Monday, October 31, 2011

Californians can’t get Dunkin’ Donuts coffee online

“When consumers in California visit the Dunkin’ Donuts website hoping to order a bag of their favorite java, they are met with the following message: ‘Important Notice: We are temporarily suspending the shipment of orders to California while we work to comply with Proposition 65 with the State of California. We apologize for any inconvenience.’” Acrylamide, a compound naturally present in many roasted or cooked foods, is among the hundreds of substances that must be warned against under Prop 65, which has led, as we noted in May, to a lawsuit against more than 40 coffee companies. [TechNewsWorld] Author Vivian Wagner quotes me:

“The law empowers private litigants to enforce its terms without having to show that any consumer has been exposed to any material or substantial risk, let alone harmed,” Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, told the E-Commerce Times. “As a result, entrepreneurial law firms roam the state identifying new, often far-fetched, unwarned-of risks and extracting cash settlements along with promises to warn from hapless defendants.”
via Overlawyered.com

High Court Upholds Ruling Ordering Removal Of Crosses In Utah: Thomas Writes Sole Dissent - Nina Totenberg NPR

The United States Supreme Court has let stand a lower court ruling that ordered the removal of 12-foot high crosses placed along highways in Utah to commemorate state troopers killed in the line of duty.
The court acted without comment, but Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 19-page dissent.

Law Blog Holiday Special: Copyrighting Costumes - Law Blog - WSJ

(via Wall Street Journal Law Blog)
Happy Halloween, LBers. Let’s finish up with one last holiday-themed post.
The company that owns the intellectual property rights to the 1990s television show Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has filed a lawsuit against a website that sells chintzy, Ranger-like costumes. The Hollywood Reporter has the story here, and we’ve embedded the complaint below.
If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s about a group of average teenagers who “morph” into superheroes to fight evil. Each Ranger wears a color-coded battle suit from which they take their name.
The lawsuit filed by SCG Power Rangers accuses the website operator, Underdog Endeavors, of trademark and copyright infringement. Since June 2011, SGC has sent the website, mypartyshirt.com, several cease and desist letters, the company said in the lawsuit.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

If Google Told You To Jump Off A Bridge, Would You?

Gunter Ongway lives in a suburb of Dallas and does not have a car. In preparation for his fantasy football draft (which is to take place at a local restaurant), Gunter uses Google Maps to find walking directions to the restaurant. Directions in hand, Gunter sets out on his journey across town following Google’s directions carefully. However those directions lead Gunter to walk along a narrow six lane highway (without sidewalks) where he is struck by the side mirror of a passing vehicle. Gunter is injured badly and sues Google alleging that his injuries were caused by Google negligently providing him with unsafe directions. Does Gunter have a case?
Probably not. To prove a case for negligence in Texas, Gunter must first show that Google owed him a legal duty. In determining whether a duty exists, courts will look at many factors including the legal relationship between the parties, the foreseeability of injury, the likelihood of injury and other public policy concerns. In all likelihood, a court would find that no special relationship existed between Gunter and Google so as to impose a legal duty. As Google provides directions to Gunter as well as countless other users, the relationship between Google and Gunter is too attenuated to impose any duty on Google. Furthermore, even if Gunter was able to clear the duty “hurdle,” it is quite possible that a jury would find that his recovery was barred by his own negligence. In Texas, Gunter would be barred from a negligence-based recovery, if a jury found that his negligence (and failure to use common sense by avoiding a six lane highway without sidewalks) contributed to more than 50% of the accident. (via Tilting the Scales)

Your Social Media Addiction Is Ruining Your Marriage

Everyone has a Facebook account these days. In fact, my brother's cat has his own account (although his updates are sadly lackluster). But along with learning who recently ate a burrito for lunch, it turns out that Facebook and other social networking sites are being named as cause for ruining many marriages.
According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Facebook use is now cited in one in five of every US divorce cases. Over 80 percent of divorce lawyers claim that the rising use of social media has become the catalyst for extramarital affairs.
But really does Facebook cause divorce?

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Court of Appeals: Kentucky can credit 'Almighty God' for homeland security

The state can continue giving official credit for its homeland security to Almighty God, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled Friday in a decision overturning a lower-court ruling.
A three-judge panel, in a split decision, rejected the 2009 ruling of Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate, who declared legislation requiring credit to the Almighty to have “created an official government position on God.”
A group of 10 Kentucky residents filed suit to challenge the legislation in 2008, saying the laws creating an Office of Homeland Security violated the Kentucky and U.S constitutions’ bans on state-sponsored religion.
Virtually every state legislator, the attorney general and both major-party candidates for governor had weighed in on the case, supporting the law with legal briefs or public statements of support.
Judge Laurance B. VanMeter wrote in his majority opinion that the appeals court disagrees with Wingate’s “assertion that the legislation seeks to place an affirmative duty upon the Commonwealth’s citizenry to rely on ‘Almighty God’ for protection of the Commonwealth.”
“The legislation merely pays lip service to a commonly held belief in the puissance (power) of God,” VanMeter said in an opinion joined by Judge Thomas Wine. “The legislation complained of here does not seek to advance religion, nor does it have the effect of advancing religion, but instead seeks to recognize the historical reliance on God for protection.”
Such a reference couldn’t be unconstitutional, the opinion added, because “that rationale would place this section at odds with the (Kentucky) Constitution’s Preamble,” which itself thanks “Almighty God” for the welfare and freedom of the commonwealth.
At issue are two related laws passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
A 2002 “legislative finding” said the “safety and security of the commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”
And a 2006 act creating the state’s Office of Homeland Security requires its executive director to publicize this “dependence on Almighty God” in agency training and educational materials and through a plaque at the entrance to its emergency operations center.
Read More...

Friday, October 28, 2011

Woman in custody after reportedly attacking man with knife while playing Monopoly

Laura Chavez did not pass go. She did not collect $200.
Instead, Santa Fe County Sheriff's deputies took the 60-year-old directly to jail after they say she repeatedly stabbed her boyfriend Wednesday after arguing during a game of Monopoly.
Police responded to a stabbing call at 1:21 a.m. Wednesday in the Casa Villita Apartments, 3330 Calle Po Ae Pi off Airport Road in southwest Santa Fe.
Deputy Kurt Whyte arrived at the apartment where he says he found the 48-year-old male stabbing victim, "bleeding heavily from his head and right wrist area."
Chavez, who police say admitted stabbing the man with a kitchen knife, was arrested and charged with aggravated battery on a household member with a deadly weapon, battery upon a peace officer, assault upon a peace officer and resisting or evading a police officer. She remained jailed late Wednesday in lieu of a $5,000 surety bond, according to an online jail database.
Her boyfriend, meanwhile, remained hospitalized late Wednesday but was in stable condition, according to Lt. Adan Mendoza.
Police say both Chavez and her boyfriend appeared to be intoxicated.
According to the statement of probable cause filed for Chavez's arrest drafted by Detective Andrew Quintana, Chavez and her boyfriend were playing a late Tuesday night game of Monopoly with her 10-year-old grandson. The young boy told police the couple began fighting because his grandma thought her boyfriend was cheating at the classic Parker Brothers game.
Read More...

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Don't put your pistol in your pants:

A Waikato man who shot himself with a pistol down his pants was lucky he didn't hit an artery and die, police say.
The 35-year-old shot himself while trying to hide a gun from police while returning from possum-hunting with his brother on Friday night.
The man did not have a licence for the .22 pistol he had in his pants and was attempting to get rid of it before police saw it, Sergeant Jim Corbett of Thames Strategic Traffic Unit said today.
Officers were called to reports of shots being fired on a farm at Waitekauri, between Waihi and Paeroa, about 9.40pm on Friday, Mr Corbett said.
Police set up a checkpoint to stop cars coming down Golden Cross Road, when the man and his brother pulled up in a van.
"He'd got out of the car and he'd been trying to get the pistol out of where he'd had it positioned it in his trousers, and it went off. After he shot himself he managed to throw the gun over into the scrub."
"He went to the ground and the officers sorted out his wound while they were waiting for the ambulance to come....He was losing quite a bit of blood to start off with. He was conscious throughout and left in the ambulance."
Mr Corbett said the man was in shock and a lot of pain after he realised he'd shot himself in the upper thigh with the pistol in his pants.
"He was very lucky because if he'd hit the main artery, he could have very easily bled out and died."
Read More

Commission recommends removal for New York judge

An upstate judge who presided over eight cases involving his girlfriend's relatives should be removed from office, the Commission on Judicial Conduct has concluded.
Lafayette Young Jr., a town justice in St. Lawrence County, not only failed to disclose his relationship with Robyne Petrie-Platt in seven of the matters, but on several occasions discussed pending charges against his girlfriend's relatives with them and his girlfriend.
Read more

Animal rights group's suit to allege Sea World is keeping orcas in slavery

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plans Wednesday to sue Sea World for allegedly violating the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- which bans slavery -- by keeping orcas at parks in San Diego and Orlando, Fla., organization officials said Tuesday.
The lawsuit, set to be filed in San Diego federal court, is considered the first of its kind and, if successful, would represent a large enhancement of the animal-rights movement. Part of the lawsuit asserts that it is illegal to artificially inseminate the females and then take away their babies.
Sea World officials dismissed the lawsuit as a publicity stunt. PETA routinely pickets the park on Mission Bay.
The lawsuit seeks the release of three orcas (also called killer whales) from San Diego and two at Orlando. "All five of these orcas were violently seized from the ocean and taken from their families as babies," said PETA President Ingred Newkirk.
PETA officials note that the 13th Amendment prohibits slavery but does appear to limit the ban only to human beings. "Slavery is slavery," said PETA general counsel Jeffrey Kerr.
Kasatka, Corky and Ulises are at Sea World San Diego, Tilikum and Katina at Orlando. Tilikum, a six-ton male, grabbed a trainer in February 2010 and dragged her to the bottom, where she drowned.
In a statement, Sea World said that extending constitutional rights to killer whales "is baseless and in many ways offensive" and that "there is no higher priority than the welfare of the animals entrusted to our care."
(Los Angeles Times)

Wedding guest pilfered pocketbooks at reception, cops say.


PUTNAM VALLEY - A Yonkers woman faces felony larceny charges after she stole items from the pocketbooks of women at a wedding reception where she was a guest, police said.
Deputies responded to the reception at the Lake Peekskill Community Center in Putnam Valley about 10 p.m. Saturday after several guests reported that items, including credit cards, cash, cosmetics and a cell phone, were missing from their purses, police said.
When Deputy John Cihanek responded, several guests pointed out a woman they suspected of stealing the items, police said.
Investigators James Babcock and John Alfano determined that Elsa Rivera, 54, of 33 Lockwood Ave., Yonkers, was responsible.
Police recovered the stolen items and charged her with fourth-degree grand larceny, a felony. She was sent to the Putnam County jail on $15,000 cash bail.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Camera Wars at Protest - WSJ.com

Camera Wars at Protest - WSJ.com: As New York City police arrested two Occupy Wall Street protesters Wednesday, a group of fellow demonstrators immediately encircled the scene, many holding up their camera phones.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Legal Antics: It's a common mistake..

Your Head Lincoln's Body = Instant Credibility

Sure, you could spend years actually developing a reputation for trustworthiness and plain-spoken honesty, or you could just Photoshop your head onto the body of somebody who's already done that.









This lawyer in the Philadelphia area has chosen the more direct route.
I don't think there are any ethical problems with this advertisement, assuming it doesn't mislead people by falsely implying that the lawyer specializes in a particular area, like maybe rail-splitting or suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Otherwise, it may be tacky, but there's no First Amendment exception for tacky.
(via Lowering The Bar)