Lawsuit of the Day

Potential Lawsuit of the Day: ‘Fountain Lady’ Might Sue the Mall

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A dry Cathy Cruz Marrero.

Hopefully everybody had a chance to see “Fountain Lady” before YouTube removed the clip. It’s the kind of thing that made YouTube famous: a woman is texting and walking and she falls right into a fountain at a mall.

It’s funny. And the woman walks away soaked, but unharmed.

Normally, that would be the end of the story. But in a classic example of a person who doesn’t understand how “the internet” works, Fountain Lady Cathy Cruz Marrero has decided to exponentially extend her own embarrassment by hiring a lawyer. She wants to know who allowed her watery tumble to become public, and bring them to justice.

What happens now? Well, unless Cathy Cruz Marrero gets elected president or something, the clip showing her falling into a fountain will be the first thing people see when they Google her name for all time.

And even though YouTube has now removed the clip, I’m about to link to it via any number of mainstream media reports now showing the footage…

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The Police Need to Learn That Tasers Don’t Help Diabetics

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Listen, little Johnny police officer, the Taser is not a toy.

As an overweight man, adult onset diabetes is one of the things that makes me consider dropping a few pounds. But I’m still so young, so invincible, that long-term health concerns aren’t really enough to stop me from having an extra helping of Christmas goose (not that I even know anybody who eats a freaking goose like some character in a Dickens novel).

But overaggressive cops beating the crap out of me because of the color of my skin? That is a real threat. That is a “health concern” I respect. I know that, for instance, I should never ever jog with a golf club if I want to avoid police suspicion.

I didn’t think that having diabetes could lead to a police beating. But according to a lawsuit filed by John Harmon against the sheriff’s department in Hamilton County, Ohio, that’s exactly what happened to him. Harmon alleges that the cops kicked the crap out of him because he was driving while having diabetes.

Driving with diabetes while being black, of course…

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Lawyer of the Day: Dad Badgers Little Girl into Quitting Hockey Team

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They take hockey pretty seriously up north.

Is there anything more pathetic than a “sports dad”? You know, one of those middle-aged losers who takes his kid’s athletic competitions way too seriously because he wants little Junior to “be a winner” — a title the father undoubtedly never achieved in his own life? I hate these punks, and if I ever have children I’m going to really enjoy heckling the sports dads who heckle children (then getting the living crap beat out of me, and suing their pants off for assault).

In my limited experience with the sports dad, I’ve generally assumed that higher education is a great tonic to this phenomenon. I think that if you’ve actually accomplished things in your life (or if you at least have the intellectual curiosity to read about people who have accomplished things in their lives), you come to understand that a kiddie sporting event isn’t something to get all worked up about.

So when I read this latest story about a dad menacing a pee-wee hockey team, I was dismayed to learn that the culprit is a lawyer. A tipster sent in the story with the subject line “more proof that lawyers are a**holes,” but I had thought that lawyers only behaved badly around childhood sports when some kid takes a puck to the face and the lawyer/parent tries to sue the entire league into the ground.

I didn’t know that lawyers would use their powers to humiliate and embarrass little girls who weren’t playing all that well…

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Legal Defense of the Day: New Car Smell Diminishes Your Capacity to Have A Soul

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You know the only thing worse than getting run over by some rich joker in a Mercedes-Benz? Getting run over by a rich joker in a Mercedes-Benz who gets a slap on the wrist because his Mercedes-Benz is a brand-new Mercedes-Benz.

Dr. Steven Milo knows that pain all too well. Our sister site, Dealbreaker, explains the situation:

Back in November, it was reported that last summer, Morgan Stanley financial adviser Martin Joel Erzinger… had driven over a doctor who was on his bike and then kept going, “until he reached a Pizza Hut parking lot, where he stopped and called Mercedes auto assistance to report the damage to his vehicle.”…

The part of the story that was somewhat more shocking was that rather than be slapped with serious to quite serious charges, a court decided that for his crime, MJE would be hit with two misdemeanor traffic violations and restitution to the victim. People were somewhat outraged, to say the least. But! That was prior to hearing all of Marty’s side of the story.

According to Erzinger’s defense lawyers, Erzinger suffers from sleep apnea, and that condition was exacerbated by the new car smell of his month-old Mercedes. And that all caused him to lose consciousness during the hit-and-run fiasco.

I knew having a new Mercedes was a status symbol; I didn’t know it was a designer drug…

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Lawsuit of the Day: YouPorn Sued for Sniffing its Users

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YouPorn logo

Image via Wikipedia

I’m not overly familiar with the popular porn spots around the Internetz, but I understand that a good number of people are big fans of the homegrown selections that can be found on YouPorn – essentially YouTube for naked, lascivious types. The site is currently the 72nd most popular site on the Web, according to people who rank that stuff.

Everyone’s turned on by different kinds of things. If you’re a YouPorn visitor, I hope you’re into being “sniffed.”

Last week, over at my list-loving home, I wrote about researchers who discovered that YouPorn is one of a number of sites that exploit a Web security flaw to look at visitors’ Web browsing history. Tech types call it “history sniffing” or “history hijacking.” (If you lust for the technical details of how YouPorn used Javascript to look at the color of visitors’ browser underthings, check that out here.)

YouPorn wanted to know what other porn sites its visitors had been unfaithful with, so it sniffed their browsers for a list of 22 other sexxxy sites. Looks like I’ve helped cause my first class action lawsuit. On Friday, two California men, miffed about getting sniffed, filed a complaint alleging cybercrime and violation of consumer law protections. They’re seeking class action status.

Any other classy YouPorn watchers want to hop on this one?

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Lawsuit of the Day: Woman Breaks Hand Trying to Wipe Bum

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I don’t remember the moment I first learned how to wipe my ass without hurting myself. I don’t think I received a special present or accolade for that momentous life event. But perhaps my parents did take notice in this way:

MOM: Our little boy just successfully wiped himself without incident!
DAD: Good. Maybe you were right when you prevented me from taking him out back and shooting him.

The point is that successfully using toilet paper is a basic skill in civilized society. If you have an accident while administering toilet paper to yourself, it’s the kind of thing you really want to keep to yourself.

Unless, of course, you think you can get money out of the mishap. America baby, the only place where hurting yourself while performing basic hygienic practices can lead to a tort payday.

A Michigan woman broke her hand while trying to get toilet paper out of a dispenser in a restaurant bathroom. And now the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that her case can be presented to a jury….

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Lawsuit of the Day: Doctor Sues Restaurant for Not Educating Him About Artichokes

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This is an artichoke. Warning: don't eat the whole damn thing.

Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke.

– Margo Channing (Bette Davis), All About Eve

Warning: consumption of artichokes can be hazardous to your health. Especially if you eat the entire thing, leaves and all.

This is a lesson that Arturo Carvajal, a doctor in Miami, learned the hard way. According to Dr. Carvajal, in May 2009 he ate at a Houston’s restaurant in Miami Beach, where he ordered the grilled artichoke special. Having never eaten an artichoke before, he ate the whole thing — including the tough, practically inedible outer portion of the leaves.

After doing so, Dr. Carvajal experienced… tummy trouble. One “exploratory laparotomy” later, he learned that he had artichoke leaves stuck inside his bowel. Oy.

Now, Dr. Caravajal is suing….

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Lawsuit of the Day: Parents Sued By Man Who Killed Their Son

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No helmet could have saved Matthew Kenney.

On occasion, I get accused of “blaming the victim.” I think that’s unfair. Really, I think I just know the difference between “suicide” (which is something you do to yourself) and “homicide” (which is something somebody does to you).

For instance, if you purposefully ride your bike off of a cliff, that’s a suicide. If, on the other hand, you are riding your bike and minding your own business, and somebody plows into you at 83 miles per hour and you die, that’s a homicide. Somebody killed you.

If the person who ended your life later turns around and sues your parents for allowing you to be killed by a motor vehicle traveling 83 miles per hour, that is blaming the victim.

And that is precisely what a convicted manslaughterer, David Weaving, is doing to the parents of Matthew Kenney. He’s filed a $15,000 counterclaim against the Kenneys from the lunacy of his own jail cell…

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Lawsuit of the Day: Parent Sues School for Teaching His Daughter About Slavery

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There is nothing I hate more than people who try to use the law to change the facts of history or science. I hate when Creationists try to take their Sunday School teachings into science class. I hate when Confederates try to retell the “War of Northern Aggression” in a way that ignores the abject racism that started the entire conflict. And I hate when parents sue because history textbooks aren’t sanitized to include enough bunny rabbits and rainbows when they are educating children about slavery.

That last thing is new. I only realized parents like this existed when I read a story in the Macomb Daily (gavel bang: ABA Journal). Apparently an African-American parent got angry over “outrageous statements” in a textbook used in his daughter’s class. The outrage: the textbook used the n-word… in the context of teaching children about the history of slavery in this country.

He claims his daughter was traumatized by the book, and he’s seeking more than $25,000 damages from the school.

Please God, let’s hope he doesn’t get it. Everybody should be “traumatized” by slavery when they first hear about it in grade school. It was a goddamn traumatic thing to put people through. And we can’t live in a world where that trauma is banished from our history books….

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Nelson v. Jones Day: Another Side to the Story

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Earlier this week, we brought you the story of Nelson v. Jones Day — a discrimination lawsuit filed against Jones Day by Jaki Nelson, an African-American woman who worked at JD for almost 18 years. Some of the allegations in Nelson’s complaint — use of racial slurs by firm partners and administrators, sex scandals, and rampant bullying — were salacious and incendiary. If you haven’t already done so, read more about them in our earlier post.

As litigators well know, however, there are two (or more) sides to every story. And this lawsuit is no exception.

(We’re reminded of Aaron Charney’s lawsuit against Sullivan & Cromwell, alleging anti-gay discrimination. Based on the same reporting, some viewed that lawsuit as Philadelphia: The Sequel, while others saw it as an oversensitive and entitled associate suing a firm with no anti-gay bias — and numerous gay partners and associates.)

After we published our post, sources came forward to defend Jones Day and the lawyers mentioned in the complaint — and to dish dirt on the plaintiff, Jaki Nelson….

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