A Long Island doctor is suing the University of Rochester for $200,000 over the school’s failure to award his sons summa cum laude status despite their stellar GPAs. The school says it is correcting the oversight and claims it wasn’t aware of the problem until a reporter alerted it to the lawsuit. [New York Post]
May 3 roundup
- Lawmakers in Georgia vote for bill to forbid forced micro-chipping after listening respectfully to “this happened to me” story [Popehat]
- “Why does the Wall Street regulation overhaul give FTC authority over the Internet?” [Morrissey and WaPo via Gillespie]
- “Woman alleges termination due to gender, not sleeping on the job” [SE Texas Record]
- Writers’ Union of Canada surprisingly unfriendly toward writers’ freedom regarding fair use/fair dealing [BoingBoing]
- Despite purported bar on strategic use, Senate bill to stay deportation of illegal aliens while workplace claims are pending would create incentive to come up with such claims [Fox, Employer’s Lawyer]
- “California Magistrate Scoffs at Plaintiff’s MySpace Page, But Awards Damages Anyway” [Abnormal Use]
- State of free speech in Britain: police confront man over political sign in window of his home, arrest preacher over anti-gay remarks [Mail and more, Telegraph via Steyn, related from Andrew Sullivan and MWW]
- “Should Tort Law Be Tougher on Lawyers?” [Alex Long, TortsProf]
Combating “arbitrary discrimination based on appearance”
Stanford lawprof Deborah Rhode wants to get the law more involved (cross-posted from Point of Law).
“Yet Another Lawsuit About the Lack of Fruit in ‘Froot Loops'”
Lowering the Bar has details on the latest California case alleging fraud. Food Liability Law Blog wonders whether it and the related Crunchberry suit will make for an “endless loop” of courtroom activity. Earlier here, etc.
P.S. Don’t miss our funny reader comments on this one.
Two bad tastes, awful together
U.K. libel tourism and blasphemy law, that is: “Up to 95,000 descendants of the prophet Muhammad are planning to bring a libel action in Britain over ‘blasphemous’ cartoons of the founder of Islam, even though they were published in the Danish press.” [Times Online via Andrew Stuttaford, Secular Right]
N.J.: Drunk drivers can sue bars that served them
In 1997 the New Jersey legislature enacted a law stating that a convicted drunk driver “shall have no cause of action for his or her injuries,” but a state appeals court decided that was no reason not to allow such a driver to sue the drinking establishment that allegedly should have cut him off earlier. An earlier appeals case had allowed such suits against “social hosts” such as party-givers. [AnnMarie McDonald/NJLRA, Henry Gottlieb/NJLJ]
Dutch nurse imprisoned for six years over patients’ unexplained deaths
And then came the second look [Scott Greenfield]
NHTSA, Toyota and “speed control”
Michael Fumento warns that the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) “has no category for ‘sudden acceleration,’ merely a ‘speed control’ category.” The result is that many complaints of lack of acceleration can wind up getting counted and cited as if they supported the trial lawyers’ case.
Twitter gets a DMCA takedown notice
And pulls the offending Tweet [Jacqui Cheng, ArsTechnica].
Richard Blumenthal vs. Craigslist
The “grandstanding” Connecticut attorney general, notes Mike Masnick at TechDirt, is now publicly decrying Craigslist for turning a profit from sex ads. Why is it turning a profit? Well, the ads used to be free, but Craigslist started charging fees after Blumenthal himself (with fellow AGs) demanded that it do so, the idea being that a credit card trail would scare off some illegal users and make it easier for police to crack down on others.
Blumenthal, a longstanding bete noire of this site, is now running for the U.S. Senate seat held by the departing Chris Dodd. More: New York Times on his Senate bid (rough start, “Martha Coakley in pants”).