Those of you who have attended my “Law of McDonald’s” talks in California and Florida may recall the case of the strip search hoax. A Florida man who was unusually persuasive would call dozens of fast food restaurants until he could find someone who would believe he was with the police and who would disrobe employees (or themselves) at his instructions; though there have been other lawsuits seeking to blame the fast food restaurants for this, courts have generally thrown them out. One exception was the case of Ogborn v. McDonald’s, where two targets of the hoax successfully sued for millions. On Friday, the Kentucky Court of Appeals largely affirmed the lower court judgment, though it reduced the punitive damages received by Donna Summers (who gave an Alford guilty plea for her role in the strip search) from $1 million to $400,000. McDonald’s hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court. (Andrew Wolfson, “Appeals court upholds $6.1 million strip-search verdict against McDonald’s”, Kentucky Courier-Journal, Nov. 20, via ABA Journal).
Posts Tagged ‘workplace’
Typo not worth $1.67 billion after all
Sorry, guys, no dice in spinning a drafter’s error into a gigantic ERISA suit against Verizon [Alison Frankel, American Lawyer]
“Lawyers warn: Bosses who ‘friend’ are begging to be sued”
“Bosses who ‘friend’ their subordinates on social networking sites may seem warm and harmless, but they’ve got liability risk written all over them. So warn employment lawyers.” [Tresa Baldas, National Law Journal]
September 18 roundup
- Details emerge on new demonstration grants for patient safety and medical liability [Point of Law, NLJ] GOP underwhelmed by Obama gestures [Fox News and earlier, Salt Lake Tribune, Washington Times, Examiner and more]
- Trial lawyer charity effort donates Wii sets to rehab hospitals [Daily Business News Detroit] Wait a minute – what about those lawsuits contending Wii was a defective product?
- No, John Edwards didn’t invent trial tactic of “channeling” thoughts of deceased. And is inflaming jury passion and prejudice “what good closing argument for a good trial lawyer is about”? [ABAJournal, Hochfelder/PoL, earlier]
- “It took Arizona state police months to realize the same driver was involved” in monkey-mask speed-cam evasions [MargRev, LtB]
- Connecticut lawyer’s complaints allege that business structure of Total Attorney service amounts to improper fee division [LegalBlogWatch]
- “Want to Complain About a Cop? Better Bring Your I.D. — And Maybe A Toothbrush” [Ken at Popehat]
- Tenth Circuit, McConnell writing, reinstates SCO suit against Novell over Linux [WSJ Law Blog]
- New York employment law could bite Human Rights Watch in memorabilia controversy [Volokh]
“Former employee wins $4.1 billion”
Not a misprint: the arbitration award in Chester v. iFreedom Communications Inc., (PDF), in favor of a former chief marketing officer fired without cause, was really $4.1 billion with a b. [Dennis Westlind, World of Work via Ohio Employer’s Law; JAMS, Los Angeles]
P.S.: A commenter at an Alabama site: “So much for mandatory binding arbitration always favoring the big company.”
P.P.S.: More on how it happened, including serious lapses by the defendant in responding to the action, from AmLaw Litigation Daily, National Law Journal, and Daniel Schwartz.
Continental charges pilots with sham divorces
Continental Airlines says nine pilots got “paper” divorces from their spouses and then remarried after securing lump-sum distributions from the carrier’s retirement plan. Federal regulators have in the past indicated that plan administrators should disallow sham transactions intended to qualify for tax-favored retirement benefits. Two pilots have now countered with charges that the airline invaded their privacy when it investigated whether their divorces were really what they seemed. [Houston Chronicle and followup]
April 28 roundup
- Forensics gone wrong: Alabama mom spends nine months in jail after medical examiner misdiagnoses stillbirth as murder [Patrick @ Popehat]
- Bouncer shot outside bar going after owners individually to collect $1.5 million verdict [W.V. Record]
- “Feds Seize Assets of Companies Suspected of Hiring Illegal Aliens” [Reisinger, Corporate Counsel]
- Dealing with compulsive-hoarder tenants who fill apartment up to the ceiling with trash can be legally tricky [San Francisco Weekly]
- NYC has paid more than a half billion dollars over past decade to settle police misconduct suits [NY Post]
- Los Angeles schools taking aim at state laws that make it near impossible to fire teachers [L.A. Daily News via Kaus]
- Another parent put through mistaken-identity child-support hell, this time in Pennsylvania [Harrisburg Patriot-News via Amy Alkon] For a similar case from California, see August 7-8, 2001;
- Disabled man finds vehicle towed, wheels himself in cold to distant lot, catches pneumonia. Liability for tow company and parking lot owner? [John Hochfelder, who also hosts Blawg Review #209 this week on a theme of remembering his father, a veteran of the WWII battle of Iwo Jima]
“Sailor sues over safety of pirated Maersk Alabama”
AP: “A member of the crew on the U.S.-flagged ship hijacked by African pirates sued the owner and another company Monday, accusing them of knowingly putting sailors in danger.”
“Someone’s Gotta Go” and employment law
According to descriptions of a forthcoming Fox reality TV show, “actual, struggling companies with about 15 to 20 employees will let their staffs decide who gets laid off. The employee-judges will use confidential information — salaries, job evaluations — to make that final call on the show.” If that’s really the show’s format, the employers are setting themselves up for lawsuits under discrimination, retaliation, and other employment laws, not all of which can be fended off by having the employees sign waivers. [National Law Journal] More: Evil HR Lady.
Starbucks job-application suit fails
Starbucks’s job application asked prospective baristas if they’d been convicted of a crime in the past seven years and added for “CALIFORNIA APPLICANTS ONLY”, at the end, that minor marijuana possession convictions more than two years old didn’t have to be disclosed, in accord with a state law along those lines. Entrepreneurial lawyers then tried to steam-press $26 million or so out of the coffee chain on the following theory: that the clarification was placed too far down the application after the original question; that Starbucks had therefore violated the California Labor Code; and that each and every Starbucks job applicant in California since June 2004, perhaps 135,000 persons, was owed $200 in statutory damages regardless of whether they had suffered any harm. Per John Sullivan of the Civil Justice Association of California, the lawyers also took the position that “it didn’t matter that two of the three job applicants who signed on as named plaintiffs testified in court that they read the entire application and knew they didn’t have to mention a marijuana conviction (which neither had anyway!)” The court refused to certify the class and made the following observations (courtesy CJAC blog):
* “There are better ways to filter out impermissible question on job applications than allowing ‘lawyer bounty hunter’ lawsuits brought on behalf of tens of thousands of unaffected job applicants. Plaintiffs’ strained efforts to use the marijuana reform legislation to recover millions of dollars from Starbucks gives a bizarre new dimension to the every day expressions ‘coffee joint’ and ‘coffee pot.'”
* “Enhancing the prospects for obtaining a settlement on a basis other than the merits is hardly a worthy legislative objective.”
* “Given the size of the class, the potential exposure is so large that the pressure to settle may become irresistible. …’This is a valid concern: Many corporate executives are unwilling to bet their company that they are in the right in in big-stakes litigation, and a grant of class status can propel the stakes of a case into the stratosphere …This interaction of procedure with the merits justifies an earlier appellate look. By the end of the case it will be too late — if indeed the case has an ending that is subject to appellate review.'”
* “The civil justice system is not well-served by turning Starbucks into a Daddy Warbucks.”
More coverage: Aaron Morris, Metropolitan News-Enterprise, and Carlton DiSante & Freudenberger. One of the plaintiff’s lawyers in the case, H. Scott Leviant, is known for his blog The Complex Litigator.