Family disputes between a wife and the mistress over a will are probably one of the few times when the “not about the money” saying really is true. But after a two-week trial and two trips to the Georgia Supreme Court, it’s hard to imagine that attorneys aren’t going to get the majority of the $6 million at stake in the five-year battle over Harvey Strother’s will. A penalty clause calling for the disinheritance of anyone who challenged the will appears to have been successfully challenged by the wife’s family. (AP/Washington Post, Apr. 13; Talia Mollett, “Millionaire’s will trial begins today”, Marietta Daily Journal, Jul. 15; Tom Opdyke, “Life’s final chapter to play out in court”, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jul. 13; Melican v. Parker, 283 Ga. 253 (2008)).
Will your lunch violate intellectual property laws?
In Patent Application No. WO/2006/068863 (h/t The Browser), McDonald’s claims:
A method of making a sandwich composed of at least a bread component and sandwich garnish comprising: placing sandwich garnish material on a sandwich assembly tool, the sandwich assembly tool comprising a region for holding sandwich garnish material to be applied to a bread component of a sandwich, the member comprising at least one cavity; placing the bread component over and adjacent the cavity; and thereafter inverting the sandwich assembly tool and the bread component while the bread is adjacent and covering the cavity to cause the sandwich garnish to be deposited from the cavity to the bread component.
April 20 roundup
- Boy fatally shoots stepbrother at home, mom sues school district as well as shooter’s family [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
- Problem gambler sues Ontario lottery for C$3.5 billion [Toronto Star]
- Cop declines training in which he’d be given Taser shock, and sues [Indianapolis Star]
- Ultra-litigious inmate Jonathan Lee Riches scrawls new complaint linking Bernard Madoff, Britney Spears [Kevin LaCroix]
- Just to read this update feels like an invasion of privacy: “Judge to Hear Challenge to $6M Herpes Case Award” [On Point News, earlier]
- “Best criminal strategy: join the Spokane police” [Coyote Blog] More: Greenfield, Brayton.
- Will mommy-bloggers be held liable for freebie product reviews? [Emily Friedman, ABC News, earlier]
- Update: “Fifth Circuit says no bail for Paul Minor” [Freeland]
CPSIA, books, and recycling
A tidbit from the Publisher’s Weekly coverage:
Several publishers said they test all of their titles, not just novelty books but also ink-on-paper formats. Most books came through the testing with flying colors, but there were a few incidences reported in which titles did not make the grade. With the increasing interest in all things “green,” it’s interesting to note that books made of recycled materials are more likely to contain some lead or phthalates and therefore less likely to make it through the testing process.
“Sewer service” and civil defendants
If allegations by New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo are true, one of the most fundamental elements of due process for civil defendants — notice of a pending legal action through service of process — simply gets ignored in thousands of instances. “Sewer service” was a major concern of court reformers in the 1960s; it sounds as if the problem may never actually have gone away. [Newsday, Popehat]
ConcurOp “cyberspeech as tort” symposium, cont’d
That lawprof chatfest promoting the idea of wider rights to sue over online speech has provoked a bit of a furor; see addenda to our earlier post as well as continuing coverage at Scott Greenfield’s site. Good! Better to have a controversy now than wait until after some academic consensus has already hardened around a MacKinnonite “of course we need to let people sue more widely over speech, or else women’s voices will be silenced” position. Update March 2010: David Kopel covers at Volokh.
The episode has also helped spin off a second, tangential controversy taking the form of a new round in the ongoing dispute between some “practical” law bloggers and their counterparts in legal academia, on which see Greenfield and Marc John Randazza.
Apply to renew a Quebec gun permit…
… and prepare to reveal your recent romantic breakups. More: George Jonas.
April 18 roundup
- Hospital can be sued for releasing mental patient who killed his wife ten days later [ABA Journal, Michigan]
- Pet-sitter draws probation on animal cruelty charges after letting pig overeat and get too fat [AP/Austin, Minn. Post-Bulletin]
- The government pressured states to raise drinking age to 21. So why didn’t the move save lives? [Miron/Tetelbaum, Forbes]
- “Goldman Sachs Tries To Bully Blogger” [Marc Randazza, Cit Media Law and Legal Satyricon; Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion; Brian Baxter, American Lawyer; Martin Schwimmer, Trademark Blog (“I Don’t Think It’s The Dumbest Trademark Demand Letter I’ve Ever Seen”)]
- Dangers in using Title IX to go after sex imbalances in science and engineering, as Obama is said to want to do [Christina Hoff Sommers, Washington Post]
- Thomas Mundy and his attorney, frequent Overlawyered mentionee Morse Mehrban, have filed more than 200 ADA lawsuits against California merchants and other businesses, settling them for an income that opponents estimate as in excess of $300,000 a year each [L.A. Times back in January, California Civil Justice] But an Orange County jury took 18 minutes to dismiss Mundy’s suit against Del Taco [OC Register, MoreLaw, Ken @ Popehat and his followup] Noni Gotti’s 45-day spree of 41 lawsuits against 111 businesses and landlords in Santa Ana area [Jan Norman, OC Register; more on ADA filing mills]
- Police payouts up but hospital payouts down: “[New York] City Paid Out $568 Million for Lawsuits Last Year” [NY Politics; Ted yesterday]
- Another lawyer disclaimer with a sense of humor [Nicole Black/Legal Antics citing Kelly Phillips Erb/TaxGirl; earlier]
ADA closes Cupertino business
California has a double-digit unemployment rate, and it’s certainly not helped by regulatory red tape. The disabled now have equal access to Kirk’s Steakburgers in Cupertino, a supposedly otherwise-profitable business that closed rather than spend tens of thousands of dollars to come up to Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, not to mention lose three parking spaces in its tiny parking lot. (“Kirk’s Steakburgers closing its West San Jose location”, Cupertino Courier, Mar. 16 (h/t D.R.)).
Norton Symantec upgrade class action settlement
Reader A.V. writes:
Dear Overlawyered,
I’ve won the class action lottery!
According to the e-mail I received today from Symantec (I’ve been a long-time user of their Norton computer security products), my prize is either: (1) a $15.00 voucher redeemable for the online purchase of any Symantec products; or (2) a cash payment of $2.50. Plaintiffs’ class counsel? Oh, they get “an amount not to exceed $2,275,000.00.”
I know you’ll be pleased for me.
There’s a settlement website in Heverly/Margolis v. Symantec Corp. with further details. Other readers have written in to say they got similar notices. And this morning I too got a notice, so apparently I’m a class member as well. The lawyers who’ve been representing us all this time without our realizing are Green & Pagano of New Brunswick, N.J., Kantrowitz Goldhamer & Graifman of Chestnut Ridge, N.Y., Chavez & Gertler LLP of Mill Valley, Calif., Smolow & Landis of Trevose, Pa., and Kendrick & Nutley of Pasadena, Calif.
More: “Can’t we do better than this?” Jeff Sovern weighs in at Consumer Law & Policy.