The office of New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo “said it planned to file a lawsuit this week against Arbitron, the company that compiles the data, because of concerns that minority listeners were not being adequately represented. … Recruiting and retaining enough respondents from these demographic groups [blacks and Hispanics] has proved difficult for Arbitron, leading some stations that cater to urban and ethnic audiences to claim that they are not being sufficiently counted.” (Brian Stelter, “Cuomo to Sue Radio Ratings Company, Claiming Minorities Are Underrepresented”, New York Times, Oct. 7).
Posts Tagged ‘New York’
Update: court dismisses Kremen v. Morelli
We covered this legal malpractice claim last year, with particular attention to the defendant law firm’s argument that it didn’t matter whether the case was handled flawlessly since it was obviously low on merit in the first place. Now a New York appellate court has reversed the trial court and dismissed the action on other grounds. (Scott Kreppein, Sept. 17).
Do as we say dept.: Rep. Rangel on taxes
While the commentariat is gripped by discussion of whether Gov. Sarah Palin should have cut personal travel expenses only by 68 percent compared with her predecessor as Alaska’s chief executive, or by some higher amount, maybe it’s worth pausing a moment to note that the dean of New York’s Congressional delegation — and the most powerful figure in Congress in charge of tax legislation! — has just been caught not paying his taxes.
More: Turns out tax compliance is hard. Who knew?
Birthday surprise doesn’t work out
This much seems to be agreed: Itzamargrid Ramos took her friend Clarissa Marino to scenic but hazardous Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskills as a surprise for her 20th birthday. The two were hiking when Marino slipped on a rock — her footwear at the time was “flat, rubber-soled slip-on shoes with no tread” — and fell into a stream from which it took ninety minutes to rescue her. She sued the state of New York for failure to warn, but just lost her case in the state Court of Claims, which hears cases against the state government.
The two friends are now described as estranged, which may put in perspective a noteworthy discrepancy between their respective testimony. Marino “said she was never blindfolded at any point during the day”, while Ramos “told the court Marino was blindfolded for the entire two-hour car ride and even as they traversed most of the trail until just before the top of the falls. … In the end, the court said it found Ramos’ version more credible and that the ‘profound danger posed by the Kaaterskill Falls was open and obvious to anyone employing the reasonable use of her senses.'” (Paul Nelson, “Court rules against fall victim”, Albany Times-Union, Sept. 7).
Requiring family social workers to report animal abuse
Setting spies and informers against us in our houses dept.: I’m quoted about a bad idea under consideration by the New York legislature (Benjamin Sarlin, “Child, Animal Abuse Linked Under Albany Bill”, New York Sun, Aug. 20).
Red Sox fan: Yankee fans beat me up
And it’s the fault of Yankees management and a stadium security firm, as well as the two men who actually knocked him around, says Charles Hillios of Chicopee, Mass., of the Aug. 29, 2007 incident at Yankee Stadium. (“Red Sox fan from Chicopee takes legal swing at New York Yankees”, Springfield, Mass. Republican, Aug. 6 via TortsProf weekly roundup).
P.S. In comments, Curt Cutting calls our attention to a lawsuit arising from another fracas between fans of the two teams, this one in Carlsbad, Calif. In that one a jury awarded $25,000 to the Yankees fan “for injuring his hand when he punched” the Red Sox fan.
Sued wrong party, wrist duly slapped
Brooklyn, N.Y. attorney Regina Felton held a judgment against an outfit named United Equities Corp. which she tried to enforce against an entity named United Equities Inc. Attorneys for the latter informed her repeatedly that despite the coincidence of names the two businesses had no connection to each other. Citing the New York courts’ definition of frivolous conduct, trial judge Arthur M. Schack ruled that Felton’s continued refusal to withdraw the action even after it was “crystal clear” that it was mistaken was “completely without merit in law” and “ignored UEI’s good faith attempts to resolve this matter without resort to lengthy and costly proceeding”. Nonetheless, he granted UEI only about half the $25,000 in attorneys’ fees it sought and “declined to add sanctions, calling the $13,287.50 in costs a ‘sufficient penalty.'” Maybe UEI would have been better off settling her demand for $10,000 at the outset. (Mark Fass, “Lawyer Ordered to Pay Fees After Pursuing ‘Frivolous’ Suit”, New York Law Journal, Jul. 9). Felton, whom New York law blogger Andrew Bluestone describes as “well known” (Sept. 27, 2007; more at Feb. 14, 2007) won notice a couple of years ago when she unsuccessfully argued before the Tax Court that she did not “consider herself” an employee of the law offices of Regina Felton, PC. (RothCPA, Sept. 18, 2006).
Compelling disclosure of commenters’ identities
A judge in Westchester County, N.Y. (hey, that’s here!) has ruled on the circumstances under which libel complainants can employ compulsory process to unveil the identity of anonymous ill-wishers on blogs and online forums. In this case the plaintiff is Richard Ottinger, a former liberal Congressman who’s now the dean of Pace University Law School (NYLJ via Greenfield).
July 15 roundup
- New York attorney suspended from practice after attempting as guardian to extract $853,000 payday from estate of Alzheimer’s victim [ABA Journal, Emani Taylor]
- Bought a BB gun to fend off squirrels, now his 20-year-old son faces three years for bare possession [MyCentralJersey.com via Zincavage]
- U.K.: “Sports clubs face being put out of business following a landmark court ruling forcing them to be liable for deliberate injuries caused by their player to an opponent.” [Telegraph]
- Prosecutors in Norwich, Ct. still haven’t dropped their case against teacher Julie Amero in malware-popup smut case. Why not? [TalkLeft, earlier]
- Dealership protection laws, deplored earlier in this space, work to make a GM bankruptcy both likelier and messier [The Deal]
- Strange new respect for talk show host Joe Scarborough in quarters where conservatives are ordinarily disliked? Some of us saw that coming [NYMag]
- Following Rhode Island rout of lawsuit against lead-paint makers, Columbus, Ohio drops its similar case [PoL, Akron Beacon Journal editorial]
- In latest furor over free speech and religious sensitivity in Europe, Dutch authorities have arrested cartoonist “suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities” [WSJ; “Gregorius Nekschot”]
May 2 roundup
- Contriving to give Sheldon Silver the moral high ground: NY judges steamed at lack of raises are retaliating against Albany lawmakers’ law firms [NY Post and editorial. More: Turkewitz.]
- When strong laws prove weak: Britain’s many layers of land use control seem futile against determined builders of gypsy encampments [Telegraph]
- “U.S. patent chief: applications up, quality down” [EETimes]
- Plenty of willing takers for those 4,703 new cars that survived the listing-ship near-disaster, but Mazda destroyed them instead [WSJ]
- “Prof. Dohrn [for] Attorney General and Rev. Wright [for] Secretary of State”? So hard to tell when left-leaning lawprof Brian Leiter is kidding and when he’s not [Leiter Reports]
- Yet another hard-disk-capacity class action settlement, $900K to Strange & Carpenter [Creative HDD MP3 Player; earlier. More: Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”.]
- Filipino ship whistleblowers’ case: judge slashes Texas attorney’s fee, “calling the lawyer’s attempt to bill his clients nearly $300,000 ‘unethically excessive.'” [Boston Globe, earlier]
- RFK Jr. Watch: America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® endorses Oklahoma poultry litigation [Legal NewsLine]
- Just what the budget-strapped state needs: NY lawmakers earmark funds for three (3) new law schools [NY Post editorial; PoL first, second posts, Greenfield]
- In Indiana, IUPUI administrators back off: it wasn’t racial harassment after all for student-employee to read a historical book on fight against Klan [FIRE; earlier]
- Fiesta Cornyation in San Antonio just isn’t the same without the flying tortillas [two years ago on Overlawyered]