Ohio: “A state court judge demands $50 million from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, claiming it wrongfully exposed her and her daughter as the source of online comments about the judge’s cases, including a criminal prosecution over the murder of 11 women. Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold and her daughter, Sydney, seek damages for fraud, defamation, tortious interference, breach of contract, and invasion of privacy. ” [Courthouse News, Solove/Concur Op] Earlier here.
Posts Tagged ‘Ohio’
“Cleveland police no more grasp the 4th Amendment than they do the Rule Against Perpetuities”
Russ Bensing reports on the Ohio criminal-law scene.
Coshocton pulls WiFi
An Ohio town discontinues its municipal WiFi network after MPAA lawyers rattle swords about a copyrighted movie that moved through the system. Andrew Moshirnia at Citizen Media Law explains. And (h/t reader CTrees) note that the town turned the system back on at Sony’s request, following a national outcry over the incident.
And at least somewhat relatedly: “Viacom’s top lawyer: suing P2P users ‘felt like terrorism'” [ArsTechnica]
October 28 roundup
- Alleged wife murderer “sues J.P. Morgan for cutting off his home equity line of credit.” Reason cited: “imprisonment”. [Joe Weisenthal, Business Insider via Fountain]
- Charles Krauthammer on the need to “reform our insane malpractice system. … I used to be a doctor, I know how much is wasted on defensive medicine.” [Der Spiegel interview]
- Popehat looks back on turning two, in customarily entertaining fashion [unsigned collective post]
- Sigh: “Chamber of Commerce Sues ‘Yes Men’ for Fake News Conference” [ABA Journal]
- Coverage mandates explain a lot about why health insurance is so much costlier in some states than others [Coyote] More: Tyler Cowen (autism treatment)
- Watch out for those default judgments: PepsiCo hit with $1.26 billion award in Wisconsin state court, says word of suit never got to responsible officials within the company [National Law Journal]
- Ohio appeals court: characterizing incident as “Baby Mama Drama” is not prosecutorial misconduct [The Briefcase]
- Ideological tests for educators? On efforts to screen out would-be teachers not seen as committed enough to “social justice” [K.C. Johnson, Minding the Campus]
CPSIA: StoryBlox closing its doors
PIRG be not proud: “Until recently, I had high hopes that this law would be amended. …
We do not mass produce our products, for that our customers love us, and for that congress has made it impossible for us to continue selling our toys without breaking the law.” — Tammy Bowles, founder of the Ohio-based educational plaything line StoryBlox, whose former line can be browsed here. More: Ken at Popehat.
Parents settle Ohio student arm-branding case
“School board members in Mount Vernon agreed Wednesday night to resolve a federal lawsuit by paying $5,500 to the boy and his family and $115,500 to their lawyers.” [AP/NBC4i] We covered the case, in which a teacher is alleged to have branded a cross onto a pupil’s arm, in July; the teacher, John Freshwater, has himself filed a civil rights action against the school district charging religious discrimination, and a suit by the parents against Freshwater remains ongoing.
“Hearing-impaired football fan sues Ohio State”
“A hearing-impaired Ohio State University football fan has sued the school, arguing that the university should offer captioning on the scoreboard and stadium televisions because he can’t hear the announcers.” [Akron Beacon-Journal]
Mystery pink-diamond disappearance, cont’d
On Point News has an update on the defense’s motion for a new trial in the unusual federal case (with spy-thriller overtones) we covered in January. “The defense has already gotten some post-trial relief. In a May 13 order, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Rose threw out the $2.3 million award on the criminal theft claim, leaving intact the $1.7 million for conversion and $8,400 for unjust enrichment.”
“DWI for walking a bicycle”
[See important P.S./correction at end] No, this isn’t new, it’s a year old in fact, but I must have somehow overlooked Radley Balko’s account of it: Jeff Brown of Columbus, Ohio, was arrested and convicted for operating a vehicle under the influence after walking a bicycle across his own front lawn*, then refusing a breathalyzer test from a cop who said the bicycle was missing a required headlight and that Brown seemed impaired. Things could be worse, though: a Florida woman won dismissal of 2005 charges of operating her own wheelchair while intoxicated.
*Important P.S.: I should have caught this earlier (via Balko’s “Hit and Run” followup, h/t reader Nicolas Martin in comments) but the appellate court accepted a version of the facts that differs from Brown’s on key points [emphasis added]:
The record contains scant details of the underlying facts of this case, but it appears appellant was riding a bicycle on a sidewalk on December 18, 2004, when he was detained by a police officer.
Absent some indication that the appeals court erred, Brown’s doesn’t look like the case to cite in illustrating the farthest reaches of impaired-bicycle legislation.
Security guard who slept on job loses lawsuit
Night-shift security guard Theodore Rongers had argued that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, his hospital employer “had a duty to reasonably accommodate the side effect of his heart medication by permitting him to sleep during his shift”. [Ohio Employer’s Law Blog; Rongers v. University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Ct. of Appeals, May 7 (PDF)] I discussed sleeping guards who were more successful in saving their jobs in my book The Excuse Factory (Google Books, limited search), published a decade ago and excerpted at the time in Washington Monthly (see also).