Lawsuit(s) of the Day Potpourri

Lat’s at NALP – 2011. If you don’t believe me, see Above the Law, April 26, 2011.

If he was here, maybe we’d have the resources to give each of these entertaining lawsuits the full posts they deserve. Instead, it’s just me, and I’m a little pressed for time now that Harvard has decided to release the transcripts of every black person ever admitted so it can prove that we were all more deserving than George W. Bush.

So we’re going to have to tackle three fun lawsuits in one post. Breathe deep and smell of funny, my friends…

I’ll start with the lawsuit that most directly impacts our law student readers, even though it is happening in Spain. CNN reports that a 25-year-old man has been ordered to leave his parents’ home and find work. The man had sued his parents for a $588 monthly allowance and, you guessed it, was studying to be a lawyer:

The man from Andalusia in southern Spain had taken the court action demanding a monthly allowance of $588 after his parents stopped giving him his spending money unless he tried to find a job.

However, the judge told the man, who has not been named in court documents, that he must leave his parents’ house within 30 days.

The judge said the man was studying law, albeit at a slow rate, and would probably not complete the degree for several years, but he thought he was still capable of finding some kind of work.

I wonder how this case would play out in America. You know, if the man had wanted to be like a painter or something, but the parents told him to go to an American law school because he needed a reliable fallback career or whatever, the man might have a claim under section 90…

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Moving on from students to practicing attorneys, here’s how real lawyers use their law degrees. From the ABA Journal:

A Florida lawyer known for his work on drunken-driving cases has sued a Miami strip club alleging that it charged nearly $19,000 on his credit card in November 2010 when he was too inebriated to enter into a contract…

At one point, the lawsuit alleges that the defendant club, Goldrush, and its owners “knowingly and continuously served plaintiff alcoholic beverages to the extent that he was rendered intoxicated, partially or temporarily unconscious, and further to the extent that he had a complete loss of judgment, rational thought, or the ability to enter into a lawful contract or agreements.”

I bet this guy has used the “[I] had a complete loss of judgment, rational thought, or the ability to enter into a lawful contract or agreements” argument before, but if his wife didn’t believe him, I don’t see why the court should. In the alternative, the plaintiff should argue to get his favorite stripper’s ass listed as a Schedule III narcotic.

Finally, where my race-baiters at? From Ad Week:

The mother of a 6-year-old girl whose photo appeared on an anti-abortion billboard targeting African Americans is suing the ad company that created the campaign, claiming it violated the terms her contract.

The controversial ad, which initially caused a stir in February, featured Anissa Fraser, 4 at the time, in a sun dress and the warning, “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.”

Sponsored

This doesn’t surprise me in the least. It illustrates the classic thought process: force mothers to carry their babies to term, disappear when the “post-birth” children show up and need money. I’m sorry, but people who really care about children don’t screw four-year-olds.

In any event:

Tricia Fraser, the mother of Anissa, says in the suit that she never agreed to have her daughter’s image associated with “an offensive, defamatory, and racist statement.” She said that she only signed a release allowing her daughter to be photographed for stock “family photos.”

The photo was purchased by Heroic Media from the photo agency Getty Images with the agreement that it would not be used “in connection with a subject that would be unflattering or unduly controversial to a reasonable person,” a condition that she charges Heroic violated.

Heroic Media developed the ad for the Christian group, Life Always. But I’ll make Life Always a deal: if they want to post a picture of me, lights on, having sex with a white woman, while I flip the bird to a police officer, in front of the Alamo, while Tiger Woods holds up a copy of my birth certificate, under their Life Always tagline, they can go right ahead. I won’t charge them or anything.

Judge orders 25-year-old man to leave home and find job [CNN]
DUI Lawyer Sues Strip Club, Says He Was Too Drunk to Agree to Nearly $19K in Charges [ABA Journal]
Mother of Girl in Controversial Abortion Billboard Sues [Ad Week]