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Thursday, January 09 2014 |
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It's common knowledge that a person is entitled to his or her day in court. What is not common, however, is having a day in court and not knowing about it.
A Utah attorney filed a class action lawsuit without ever bothering to meet, contact or obtain the consent of his so-called clients. One of the named plaintiffs, who also happens to be a lawyer, did not learn of the lawsuit's existence until contacted by a local newspaper for a comment.
Attorney E. Craig Smay claims he did not need the clients' permission to file the lawsuit, which argues that the ongoing efforts by the State of Utah and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to block gay marriage were resulting in emotional distress. Smay selected his plaintiffs, Amy Fowler and Pidge Winburn, after reading about them in a front-page newspaper story.
According to news reports, Smay told Fowler in an email that he did not need her permission to file the suit. He also stated that, "She can file [for dismissal] until the cows come home. She's wasting her time and she's wasting my time."
Fowler responded by filing for a dismissal, which was granted by the court. Fowler also has filed a complaint with the state bar.
—Source: blogs.findlaw.com/strategist |
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Thursday, December 19 2013 |
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A Texas woman, dubbed the Christmas "Grinch," has been sentenced to 70 years in jail for stealing, among other things, her neighbor's Christmas lights.
Dana Brock had a voluminous rap sheet, including credit card abuse, drug possession and assault, but according to news reports it was the surveillance video showing Brock's theft of Christmas lights from outside a home while the family slept that prompted a jury to take all of five minutes to hand down the 70-year sentence.
“When you’re known as the Christmas Grinch, people do remember you,” assistant Parker County (TX) district attorney Jeff Swain said.
“A 70-year sentence will knock the air out of your stomach,” said her attorney Raul Navarez. “She kept asking me, ’70 years? Are you serious? 70 years?’ Because 70 years is a pretty harsh sentence for this kind of a deal. And quite frankly, that’s what I argued to the jury. But the jury decided and we have to respect that.”
—Source: TheBlaze.com |
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Wednesday, December 11 2013 |
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A U.S. District Judge in San Jose, California, has turned the tables on the lawyers suing some giant tech companies.
Federal judge Lucy Koh found that a lawsuit that accused AOL and Microsoft of conspiring on a bogus patent auction with the help of Goldman Sachs was "frivolous" and "utterly lacking" in facts. Koh went one step further beyond dismissing the case, holding that the lawyers who had been "harassing" the tech companies with the frivolous lawsuit deserved to be punished--they have to pick up AOL's legal tab and other punishments are set to follow, which could include fines and disciplinary measures.
According to news reports, the case in question came about after AOL sold a portfolio of patents at auction to Microsoft for over $1 billion in April 2012, causing AOL’s share price to soar. One month later, the Rosenfarb Law Firm hit AOL with a class-action lawsuit that alleged the auction was a “sham” and that the two companies had decided to do the deal months earlier.
The court found that neither a Reuters news story pointing to a conspiracy nor a single, pseudonymous blog post supported the Rosenfarb Law Firm's suit.
—Source: money.cnn.com |
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Wednesday, December 04 2013 |
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A high school student is seeking more than $5 million in damages from standardized testing agencies College Board and ACT for allegedly selling personal information to colleges.
The Cook County, Illinois, student, about whom little else is known, filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Illinois charging that the test makers with "unfair, immoral, unjust, oppressive and unscrupulous" conduct. More specifically, the plaintiff alleges that when test takers are asked if the agencies can "share" their personal information with others, the high schoolers are not being told that their information is in fact being sold to colleges that want to market to students. According to news reports, the current price is about 37 or 38 cents per name.
A spokesman for ACT said it would not comment on pending litigation but that the lawsuit was a “unique instance," meaning ACT at least has not previously faced such a challenge. The College Board could not immediately say if it had ever faced such a lawsuit and would not comment on ongoing litigation, but a spokeswoman said, “as a guiding principle in all we do, the College Board takes very seriously the privacy, security and confidentiality of information entrusted to us by the students in our care.”
—Source: insidehighered.com |
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Thursday, November 21 2013 |
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Santa, of sorts, won't be making his usual Christmas deliveries to some South Carolina elementary school children, all thanks to an organization's threat to sue if the school continued its annual Christmas toy drive, Operation Christmas Child.
The American Humanist Association, allegedly dedicated to removing all religious references from government and encouraged by an upset parent, sent a letter to East Point Academy, a charter school in West Columbia, South Carolina, claiming the school's annual toy drive to be unconstitutional. More specifically, the organization stated: “This letter serves as notice to policymaking school officials of the East Point Academy’s unconstitutional conduct and as a demand that the school terminate all promotion, sponsorship, endorsement or affiliation with Operation Christmas Child immediately.”
According to the school's principal, Renee Mathews, the academy is small and has limited funds, so it had no choice but to cancel a project it hosted for two years without incident.
The controversy centered on Operation Christmas Child’s association with the international Christian relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse. Principal Matthews noted, however, that the project was voluntary, non-religious, and not tied to any graded assignments. Moreover, no religious materials were included in the boxes.
—Source: bizpacreview.com |
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