Jack Thompson, the Florida lawyer with a seldom-rivaled knack for keeping this site supplied with material (Oct. 20, etc., etc.), has fired off a cease-and-desist letter to the publisher of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon demanding that it stop publication of the game because participants can use it to create characters based on him. A Slashdot posting explains that Thompson’s “image is not actually a selectable character in the game,” but John Scalzo at the Gaming Target website (scroll down) has published instructions on how to use the game’s build-a-fighter mode to create a character based on Thompson, widely loathed among hobbyists because of his courtroom assaults on popular games (among the character’s features: “puffed out self-important look… Banshee Scream. …no victory pose because, let’s face it, he’s never won”). More: XBoxic, GameShout, CNet/GameSpot (& welcome Ron Coleman readers).
Archive for 2006
Washington Redskins nickname deemed offensive
So Native American activists are trying — again — to get it invalidated as a trademark. (Jeremy T. Elman, “Can Trademark Law Help Minority Groups Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?”, Law.com, Oct. 12).
“Danish court rejects cartoons lawsuit”
“A Danish court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Muslim groups against the newspaper that first published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that triggered protests across the world this year.” (AlJazeera.net, Oct. 27; Volokh, Oct. 26). Syrian legislator Mohammed Habash, who heads the Islamic Studies Center in Damascus and is apparently deaf to ironic overtones, charged the Danish court with “[wanting] to impose their way of thinking on all other nations.” (“Arab dismay at cartoons verdict”, Irish Examiner, Oct. 26). Earlier: Mar. 19, Mar. 31, etc. 
“Follow the Money”
That’s the title of my “Rule of Law” column in today’s Wall Street Journal.
The trial lawyers have now enlisted themselves in the war against terror. One can imagine a parody — a team of wing-tipped attorneys parachuting into the wilds of Afghanistan, armed with subpoenas forcing Osama bin Laden to produce all relevant documents and secure his attendance at a 20-day videotaped deposition (damn the Geneva Conventions against torture). The legal and photocopying bills alone crush al Qaeda.
The reality is more prosaic, and less amusing. For just as Willie Sutton legendarily said he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is,” plaintiffs’ attorneys are weaving creative legal theories to hold legitimate third parties liable for the intentional acts of terrorists. This friendly fire could end up doing almost as much financial damage as the terrorists themselves, with the lawyers getting rich in the process.
Latest hot coffee lawsuit data points
Remember that the reason anti-reformers justify Stella Liebeck’s infamous hot coffee lawsuit against McDonald’s is because McDonald’s was allegedly the only one selling coffee hot enough to burn? The family of a Dallas Cowboys coach has hired an attorney to sue McDonald’s over allegedly tainted food. Here’s how Jeff Carlton of the AP describes him:
Cecil W. Casterline, the Haley’s lawyer, has previously sued Whataburger and Wendy’s on behalf of clients allegedly scalded by coffee.
Earlier: Starbucks; Burger King; Dunkin’ Donuts; Starbucks; Starbucks; an Indiana gas station and coffeemaker manufacturer; and McDonald’s again and again. (Update: also Stony Brook University Hospital cafeteria, and Starbucks again.) All hot coffee burns. That’s why even small children know not to spill it on themselves, and why most courts hold it’s not actionable when one spills hot coffee on oneself.
“This article is copyright protected. Fair Use is not applicable.”
Eugene Volokh has a good laugh at the expense of an upstate New York publication called the North Country Gazette (Oct. 23 and 25). More: I should have made clear that it was David Giacalone who noticed the Gazette’s unusual policy and called it to the attention of the blogosphere; he has subsequently found himself drawn into a dispute with Gazette proprietor June Maxam. More: Carolyn Elefant, Typical Joe, and PhDiva (here, here and here).
Cigarette prohibition
Forty-five percent of Americans would support it, according to a new Zogby poll. Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance warns against repeating our great-grandparents’ mistakes: “a new Prohibition is not the answer — not if we want to stay safe, sane and free.” (Huffington Post, Oct. 26; more).
October 27 roundup
- Bill Moyers calls his lawyers. [Adler @ Volokh]
- Jim Copland: 9/11 suits against New York City over emergency recovery work “simply wrong.” [New York Post]
- Did the PSLRA help shareholders? [Point of Law]
- 32-year-old Oregon grocery store employee sues, claiming that Green Day stole his never-recorded high-school writings. [Above the Law]
- Does one assume the risk of a broken nose if one agrees to a sparring match at a karate school? [TortsProf]
- “At KFC (né Kentucky Fried Chicken), the chicken is still fried. At Altria (né Philip Morris), the cigarettes still cause cancer. And at the American Association for Justice, some will say that the trial lawyers are still chasing ambulances.” [New York Times via Point of Law]
- More on global warming lawsuits. [Point of Law]
- Dahlia Lithwick, wrong again when bashing conservatives? Quelle surprise! [Ponnuru @ Bench Memos; see also Kaus] Earlier: POL Oct. 6 and links therein. Best commentary on New Jersey gay marriage decision is at Volokh.
- Michael Dimino asks for examples of frivolous lawsuits. What’s the over-under until it turns into a debate over the McDonald’s coffee case? [Prawfsblawg]
- Unintended consequences of campaign finance reform. [Zywicki @ Volokh; Washington Times]
- Who’s your least favorite Supreme Court justice? [Above the Law]
- More on Borat and the law. [Slate] Earlier on OL: Dec. 9 and links therein.
- “Thrilled Juror Feels Like Murder Trial Being Put On Just For Her.” [Onion]
- A revealing post by the Milberg Weiss Fellow at DMI: companies make “too much” profit. I respond: “Again, if you really think the problem is that insurance companies charge ‘too much’ and make ‘too much’ money, then the profitable solution is to take advantage of this opportunity and open a competing insurance company that charges less instead of whining about it. (Or, you could use a fraction of the profits to hire a dozen bloggers and thus solve the problem at the same time keeping the whining constant.)” [Dugger]
Jail4Judges: South Dakota Amendment E
Let’s be clear: one can take the position that there needs to be more judicial accountability and that too many judges overstep their bounds, and still think that Amendment E—the likely-unconstitutional South Dakota ballot proposal to end civil immunity for judges and jurors and establish an unanswerable “special grand jury” to oversee these things—is positively insane cuckoo bonkers. Opponents of the measure have set up a good website discussing the issues.
Web accessibility suits: AP weighs in
For aficionados of one-sided litigation coverage, here’s a lulu from the Associated Press. It’s an article on the lawsuit (National Federation of the Blind v. Target) seeking to establish that companies violate the Americans with Disabilities Act when they do not design their websites so as to make them “accessible” to users who are blind, deaf, lacking in motor skills needed for mouse use, etc. The article fails to mention the courts’ rejection of the disabled rights groups’ position in the Southwest Airlines case, though it’s the major existing precedent on the point. And aside from a ritual and uninformative denial by the retailer defendant Target that it is liable, the article presents as uncontroversial the demand that non-accessible websites be declared unlawful, with not a hint of why anyone might consider it a thoroughly disastrous idea. Oh, wait: the article does incorporate a bit of controversy, by recording worries that a victory for the plaintiffs in the Target case might not go far enough and come out being “read too narrowly. Not every business or Web site is subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act, said [Washington, D.C. lawyer] John D. Kemp”. (Seth Sutel, “Blind Web surfers sue for accessibility”, AP/San Jose Mercury-News, Oct. 24).