“He’s not a klutz”: $4.5 million for NYC cop shot in tippy chair

A Brooklyn jury has awarded $4,548,000 to Anderson Alexander, a former New York City police detective injured when the office chair he was sitting on tipped over and he shot himself in the knee with a 9 mm Smith & Wesson he was holding.

“This case is not about him shooting himself,” Alexander’s lawyer Matthew Maiorana told the Daily News. “This case is about a broken chair and an unsafe workplace.”…

Alexander, 49, who retired on a three-quarters-pay disability pension, moved to South Carolina, where he works as a sheriff’s deputy.

(Scott Shifrel, “Ex-city cop wins huge award after chair he sat in broke, sending bullet into his knee”, New York Daily News, Nov. 26).

Filed under: guns, NYC, personal responsibility, police, taxpayers

“Court: Sarkozy voodoo doll should not be stabbed”

Updating our Oct. 23 post: “A French appeals court says Voodoo dolls of President Nicolas Sarkozy may remain on sale, but must carry a notice saying that pricking them harms the president’s dignity.” (AP/AZCentral, Nov. 28).

Filed under: France

Update: “Judge says perfume lawsuit can proceed”

Susan McBride, who works as a planner with the city of Detroit, can proceed with her ADA lawsuit “alleging a co-worker’s perfume made it difficult for her to breathe and impossible to do her job, a federal judge has ruled.” (Paul Egan, Detroit News, Nov. 27, opinion in PDF courtesy Bashman, h/t reader Vicky Gannon). We covered the case earlier here, here, and here.

Filed under: Detroit, disabled rights

Microblog 2008-11-30

Torquay, England: cops to give flip-flops to drunken women exiting nightclubs to reduce high-heel trip/fall risk [Daily Mail]
Mumbai attack introduced new terrorist tactics, expect to see them employed elsewhere [John C. Thompson/National Post, Bill Roggio] Heroic hotel employees [Reuters] Twitter, Flickr come into their own as breaking news sources during attacks [TechCrunch]
“15 ways to get more out of Pandora” [Lifehacker h/t @lilyhill]
NYT covers legal difficulties of pursuing pirates (but we did get to the story first) [NYT]
Interview with Eve Tushnet [Norm Geras via Ann Althouse]
“Dear @barackobama – thank u 4 another email with ‘donate’ at the bottom. Pls note my future donations will be called ‘taxes'” [@JerseyTodd]
Pictorial tour of America’s ugliest motel [Lileks] At the time people were duly impressed. What equivalents are we building today?

Filed under: alcohol, terrorism, Twitter, United Kingdom

Livery car liable for passenger’s later crash

Massachusetts: “A livery company and its driver are liable in a fatal car accident caused by a drunk passenger after he left the livery van, the state’s highest court ruled yesterday. … The court said [the hired driver] should not have dropped off a drunk passenger at a location where he would probably get into a car and drive.” (Denise Lavoie, “SJC rules livery firm negligent in crash”, AP/Boston Globe, Nov. 27).

Filed under: alcohol, dramshop statutes, Massachusetts, third party liability for crime

November 29 roundup

Disturbing implications from Lori Drew case of criminalizing website “terms of service” [Kerr @ Volokh and more; earlier]
Not quite what lawprof proponents of the class action format had in mind? Proposed law in South Korea “would allow businesses who suffer financial losses due to violent public protests to file class actions” against protesters [Korea Times via Karlsgodt, Class Action Blawg]
BlockShopper retains high-powered First Amendment attorney to fend off Jones Day’s don’t-blog-about-us suit [Ambrogi; earlier here, etc.]
New filings in pro wrestlers’ labor suit against WWE [Schwartz; earlier here and here]
“Brits Propose Potential Life Sentence for Johns” [Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”]
Narrowing “fair report” privilege, N.J. appeals court decides reporters can be liable for publishing defamatory allegations in court filing, while lawyers still immunized when they put those allegations there [Feral Child, Media Law, CT Blue; Salzano v. North Jersey Media Group, PDF]
It’ll be hard to live up to some of the high praise for my new web project with Heather Mac Donald, John Derbyshire, Razib Khan et al, Secular Right [D.R. Tucker, Human Events “Right Angle”; some other reactions]
Late in catching up on this, but Target in August agreed to pay $6 million to settle the big lawsuit over accessibility of its website to blind users [The Recorder; Ben Duranske discusses implications for virtual online worlds]

Filed under: class actions, Heather Mac Donald, libel slander and defamation, New Jersey, publishers, United Kingdom, web accessibility

India

In our thoughts.

Filed under: India, terrorism

Chicago’s gun control defiance

How strange to think that the Supreme Court’s writ would stop at the borders of Cook County, Ill. (Steve Chapman, “Chicago defies forgotten 2nd Amendment”, Chicago Tribune, Nov. 27).

Filed under: Chicago, guns, Supreme Court

Breathalyzer readings are racist

Well, at least that’s one theory cited by a DUI defense lawyer on behalf of his Connecticut client. (~~Defending People~~A Public Defender, Nov. 20, via Above the Law)(blog misattribution corrected).

Filed under: alcohol, Connecticut, crime and punishment

“Man With Apple Hovering In Front Of Face Sues René Magritte’s Estate”

Humor, from The ~~Apple~~Onion (Nov. 27).

Filed under: art and artists, humor