Not only will they sue them up one side of the street and down the other for song-copying, they’ll tell their parents. (Boing Boing, Mar. 2)
Remember, “Judges are like umpires”
Last October, New York Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle’s plane crashed into an apartment building in Manhattan, killing Lidle and the flight instructor who was on board. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, but has not yet determined the cause of the crash or issued its final report (nor has it even been able to say definitively who was flying the plane). But New York dentist Larry Rosenthal knows who is at fault: he’s suing the estate of Lidle for $7 million, claiming that to be the value of his apartment and belongings destroyed when the plane hit his building. He has nowhere to live and is a “refugee,” although Rosenthal’s attorney allows that “It’s not as bad as someone in Katrina.”
There are probably no precedent-setting issues in the case, but we do get this amusing bit of legal analysis from his lawyer (New York Post):
“There’s no excuse for smacking a plane into an apartment building in the middle of Manhattan,” said the Rosenthals’ lawyer, David Jaroslawicz.
That’s not necessarily the case, though; last week, Lidle’s widow figured out an excuse: she filed a lawsuit of her own against the plane manufacturer and associated companies, claiming that some unknown design flaw in the plane caused the crash.
The plaintiff is no stranger to litigation; he is currently suing a former patient who he claims has defamed him on the internet. That defamation suit is based on claims on one of the two gripe sites set up by former patients: Baddentist.com and Lyingdentist.com, which contain many curious and colorful allegations. Smile!
Chuck Colson on Miller-Jenkins
I know we’re supposed to give prominent Religious Right figure Chuck Colson a pass because of his compelling life story and the work he’s done with prisoners, but jeepers, does he ever give a misleading account of the Miller-Jenkins case (Vermont-Virginia lesbian custody battle), discussed earlier in this space Aug. 15, 2004, Dec. 16, 2004, Aug. 26, 2006, and Nov. 29, 2006.
Colson begins his column (“Legal Fictions”, syndicated/TownHall, Feb. 28) by announcing that Miller-Jenkins presents “one of the most important legal battles of our time”. In fact, as I noted back in 2004, the case presents the somewhat less epochal issue: can a party dissatisfied with a visitation/custody outcome litigated in one state ignore a resulting court order in order to pursue proceedings in what is expected to be a more favorable state?
Colson cites a recent in-depth story about the case in the Washington Post Magazine (April Witt, “About Isabella”, Feb. 2). Somehow, however, he omits to mention a feature of the case that figured centrally in that account, namely the outstanding court order that Lisa Miller, biological and custodial mom of Isabella, has been defying for years now. Since Colson does not mention that court order, he naturally does not inform readers that it arose after Miller voluntarily submitted to the jurisdiction of a Vermont court dissolving her civil union with Janet Jenkins. Nor do his readers learn that Miller was happy to pocket child support payments from Jenkins, before eventually deciding to blow off the court order, or try to, by cutting off Jenkins’ regular visitations with Isabella.
Nor does Colson describe the current posture of the case. If he did, he would have to acknowledge that both the Vermont Supreme Court and a Virginia appeals panel have ruled unanimously against Miller, who nonetheless continues to defy the court order. There is no indication that Miller’s team of Religious Right litigators is uncomfortable with this posture of hers.
Colson frames the story for dramatic effect as one in which Jenkins, appearing from out of the past, demands custody of Isabella — although the dispute in fact arose over visitation, and although the likely outcome of the case (assuming Miller relents rather than pursuing her contempt of court all the way into a jail cell) is simply going to be the restoration of Jenkins’ visitation rights. Pricelessly, Colson dismisses Jenkins’ legal rights as those of “a woman [Isabella] barely remembers”, without inquiring as to how Miller managed to engineer this state of affairs.
And, no surprise, Colson also fails to mention the relevant federal statute, the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738A, which as Eugene Volokh points out “requires courts [in other states] to adhere to preexisting custody awards generally, not just ones that follow the dissolution of a marriage”.
Probably the most enduring significance of the Miller-Jenkins case will be as an indication of the willingness of many on the Religious Right, even the lawyers among them, to applaud and defend the defiance of court orders when those orders inconvenience the godly or uphold the legal rights of the ungodly. I wonder whether Colson gives a thought to this when he decries, in the column, “our reckless pursuit of getting whatever we want at all costs”.
I also wonder whether the proposition that it’s just fine to violate laws and court orders when one feels impelled by a higher cause — I believe some social conservatives like to label this point of view as antinomian — is a message that Colson is accustomed to spread when he addresses groups of prisoners in the course of his public work. If so, we can only hope the prisoners don’t take the message to heart (& welcome Ed Brayton, MarriageDebate.com, Eugene Volokh readers).
Duke lacrosse update
When last we checked, the North Carolina State Bar had filed ethics charges against Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong for his handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case. (Dec. 29) After receiving an extension of time, Nifong has filed his reply to the charges. Blogger K.C. Johnson, who absolutely owns this story, has the details: here and here. The short version, according to Johnson:
The thesis of this filing: Nifong did nothing wrong, and if he gets the chance to engage in massive prosecutorial misconduct in the future, he’ll seize it. This is a man unethical to his core.
Excessive force lawsuit
In August 2004, a security guard at a Pittsburgh restaurant roughed up Deven Werling, a patron who had insulted him. So Mr. Werling sued the restaurant, the security guard, and, of course… the city of Pittsburgh. It turns out that the security guard was actually a Pittsburgh police officer — an off-duty police officer — which made this assault a federal case. Now the city is paying $200,000 as part of a settlement the defendants reached with Werling just before trial (Post-Gazette; WTAE). Apparently,even though the officer was off-duty, he was working security in his official police uniform, and that may have been sufficient to put taxpayers on the hook.
Before you start feeling too much sympathy for the innocent city that was dragged into this suit, though, check out this nugget:
The city’s Office of Municipal Investigations found that Sgt. Eggleton contradicted himself under oath, and he was fired.
In October, the dismissal was reduced to a five-day suspension by then-Operations Director Dennis Regan. Mr. Eggleton continues to work as a sergeant.
So excessive force and lying under oath = five-day suspension. That will be red meat for the next plaintiff’s lawyer who sues the city over police brutality.
Reading is fundamental
A man walks into a tattoo parlor (no, it isn’t the start of a joke) and asks for his favorite city to be put on his chest. Now the $250 order has become a lawsuit:
But the idea went terribly awry in a North Side tattoo parlor: He left with the word “CHI-TONW” inked into his skin where “CHI-TOWN” should have been.
Now Duplessis is suing the business and the tattoo artist for monetary damages in the 2005 mess after suffering what he says in his lawsuit was “emotional distress from public ridicule.”
At least he didn’t live in Albuquerque.
No more overbearing bosses — by law?
A group called the Workplace Bullying Institute says it’s preparing federal legislation that would ban the rather amorphously defined phenomenon of bullying at work. A possible obstacle: Capitol Hill itself is notorious as the stomping (and ranting and paperweight-throwing) grounds of some of the nation’s most vein-poppingly abusive bosses, such as Sen. — well, you’ll just have to follow the link if you want names (Helena Andrews, “Demanding or Downright Mean?”, The Politico, Mar. 1). For an earlier go-round, see Dec. 22, 2004.
Ralph de Toledano, Nader victim
A prominent and much-admired figure in conservative journalism for decades, Ralph de Toledano died last month at the age of 90. (Dave Zincavage, Feb. 6). The Washington Post in its obituary recounts a sequence of events that did much to darken de Toledano’s later years:
In 1975, consumer activist Ralph Nader filed a lawsuit against De Toledano in connection with a De Toledano suggestion — denied by Nader — that Nader had “falsified and distorted” evidence about the Corvair automobile. The case lingered in court for years and cost De Toledano his life savings. Paul Toledano [son of the author] said it was settled out of court.
(Joe Holley, “Ralph de Toledano, 90; author and ‘nonconformist conservative'”, Washington Post/L.A. Times, Feb. 10).
De Toledano in fact had published an entire critical biography of Nader, entitled Hit and Run: The Rise — and Fall? — of Ralph Nader, used copies of which remain available online — even Nader himself can’t prevent that. The entire episode — in which Mr. Litigation, then at the height of his public fame and influence, inflicted vindictive and personal financial ruin on a well-known journalist who’d had the temerity to criticize him — is one that you’d think would have provoked expressions of concern and solidarity from leading writers and civil libertarians of the day, and yet it didn’t (scroll to #8). The episode tends to get no mention these days in accounts of Nader’s life (which, whatever their varying opinions of his actions as a spoiler presidential candidate, tend toward cloying hagiography of his earlier career). And one consequence of its lingering chilling effect (who wants to volunteer to be the next de Toledano?) may be that no one will be willing to write another genuinely unsparing biography of Nader, at least for publication during the subject’s lifetime.
For a sampling of our posts about Nader, see Jun. 13, 2000; Feb. 22, 2004; and this set of 2000-2003 links.
Objection
Headline in the Boston Globe:
Judge wants new counsel for man accused of stabbing lawyer
Yes, but how does the new counsel feel about it?
“Card check” unionization
I’ve been discussing this very bad bill (fraudulently labeled the “Employee Free Choice Act”) at Point of Law here, here, and here. The Wall Street Journal editorializes against it today (“Walter Reuther’s Ghost”, Mar. 1) as does the Los Angeles Times (“Keep Union Ballots Secret”, Mar. 1). More: National Review, Investor’s Business Daily.