I got this email today, and was surprised that the Chamber of Commerce would be so opposed to letting a rape victim have access to the courts. Food for thought if you’re considering supporting the organization.
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was working for a private contractor in Iraq when she was brutally gang-raped by coworkers. Four years later, Jamie is still being denied justice.
Jamie can't file U.S. criminal charges because the rape took place overseas, and a fine-print clause in her contract takes away her right to file a lawsuit in the U.S.
Congress is working to protect the rights of rape victims like Jamie. But, shockingly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is fighting it. They say that it would "set a dangerous precedent" to allow rape victims into court.
Organizations endorsing the petition include the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Public Citizen, Consumer Action, Workplace Fairness, National Association of Consumer Advocates, Take Back Your Rights PAC, Alliance for Justice, and the Jamie Leigh Foundation.
A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue.
Remember this the next time someone complains that plaintiffs’ lawyers get all the money.
The St. Louis Archdiocese has released financial figures showing it spent $352,000 last fiscal year on payments to victims of predator priests -- and more than twice that amount on lawyers.
Numbers released by the archdiocese Friday show more was paid in legal fees than to victims for five of the past 10 fiscal years.
You know the best part about blogging? I can make “golden rule” arguments here. So I ask you, how much would YOU want to be awarded if you lost an arm, a leg, or an eye due to medical negligence? Or if you had a loved one die? I’m guessing it would be more than these four states would allow you to recover.
Georgia ($350,000 cap), Illinois ($500,000 cap), and Oklahoma ($400,000 cap unless willful misconduct is proven) all have decisions pending regarding whether to do away with limits on damages. A fourth case, in Maryland, will be argued in November, and only addresses whether state caps on damages should apply to cases that are resolved via arbitration. Arguments against the caps generally focus on whether a state legislature's decision to put an arbitrary limit on a plaintiff's monetary recovery interferes with the plaintiff's constitutional right to a trial, since the jury's decision as to damages is effectively nullified by the cap.
Bisphenol-A, better known as BPA, is the building block of polycarbonates and epoxy resins, plastics that have facilitated modern life. (They're in microwave containers, baby bottles, laptops, and even canned foods.) Tiny amounts circulate in the bodies of more than 90 percent of Americans. And now a team of Chinese and U.S. scientists says it has linked the stuff to sexual dysfunction in men. Even before today's news, plenty of people were getting the willies about BPA. Should this news make you feel less virile? Let's take a closer look.
Credit card companies aren’t happy about some changes in federal law that will make it harder for them to screw their customers. So, they’re screwing customers now by raising interest rates on individuals who make their payments on time.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A Rhode Island woman is suing Citibank, claiming the financial giant is trying to squeeze money out of its credit-card customers in advance of changes in federal law due to take place in February 2010.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court earlier this week by Providence lawyer Peter N. Wasylyk on behalf of Portsmouth resident Michol K. Murphy states that Citibank has violated the terms of her credit-card agreement by jacking up the annual percentage rate on her account without cause. Wasylyk is asking the court to certify the case as a class-action lawsuit.
Good news for those considering hanging their own shingle…
Looking for some law firm office space?
Well, there's plenty to be had. A recent survey by real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle showed that more than 6 million square feet of built-out law firm office space is available throughout the country -- the most vacant space in recent memory. "I can't recall there ever being this much," said Thomas Doughty, international director at Jones Lang and chairman of its law firm group. "It's a lot of space."
Being a police informant just became a lot less fun in Pennsylvania.
In a case of first impression, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled last week that state troopers committed "outrageous government conduct" when investigating alleged prostitution at a massage parlor in the Lehigh Valley by giving money to an undercover informant to have sex four times with two different women at the parlor.
Former Levinson Axelrod associate Edward Heyburn -- who expected legal consequences for trashing the firm on the Web -- got them Thursday as the firm went to court in an effort to shut down his gripe site, "Levinson Axelrod Sucks."
The firm's lawyer, Thomas Cafferty, filed an order to show cause with temporary restraints in New Jersey's Middlesex County. But by the time the matter got before Superior Court Judge Frank Ciuffani that afternoon, Heyburn had removed the case to federal court in Trenton, N.J., and, as Ciuffani acknowledged from the bench, it was out of his hands.
I said that I would “literally eat a shoe” if this judgment wasn’t reversed. It was. I won’t be eating any shoes.
The international soft drink maker relied on Dean Panos, a partner with Jenner in Chicago, to beat back a $1.26 billion default judgment in Wisconsin state court in a trade secrets case. The company had originally failed to appear in the case. The 12-lawyer firm Niebler Pyzyk Roth & Carrig of Menomonee Falls, Wis., gave an assist.
TWO law firms handled this? A second-year law student could have handled this. It takes about a thimble-full of legal skill to get a default judgment or to get one overturned. I really wish the media would stop reporting them.
She told an attorney that a pro se litigant did better work. Ouch.
Cannon, who was a state prosecutor before being elected a judge in 1996, turned on O'Brien, saying the case was "no laughing matter" and castigating him for submitting a brief that, she said, didn't include attorney names and was "dripping with sarcasm." "It is reprehensible," a steaming Cannon said, calling the Oct. 5 brief an editorial not fit for court.
The judge said an imprisoned pro se litigant had submitted a more appropriate brief in another case earlier that day and added that Karen Daniel, a Northwestern University School of Law professor who represents McKinney, had never submitted such a brief. O'Brien had difficulty interrupting her to call attention to the attorney names on the last page with Friedlieb's signature.
The answer will be crucial in determining whether a corporation can be sued in federal court, as it might prefer, or in plaintiff-friendly state courts. Acting in a class action by Hertz employees over wages and hours filed in California, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that, even though its headquarters is in New Jersey, Hertz is a citizen of California because more business activities occur there than in any other state. With both sides deemed to be from California, there was no federal diversity jurisdiction, so the case went to state court. Hertz appealed to the high court.
Apparently, he met Kate at a Long John Silver’s over octopus. She then forced him to use stolen Capital One credit cards to finance fertility treatment and “his sperm was added to the mix.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, he also sued “Brittney Spears, Jennifer Aniston, Lindsay Lohan, and Hannah Montana” for “being in possession of [his] sperm.” Oh, and he also sued Black History Month for presumably other reasons.
It’s totally plausible that a guy invented those devices in the 1980’s, and was pressured to reveal the designs to the FBI. It’s also totally plausible that Sarah Jessica Parker and Apple then stole the ideas. Just like it’s also totally plausible that this man is delusional.
In 1989, the suit alleges, plaintiff Franz A. Wakefield won first place in the 17th Congressional District Arts Competition and was honored by Congressman William Lehman and movie stars Parker and Robert Downey Jr. A self-described "trade secret and copyright owner," Wakefield, of Miami, Fla., is president and chief product design engineer with COOLTvNETWORK.com.
In meeting these people, Wakefield alleges he was asked by the congressman to disclose his "trade secrets" to the FBI, including the concept of the iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone, the last of which he allegedly specifically named nearly 20 years prior to its debut.
The suit claims that Wakefield also developed a friendship with Parker and "made a trade secret deal" with her to commercialize the iPod classic, nano, mini, shuffle, video, touch and photo, as well as iTunes and the iPhone. The supposed agreement would have granted Parker 2 percent of gross revenues from the products. Wakefield said he asked the FBI to watch over him to ensure the security of his inventions and deal with Parker
Not too long ago, the FDA made Bayer run a series of commercials to “clear up” some things in earlier Yaz ads. This is a brilliant parody of the second commercial.
And like most brilliant parodies, it's got a little bit of profanity in it.
That's right, we said it -- and we're not taking it back. The iPhone may be the greatest handheld surfing device ever to rock the mobile Web, and a fabulous media player to boot. It may be the highest-rated mobile phone on CNET UK, rocking the pockets of half of our crack editorial team. It's certainly the touchscreen face that launched a thousand apps. But as an actual call-making phone, it's rubbish, and we aim to prove it.
I on the other hand am smugly enjoying my Blackberry, so I can’t confirm or deny the problems listed here. I will say that I recommend smart phones to my lawyer friends in this order:
1: Blackberry – Best email support of any device, and the phone is pretty damned good, too.
2: Windows Mobile – Email is almost as good as Blackberry, and the phone is acceptable.
3: iPhone – My friends with iPhones bitch enough about dropped calls and phantom calls that I just can’t recommend it.
This is the dumbest thing I’ve seen all day. And I watched Maury AND Springer.
BERLIN (AP) -- Fans hoping to catch a glimpse of U2's free concert celebrating 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall will have to "scale these city walls" after organizers threw up a massive barrier to block the view for those without tickets.
The move has triggered outrage from Berliners, who see the irony in building walls around a concert dedicated to the wall that has come down.
For future reference: debt collectors aren’t allowed to pretend to be from law enforcement:
A California debt collection company has agreed to a $2.55 million judgment to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of Pennsylvanians who claim they were wrongly led to believe they had to pay costly fees to avoid criminal charges for bouncing checks.
There’s probably something pithy and sarcastic to say about this, but I’m not feeling very lowbrow today. Instead, I’ll just hope the Justice led a full life and thank him for the dedication he had to the next generation of law students.
Former New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice Gene Franchini has died while addressing first-year law students at the University of New Mexico.
KOB-TV reports that that Franchini was giving his annual speech on ethics Wednesday evening when he collapsed.
I’ll see if I can’t scare up a copy of this lawsuit.
Medical device companies like Medtronic have been under fire lately for their megabucks deals with doctors who can influence purchases of medical products.
So what happens to doctors who complain about these types of relationships? Those who, in effect, are whistleblowers?
One doctor got fired, according to a lawsuit filed in state court in Massachusetts by David Gossman, an interventional cardiologist formerly on staff at the prestigious Lahey Clinic hospitals in the Boston area. According to his lawsuit, he complained about Medtronic’s offering the hospital a new experimental heart-valve device “predicated on the purchase and increased utilization of other products made by Medtronic.”
