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Thursday, October 08 2015 |
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A Long Island, New York, man sued and won his case against his mother for withholding a $5,000 gift that his grandmother promised for his bar mitzvah.
Jordan Zeidman said his maternal grandmother, Rachel Steinfeld, whom he calls "Baba," promised him at his 2007 bar mitzvah that she was giving him $5,000, as she had done for his brother and sister. Steinfeld had crashed the party with her daughter — Jordan’s mom, Shirley Zeidman, who split from her ex in a bitter divorce and was squeezed out of the festivities. According to news reports, Zeidman testified in Nassau County Small Claims Court that Steinfeld told him about the gift inside the synagogue as his mom stood nearby.
"'And I'm going to give it to your mom to hold for you,'" Zeidman recalled.
Zeidman claims his mother never delivered the dough, despite a document with a handwritten note saying, "I owe Jordan $190 + $5,000 from Baba." Zeidman countered that she didn't recall writing the statement, but agreed "it could be" her handwriting.
Nassau District Court Judge Scott Fairgrieve found Shirley Zeidman liable for both conversion and unjust enrichment, awarding Jordan Zeidman a judgment for the $5,000 that his mom “held for [his] benefit and continues to hold, in violation of her fiduciary duty.”
Shirley Zeidman's lawyer, Jeffrey Schecter, said Fairgrieve’s ruling wasn’t supported by the evidence, and he will likely appeal.
—Source: nypost.com |
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Wednesday, September 30 2015 |
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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (“PETA”) is suing a wildlife photographer on behalf of a monkey.
According to news reports, photographer David Slater was taking pictures of macaques in Indonesia when he stepped away from his camera, and the curious monkeys took control of it and snapped some photos. One hilarious photo, dubbed "Monkey Selfie," was taken by a crested black macaque named Naruto and has become an Internet sensation, in addition to being included in Slater’s “Wildlife Personalities” book.
Now PETA is claiming that ownership of the “Monkey Selfie” belongs to Naruto and not Slater. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, PETA contends that "[w]hile the claim of authorship by species other than homo sapiens may be novel, 'authorship' under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., is sufficiently broad so as to permit the protections of the law to extend to any original work, including those created by Naruto."
Slater calls the lawsuit ridiculous. “I am obviously bemused at PETA’s stunt but also angry as well,” Slater said. “This makes animal welfare charities look bad which saddens me, deflecting away from the animals and onto stunts like this.”
—Source: cnn.com |
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Wednesday, September 23 2015 |
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A Florida woman is suing Volkswagen and car dealer AutoNation for $5 million over charges that Volkswagen rigged some vehicles to hide the level of emissions they produce.
Palm Beach County resident Lisa Lowrance has filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida claiming she spent nearly $27,000 on a 2013 VW Beetle that the AutoNation Volkswagen Delray dealership advertised as “clean diesel.” According to news reports, Lowrance said she would not have purchased the car had she known about VW’s “hoax” to install devices in its cars that limited emissions during government testing but not during normal driving.
Scott Schlesinger, Lowrance’s attorney, said in a statement. “Ms. Lowrance thought she was buying an eco-friendly car, when in fact she was unwittingly contributing to unlawful carbon emissions at up to 40 times the pollution allowed.”
“This suit [against AutoNation] has no merit,” Marc Cannon, chief marketing officer for Fort Lauderdale-based AutoNation, said. “We had no idea that any of this was transpiring at Volkswagen. We learned about this just like everybody else did through the media.”
—Source: miamiherald.com |
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Thursday, September 17 2015 |
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A Pennsylvania school district is being sued by a parent and two members of its board of education after the closing of an elementary school and redistricting led to one of the plaintiff's children riding the school bus for "an unreasonable extended period of time" and her two children attending YMCA after school programs at two different schools. According to the complaint, the parent-plaintiff, Mary Beth Ruck, will be burdened "with having to make a longer trip and an additional trip to pick up her children.
“It’s shameful that taxpayer monies and district resources are being diverted in order to defend this frivolous lawsuit,” said Michael Olszewski, school board president for the Moon Area School District.
The complaint also alleges that potential leases between the district and an educational resource center will preclude the district from reestablishing the site as an elementary school for potentially a long time. In addition, the complaint alleges that Moon Academy, a remediation program for middle and high school students, is an “alternative education program for disruptive youth.”
In June 2014, the Moon Area Board of Education voted to close Hyde Elementary at the conclusion of the 2014-15 school year due to excess capacity that was created when grade 5 was added to Moon Area Middle School.
—Source: moonarea.net |
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Wednesday, September 09 2015 |
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A New York City restaurant that recently changed its trendy menu from Paleo-heavy to vegan is being sued by its investors after regular CrossFit customers complained about the menu change.
Citing "personal beliefs", manager Kiki Adami, chef Paul Chang and fellow co-owner Alberto Gonzalez of GustOrganics in Greenwich Village switched the menu after watching several documentaries about what they believe is devastation caused by the global meat industry to the environment. According to news reports, the films led them to remove animal products from the menu, a move that infuriated its CrossFit customers who used the restaurant for their Paleo diets. Adami reported receiving 50 hate mails from CrossFit fanatics. "We were their go-to spot," said Adami.
A lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court alleges that the menu change has "damaged the reputation and sales of the business." Investors further claim that the company should have told them in advance of the restaurant's planned menu change.
Adami defended the move, saying the eatery made a profit this past June for the first time in three years.
“It’s bogus,” she said of the plaintiffs. “We were trying to save a sinking ship.”
—Source: nypost.com |
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