- Annals of discrimination lawsuits: a Tennessee cop contests his firing [Chattanooga Pulse]
- New book on lawsuits against universities: Amy Gajda, “The Trials of Academe: The New Era of Campus Litigation” [Harvard University Press via Stanley Fish, NYT]
- Bernard Kerik’s bail revoked because he used Twitter to promote a website put up by his friends flaying the prosecution? [Scott Greenfield] Plus: More complicated than that, says Bill Poser in comments;
- Another big setback for birther litigation [Wasserman/ Prawfsblawg, Little Green Footballs, earlier]
- “I won’t be able to function,” says Missouri woman after judge rules her monkey is not a service animal [On Point News, Molly DiBianca] More: service ferret gets owner kicked out of North Carolina mall [DigTriad]
- Eleventh Circuit agrees that U.S. cannot prosecute criminal defense lawyer Ben Kuehne for money laundering charges for having written opinion letter saying untainted money was available for legal fees [WSJ Law Blog, coverage (and update) at Scott Greenfield's site, Miami Herald]
- One for the Coase Theorem literature? Cranky neighbor forces closure of famed South Carolina recording venue [Ribstein]
- Hallowe’en is safe [BoingBoing, earlier on Pennsylvania town's trick-or-treating ban] “Toronto schools: Hallowe’en insensitive to witches” [four years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
child protection,
colleges and universities,
defense lawyers,
Missouri,
music and musicians,
police,
prosecution,
service animals,
South Carolina,
Tennessee
New regulations from the Department of Justice may at last curb demands that business owners admit an ever wider array of designated service animals as an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. ABA Journal:
Proposed revisions published in the Federal Register (PDF) would exclude not only snakes and other reptiles, but rabbits, farm animals, amphibians, ferrets, rodents and wild animals including monkeys born in captivity, according to the newspaper. They would also eliminate from the definition of service animal creatures who simply provide emotional support, comfort or companionship.
That would be a most unwelcome development to a Shelton, Wash. man who has gotten into conflicts with store and restaurant managers by bringing onto the premises the boa constrictor that he says helps alert him to impending seizures. Seattle Times:
The species are so varied that the Department of Transportation (DOT) mentioned some by name: spiders, for example, in regulations banning them from flying in aircraft cabins.
That the DOT mentioned spiders by name “means somewhere along the line, somebody brought … a service spider on the aircraft,” wrote Candy Harrington, editor of Emerging Horizons, a magazine for disabled travelers, in her blog.
The Department has received thousands of letters supporting the animal owners’ case, though. More on service animals here.
Tagged as:
service animals
Defying a national trend, Utah has moved to amend the interpretation of its state-level version of the Americans with Disabilities Act so as to curtail pet owners’ rights to demand that their “emotional support service animals” be allowed onto the premises of reluctant business owners. [Salt Lake Tribune via Patrick at Popehat]
Tagged as:
service animals,
Utah
More on that suit filed by the Colombian coffee growers’ association against cartoonist Mike Peters: per David Giacalone, “We’re pleased to see that some of Colombia’s most respected cartoonists are scoffing at the law suit and calling it a waste of time.” (Unrelatedly, David also discusses the controversy over service animals and disabled-rights law).
Tagged as:
service animals
So Estelle Stamm, 65, is suing for $10 million, saying she’s protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act because the animal protects her from panic attacks and other mental symptoms as well as assisting her with her poor hearing. The city denies she’s disabled at all and cites online postings in which Stamm said the dog has “tremendous killing power” and asserted: “Livestock guard dogs in the subways is a wonderful sight to behold. The seas of people part before us.” Stamm, a former ad agency manager, says being questioned about her disability while using transit has itself caused stress reactions. [NY Daily News via Obscure Store; more coverage of service animals litigation]
Tagged as:
NYC,
service animals
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Must stores let in “social support” goats? Hot ADA issue we’ve often covered makes it into NYTimes mag [Rebecca Skloot] And Time mag tackles scandal of ADA-suit mass filing for $$, long familiar to our readers [Alison Stateman]
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Can you guess mechanism by which snow globes turned out to cause fire hazard? (Then check link.) [K.C. Business Journal]
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“Do Not Track” legislation could torpedo online-advertising models [ReadWriteWeb h/t @lilyhill]
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What if plea-bargaining defendants could give D.A.s eBay-style feedback? [Greenfield]
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UK cabinet minister wants govt to regulate Net with aim of child safety, Brit blogger says – hell, no! [Perry de Havilland, Samizdata]
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As lawyer-driven mummeries go, which is worse, coffee machine overwarning or medical “informed consent”? [Happy Hospitalist]
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Bogus memoirs nowadays spawn real lawsuits, as we remember from James Frey case [Elefant]
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Is health care prohibition in our future? [KevinMD]
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Massachusetts child support guidelines said to be highly onerous for dads already and getting worse [Bader, CEI]
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Kid gloves from some local media for Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd & his magic mortgages [Christopher Fountain and again]
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Had Robertson v. Princeton donor-intent suit gone to trial, lawyers might have billed $120 million hourly fees. How’d the number get that high? [Kennerly, Litigation & Trial and again]
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A reminder: these microblog posts are based on a selection of my contributions to Twitter, which you can “follow” here.
Tagged as:
ADA filing mills,
charitable trusts,
child support,
colleges and universities,
Connecticut,
feeing frenzy,
James Frey,
Massachusetts,
privacy,
service animals
Continuing our theme, Frances Woodard has now lodged a complaint against the public transit authority in Canada’s capital city for barring the diminutive, weasel-like predator whose companionship, according to her psychiatrist, helps her stave off panic attacks. “A letter from OC Transpo customer relations sent in May said the decision was a result of fears about allergic reactions and phobias from other passengers and reactions from other animals, such as guide dogs.” (CBC News, Jul. 23). Monday’s post on the “service monkey” lawsuit from Springfield, Mo. is here.
Tagged as:
Canada,
disabled rights,
service animals
Latest disabled-rights lawsuit alleging exclusion of an emotional comfort/ psychiatric service animal: Debby Rose of Springfield, Mo. is suing Wal-Mart, Cox Health and the county health department over their refusals to let Richard, her macaque monkey, into various food and health settings. Richard assists Ms. Rose with her agoraphobia (fear of public and open places) and panic disorder. County officials sent out a mass mailing warning businesses that admitting monkeys such as Richard to the premises would violate health codes. (Springfield News-Leader; KSPR; Arbroath). Earlier coverage of emotional service animals: May 14, 2006 (airlines grapple with demands to seat large dogs and emotional-support goats); Feb. 28, 2005 (jury awards $314,000 to Royal Oak, Mich. woman over co-op’s no-pets policy); Oct. 18, 2005 (ferret in university dorm); July 12, 2005 (frequent-filing Californian); May 5, 2005 (Seattle grocery store owner fined $21,000); Oct. 25, 2004 (if you want to bring your pet into a San Francisco restaurant, get a note from your doctor); Dec. 2, 2004; Jul. 9, 1999 (Seattle clothing store owner made to pay fine and undergo re-education for not welcoming shaggy dog).
Tagged as:
Missouri,
service animals
The New York Times “Styles” section leads off today with a trend explored in our posts of May 5 and Jul. 12, 2005:
The increasing appearance of pets whose owners say they are needed for emotional support in restaurants — as well as on airplanes, in offices and even in health spas — goes back, according to those who train such animals, to a 2003 ruling by the Department of Transportation. It clarified policies regarding disabled passengers on airplanes, stating for the first time that animals used to aid people with emotional ailments like depression or anxiety should be given the same access and privileges as animals helping people with physical disabilities like blindness or deafness.
The following year appellate courts in New York State for the first time accepted tenants’ arguments in two cases that emotional support was a viable reason to keep a pet despite a building’s no-pets policy. Word of the cases and of the Transportation Department’s ruling spread, aided by television and the Internet. Now airlines are grappling with how to accommodate 200-pound dogs in the passenger cabin and even emotional-support goats. And businesses like restaurants not directly addressed in the airline or housing decisions face a newly empowered group of customers seeking admittance with their animals.
(Beth Landman, “Wagging the Dog, and a Finger”, May 14).
Plus: Cutting Edge of Ecstasy, dot_gimp_snark, Petulant Times, Cernovich, and Giacalone (we’re “ahead of the pundit pack” — thanks!). Orichalcum: “If I pay $200+ for a plane seat, I kinda feel I have the right not to have a goat in the seat next to me, no matter how comforting its presence is to the third person in the row.” Mark Baratelli proposes “service bottles”.
Tagged as:
service animals
At Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, 19-year-old freshman Sarah Sevick has filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department saying her rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act were violated by the dorm’s ban on her pet ferret, which she says she needs at hand to calm her during panic attacks related to a physical disability. (”Disabilities complaint filed after ferret banned from dorm”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Oct. 14). For more on claims to accommodation of companion animals under disabled-rights law, see May 5, etc.
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colleges and universities,
disabled rights,
service animals,
Texas
Erma Miller has filed 21 discrimination claims in southern California over alleged failure to serve her because of her assistance dog. Some defendants suspect a scam: Miller regularly alleges that the failure to permit entrance to the dog meant she couldn’t use the restroom and soiled herself. They’re also suspicious of Miller’s “practice of providing Rottweilers to other people, who took the dogs to businesses, got bounced and filed lawsuits,” and hints that her disbarred-attorney ex-con husband has a hand in the litigation. Lynn Stites had served eight years for a multi-million-dollar litigation-related insurance fraud scheme out of a Grisham novel:
During the 1980s, Stites organized a clandestine network of attorneys who infiltrated complex civil cases in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties by getting insured defendants to hire them in place of their insurance company lawyers.
Posing as independent and, at times, snarling adversaries, they worked in concert to manufacture new legal controversies so that lawsuits would grow in complexity and cost.
In some cases, the lawyers paid kickbacks to clients for the right to defend them on the insurers’ dime. Stites essentially franchised the litigation, directing strategy and assigning lawyers to various defendants. His minions, in turn, kicked back a cut of their take—paying in cash, precious metals, and improvements to his house.
Three cases are scheduled for trial in the next few months. Miller has already collected six digits worth of settlements, but a suit against Marriott did not go as well:
As part of her deposition, Marriott lawyers videotaped Miller with Giggy, the Rottweiler mix involved in the Marriott suit and several others. Giggy could not obey commands to sit, to pick up Miller’s cane or to help her through the door.
(Myron Levin, LA Times, Jul. 10). More on service dog suits: May 5 and links therein.
Disclosure: At my former firm, I represented Marriott in unrelated litigation. As with all my posts, I speak for myself, and not for my current employer, my former employers, nor my former clients.
Tagged as:
ADA filing mills,
disabled rights,
Lynn Stites,
San Diego,
service animals
Another Seattle case in which a merchant got in trouble for not admitting a dog which was accompanying its owner for purposes of psychological assistance (as distinct from the service provided by seeing-eye and hearing dogs for the physically disabled). This time the Wicker Basket grocery store in Ballard was fined $21,000 after owner Hojoon Park wouldn’t let the dog into the shop. (”Merchant fined $21,000 for barring service dog”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 3). For earlier cases, see Feb. 28 of this year; Oct. 25 and Dec. 2, 2004; and Jul. 9, 1999, from Seattle.
Tagged as:
Seattle,
service animals
A federal jury in Detroit has awarded $300,000 in punitive damages and $14,209 in actual damages to Joyce Grad, saying the Royalwood cooperative apartment association in suburban Royal Oak violated her rights under the federal Fair Housing Act when it declined to waive its no-pets policy to permit her to bring in an emotional-assistance dog. Grad suffers from mental and emotional ailments that include severe depression. One of the services on which Ms. Grad has come to rely on the dog is in making sure she gets up in the morning: “I’ve trained her that if I don’t get up by 7, she is to go to [the] door and bark until help arrives.” Perfect for the neighbors! (David Ashenfelter, “Disabled woman’s dog has its day”, Detroit Free Press, Feb. 23). For more on the steady expansion of demands that legally protected status be accorded to “emotional-assistance” animals, see Oct. 25 and Dec. 2, 2004. For more cases in which disabled-rights-in-housing have led to noisy results, see Aug. 21-22, 2000 and Apr. 5-7, 2002.
Tagged as:
Detroit,
disabled rights,
fair housing,
service animals
That California trend (Oct. 25) toward getting a doctor’s note that characterizes a dog or other animal as a therapeutic “assistance pet”, entitled under disabled-rights law to be taken practically anyplace regardless of the wishes of shop owners or landlords, isn’t just in California anymore. Cases are cropping up in New York too, it seems. (Mark Fass, “Dog-as-Therapy Argument Doesn’t Sit Well With Judge”, New York Law Journal, Nov. 18).
Tagged as:
service animals
Under established disabled-rights law, store owners and other business people very seldom have a right to exclude the “service animals” that accompany blind and deaf visitors. Relatively few inconveniences ensue, in part because such animals tend to be few and extremely well trained. However, the idea has begun to catch on that persons disabled in other ways also have a right to the company of assistance animals; California regulators issued such a ruling as to dogs two years ago. Now a rapidly rising number of San Francisco residents are applying for tags for assistance dogs; the city has issued 658 tags for them. “‘The bottom line is that we’re seeing a lot of people come down here with notes from their doctors saying they need a companion dog to improve their quality of life,” said Carl Friedman, director of the city animal control agency. ‘Now we’re seeing a lot of people applying for the tags who have psychological issues.”’ Landlords and restaurants are not allowed to enforce no-dog policies against a registered animal. As for the pets’ required “training”, that “can be done by the owner and can be as simple as teaching the dog to wag a tail and lick a face if that’s what it takes to make someone with a diagnosed depression feel better.” (Rachel Gordon, “‘Assistance dog’ designation opens doors for pooches”, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 19). We were on to this trend very early: see Jul. 9, 1999.
Tagged as:
California,
disabled rights,
San Francisco,
service animals
