- 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]
Archive for 2008
India
In our thoughts.
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).
Breathalyzer readings are racist
Well, at least that’s one theory cited by a DUI defense lawyer on behalf of his Connecticut client. (Defending PeopleA Public Defender, Nov. 20, via Above the Law)(blog misattribution corrected).
“Man With Apple Hovering In Front Of Face Sues René Magritte’s Estate”
Humor, from The AppleOnion (Nov. 27).
Blog comments sections…
…are not meant to further anyone’s marketing campaign, okay? So don’t be surprised if your promotional URL gets scissored off your comment, or the comment itself gets deleted if its primary purpose appears to be promotional.
And if, worse yet, you’re actually paying a service to go around planting comments of this sort, consider whether there might be better uses of your money.
“White Line Fevers From Mars”
From the annals of fevered pro se cases, a lawsuit filed by Kent © Norman [sic], which advanced various confused legal theories including that then-President Ronald Reagan had caused Norman’s “civil death without legislation”; it also asked that parking tickets be forgiven. An Oregon federal court dismissed the case in 1982 for failure to prosecute, noting in its opinion, among many other oddities:
There is included in the file a process receipt which bears the “Received” stamp of the Supreme Court of the United States. On this form are the notations, apparently written by the plaintiff, “Taxes due” and “D.C. Circuit was green” as well as “Rule 8 … Why did you return my appeal form? Why isn’t the ‘1840’ W. 7th mailbox still next to the 1830 one?” and “Something suspicious about that mailbox.”
(Lowering the Bar, Nov. 26; Norman v. Reagan, 95 F.R.D. 476 (D. Or. 1982).)
“Jury convicts mom of lesser charges in online hoax”
“A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyberbullying case was convicted Wednesday of only three minor offenses for her role in a mean-spirited Internet hoax that apparently drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide.” Numerous critics had assailed the prosecution of Lori Drew as based on overbroad criminalization; we covered the controversy here, here, and here. (Greg Risling, AP/Buffalo News, Nov. 26).
New Yorker magazine on James Zadroga
I just got to the September 15 issue near the bottom of my pile of unread mail, and there’s an excellent piece of reporting by Jennifer Kahn on the case of James Zadroga, the police officer who worked at Ground Zero in the wake of 9/11 whose death was attributed to exposure to dust and was a symbol for the thousands of plaintiffs in that litigation–until the New York medical examiner found evidence that prescription drug injections were responsible for the lung scarring. Kahn’s article is tremendously damning on that question. Zadroga’s name was successfully used to get legislation passed in New York state, and similar legislation (on which I testified) is pending in Congress to open the taxpayer fisc to thousands of questionable claims.
“Trial Lawyers for Jackpot Justice”
An attorney I worked with in Alaska has a sense of humor in this fake letter complaining about this real op-ed. (Don’t call the fake 1-800 number.)