcohol,
MADD,
Ohio
Melissa Duer and her husband own a property that includes the state of Ohio’s only surviving grist mill, built by her ancestor, Eli or Elias Staley. Stories that the property is haunted have circulated for many years and were relayed in the book “Weird Ohio” and on the (apparently unrelated) website Forgotten Ohio. The Duers sued the authors of book and site on the grounds that by giving publicity to the stories they had helped attract many curiosity seekers to the site, forcing the couple “to spend thousands of dollars on security measures at the mill including $35,000 for an estate dog, Duer testified at a March hearing”. A judge ruled for the book defendants, “saying those responsible for ["Weird Ohio"] did not place the Duers in a false light, had no intent of emotional distress and had not trespassed or caused anyone else to trespass on the property.” However, Columbus resident Andrew Hamilton did not respond in defense of his website Forgotten Ohio (where it looks as if the disputed passage may still be standing, in the “Clark County” section, though other accounts place the property in Miami County) and the judge awarded a default judgment against him of $125,000. The Duers’ lawyer, Jeremy Tomb of Troy, says the couple intends to appeal the judge’s ruling in favor of the book, which has dropped the Staley story from its second printing.
The damages claimed included: $1,921 for an invisible fence; $1,710 for private security; $27,606 for diminished value to the property from rumors it is haunted; $57,217 in legal fees; $6,340 in litigation expenses; and $35,000 for the dog.
Duer testified extra money was spent on the dog specially trained to be under command.
“We didn’t want just any pet or regular dog that could possibly bite people,” she said in court.
Pictures said to be of the Staley Mill appear at MillPictures.com. [Nancy Bowman, Dayton Daily News]
Tagged as:
damages,
Ohio,
online speech,
publishers
The lawsuit was eventually dismissed, but “at a high cost”: “Even if you are only making innocent comments on a blog,” said the defendant, “you can wake up one day and find out you are being sued simply because someone didn’t like what you wrote, and the nightmare begins.” ["Anonymous Gripe Site Wins Legal Battle With Ohio Homebuilder Powermark Homes", Ardia, Citizen Media Law].
Tagged as:
Ohio,
online speech
Did the fabulous pink diamond actually exist? That was one of the issues in the legal fight — which in places reads more like a spy thriller than like a conventional business dispute — between plaintiff John Stafford, a jeweler in Miami Township, Ohio, and defendant Julius Klein Diamonds of New York. A federal jury sided with Stafford, who said he had paid $8,000 in cash for the gem from a mysterious seller in Las Vegas; the eventual verdict came in at more than 400 times that sum. (OnPoint News; Dayton Business Journal; Diamonds.net)
Tagged as:
damages,
insurance,
Ohio
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen generic versions of this story, but this is the latest, filed by four Piqua, Ohio, workers who want a $41 million share of the $207 million lottery payout. “The four said they were out of the office and unavailable to contribute to the office pool for the Dec. 12 drawing” but allege an oral agreement that winnings would be shared whether workers happened to be around to contribute or not. (Nancy Bowman, “Piqua lottery winners sued by co-workers”. Dayton Daily News, Dec. 23).
Tagged as:
lottery,
Ohio
Ohio: “The 88-year-old Blue Ash woman arrested after refusing to give a 13-year-old neighborhood boy his football back after it landed in her yard has sued the youth’s parents, alleging emotional distress. The lawsuit by attorney H. Louis Sirkin on behalf of Edna Jester contends that Paul and Kelly Tanis “and their minor children ‘regularly and without permission’ enter Jester’s yard to retrieve footballs and other play items that have been ‘carelessly tossed’ onto her property, the suit adds. …The Blue Ash city solicitor and city prosecutor later dropped the misdemeanor theft charge filed against Jester after she refused a police officer’s order to return the Tanis boy’s football.” (Barry M. Horstman, “Football keeper files lawsuit”, Cincinnati Enquirer, Jan. 3).
Tagged as:
Cincinnati,
emotional distress,
Ohio,
recreation
by SSFC on December 21, 2008
Overlawyered readers may well recall the travails of disgraced former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann. Dann dropped off the radar earlier this year after he was driven from office amid allegations of sexual harassment and workplace affairs within his office. Before stepping down, Dann touched off a brief constitutional crisis in Ohio, similar to what Illinois is now experiencing thanks to Rod Blagojevich.
Now Dann is back in the news, with a less sexy scandal involving campaign finance expenditures:
Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann used his campaign account to bankroll home repairs and family vacations, according to a newspaper review of state investigative reports.
Interestingly, beyond the expected “lies all lies!” defense, Dann responds that while he didn’t do it, if he did do it, he did it on the advice of counsel:
“The allegations that have been made in these complaints are either false or they lack a basis in law,” Dann said. “We operated the campaign committee lawfully, and all the expenditures were made with the advice of counsel and were appropriate.”
It would be nice to know which counsel advised the former attorney general that home repairs and family vacations were appropriate campaign expenditures. Assuming that the counsel wasn’t Marc Dann.
Via Instapundit, who observes that the AP’s treatment of this story leaves the reader puzzled as to Dann’s party identity. Perhaps Marc Dann was an independent.
Tagged as:
campaign regulation,
Marc Dann,
Ohio
“One may sympathize with the family of Todd Jette, who was killed in an unsuccessful attempt to slide down a stair railing at Adobe Gila’s Bar and Grill in Dayton, Ohio. … One has less sympathy for the lawyers who have just filed suit on behalf of Jette’s estate, arguing that the restaurant was negligent for failing to save Jette from himself.” (Social Services for Feral Children, Dec. 9; “Greene restaurant facing lawsuit”, WHIO, Dec. 9; Kelli Wynn, Dayton Daily News, Dec. 13, 2006).
Tagged as:
dramshop statutes,
Ohio,
personal responsibility,
restaurants
This morning I was a guest on Cleveland’s 
