Ridiculousness

Foxy Brown Gets Nailed for Manicure Tantrum

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foxy brown 2.jpgLast week was marked by a flurry of celebrity legal woes. And the trend continues — even if the latest “celebrity” to get busted is pretty C-list.

[Rapper] Foxy Brown was sentenced Tuesday to three years’ probation for a fight with two nail salon employees, finally ending an assault case that dragged on for more than two years. Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, tried to withdraw her guilty plea, but a judge said the agreement was legitimate and imposed the sentence.

We love it when wire service reporters write, in sober and measured terms, about colorful characters doing crazy things:

Brown pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault charges in August for kicking one employee and smacking a second worker in the face on Aug. 29, 2004, in an argument over payment for a manicure….

Brown, whose albums include “Ill Na Na” and “Chyna Doll,” is known for her revealing outfits and raunchy lyrics. Under the plea bargain, she is also required to take anger management classes.

Our curiosity piqued, we looked into the specifics of the underlying dispute. From Gothamist:

Apparently Brown wanted a manicure and pedicure, but only got a manicure, and freaked out when she was charged for both… Then the employees locked her in, asking for the money, and Brown may or may not have hit one of them with a cellphone, leading to a hospital trip.

Wrongful denial of a pedicure is no laughing matter. What kind of pedicure was it? If it was Bliss’s hot milk and almond pedicure, all charges against Brown should be dismissed. That treatment is heavenly!
Foxy Brown Sentenced to 3 Years’ Probation [Associated Press]

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Non-Sequiturs: 10.23.06

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guitar electric guitar.jpg* For those of you hipsters moaning about gentrification in your respective cities (but really, where is this clamor louder than in New York City?), is this what you mean by “keeping it real”? [New York Daily News via Althouse]
* While we all know what happens to pedophiles in jail, this guy should at least be thankful he didn’t find himself on the receiving end of Chris Hansen’s indignant gaze on national television. [New York Law Journal (free access available for only one more week)]
* Anything to avoid the future in-laws. [MSNBC]
* Judging from your response to our round-up of Craigslist postings, we know you’ve also partaken of those delightful “Missed Connections” on more than one occasion. Fodder for a future Non-Sequiturs. [Kizmeet]
* Is this any stranger than women applying mascara in the car? Yeah, someone should put a warning on mascara. And, as a sidenote, how cute is it that Professor Childs hosts an indie kids’ music show with his own kid? [TortsProf Blog]

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Coming Soon: Intergalactic Immigration Practice

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glacier.jpgThe Legal Reader brings us the interesting news that various California law firms are forming “Global Warming Practice Groups”:

Soon after California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced he was suing carmakers over vehicle pollution, and the state passed a new law to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman announced it was putting together a new climate change and sustainability practice group. And Morrison & Foerster announced an event to discuss the new Global Warming Solutions Act. . . .

[N]either Pillsbury nor MoFo has hired anyone for the new climate groups. But both are earnest about what they call a burgeoning new area and say they’re anticipating client needs by connecting previously disparate disciplines.

Sounds like some people have watched An Inconvenient Truth a few too many times.
Seriously speaking, we are not questioning the reality or the science of global warming (since we disclaim any knowledge of science). All we are saying is that (1) given the pace at which global warming would be taking place, it’s perhaps a little premature to be forming practice groups around it; and (2) if global warming is in fact taking place at a super-rapid pace, we should be more concerned about the survival of the human race than about its legal ramifications.
This pretty much sums up our view:

“People tend to get ahead of themselves, seeing the next arena,” [environmental lawyer Joseph Armao] said. “Heller Ehrman will be the first to form a group — we’ll call it the global warming cooling-off group — if the state of California continues to file lawsuits along the lines of Lockyer’s misguided lawsuit.”

As Climate Changes, Large Firms Look at Global-Warming Practice Areas [The Recorder via The Legal Reader]
Warming Practices Heat Up [Volokh Conspiracy]

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Morning Docket: 10.19.06

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football 2.jpg* Yet another lawsuit against Cracker Barrel, and again it has nothing to do with how greasy and soggy the omelets are. Just saying. [CNN]
* Banning fun? They’re turning grade school into law school! [CNN]
* You’ve already heard about the melee between FIU and Miami (FL). But check out this Ivy League brawl, which brings to mind an old Onion article. [MSNBC]
* Keith Olbermann: “And if Justice Kennedy tries to change us back, we can always call him an enemy combatant.” Professor Turley lays the smack down on executive agrandizement and the new habeas law. [MSNBC]
* Note to self: if you agree to sell something for $139 million, don’t bring your buddies up to check it out during a party. But if you must, make one of those buddies a superlawyer. [WSJ Law Blog; DealBreaker]
For you fantasy football tip-seekers, see you after the jump…

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Professor Jack Chin Can’t Break Boards With His Bare Hands

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And he wants to be damn sure you know that.
Here’s a fun little video clip from The Daily Show. A quick intro, from the ATL reader who brought it to our attention:

On a recent episode of The Daily Show, they discussed a proposal, by local politicians in Arizona, to “incentivize” citizens to vote. Under the plan, any citizen who votes would receive a ticket for a lottery, with a grand prize of $1 million. The lottery would be open only to voters: if you don’t vote, you lose out on your chance to win the million bucks.

The Daily Show spoke with Jack Chin, a law professor from the University of Arizona, who argued that such an incentive would be illegal. He has an LLM from Yale (maybe you know him).

Given his East Coast pedigree, you’d think Chin would “play along,” i.e., have a clue as to how an interview with a Daily Show correspondent would go. But Chin was utterly clueless, and correspondent Dan Bakkedahl took this Yalie to town. By the end of the interview, Chin looked completely flustered, and he didn’t quite get that he was being made a mockery of.

We’re a bit surprised that a Yale-trained law prof wasn’t more down with how the Daily Show works. But we’re afraid our reader’s summary of the proceedings is basically accurate. Here’s the clip; you can judge for yourself:

Daily Show: Would You Vote For A Million Bucks? [YouTube]
Gabriel J. Chin bio [University of Arizona Rogers College of Law]

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Lawyer Kid Anecdotes: A Little Girl With Chutzpah

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baby on board.jpgOur latest story comes from a parent who is willing to be publicly identified. (ATL’s default rule is anonymity.) It’s from Nicole Black, author of the excellent Sui Generis blog.
This anecdote goes to show that the children of attorneys, like so many attorneys themselves, are quite good at ignoring evidence contrary to their positions, or offering up arguments with less-than-airtight logic. Here it is:

My four-year-old is adamant that she doesn’t want another child in the family. She’s of the opinion that one younger sister is more than enough, thank you very much.

Recently, when the possibility of another sibling came up, she explained that when we have lots of company, there wouldn’t be enough room at the kitchen table and we’d have to “put the baby outside on the deck.” She quite conveniently forgot about the dining room table.

On another occasion, she explained to my husband that we couldn’t have another baby since “that car that just drove by only had two kids in it.”

Well there you go. Talk about great logic. She sure convinced me.

Okay, perhaps that’s not the most persuasive argument we’ve ever heard. But at least she’s only four; she has lots of time to hone her logical reasoning. We’ve heard contentions of similar ridiculousness from attorneys ten times her age.
Earlier: Previous Lawyer Kid Anecdotes (scroll down)

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Because $7 Million a Year Isn’t Enough for Them

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goldmansex goldman sex goldmensex goldman sachs.JPGPartners at top investment bank Goldman Sachs take home an average of $7 million a year. But not content with that, they’ve decided to chase after a small businessman, who’s just trying to make an honest living.
From the WSJ Law Blog:

[Goldman Sachs is involved in an] ongoing battle with Goldman Advertisement BV, a Netherlands-based adult-entertainment directory…. Goldman argued [in a National Arbitration Forum proceeding] that goldmansex.com would cause confusion and contained links to objectionable “adult” material. The NAF agreed with the investment bank, and goldmansex.com is no more.

Say it ain’t so! Who would confuse the world’s leading investment bank with a porn providers’ directory? (Our big brother blog, which covered this story back in July, agrees.)
“Goldman” is a last name that strikes us as pretty generic, and “sex” is, well, sex. GS’s position strikes us as weak, whether viewed from a cybersquatting or trademark law perspective. And there’s more:

Rob Muller, the owner of goldmansex.com, tells the Law Blog in an email that the name has nothing to do with the investment bank; instead, it came from his nickname “Goldman,” which his friends gave him because they “thought I was always lucky in my life.”…

After the NAF ruling, Muller pressed his luck and continued to use another domain name it owned — goldmEnsex.com (emphasis added). Last week, according to Muller, he received a fax from the NAF informing him that Goldman Sachs had started a new proceeding against his company.

Frivolous litigation arbitration. Why can’t the banking behemoth just laugh it off, and let poor Rob Muller go on his merry way? Consider this:

“Goldmansex was in a completely different business than GS, with no chance of confusion, we were not referring to Goldman Sachs on our website, the site had a complete different look and feel and we own a valid trademark in the domain name,” says Muller. “The only similarity between Goldman Sachs and Goldmensex is the verbal equivalence.” He adds: “Furthermore Goldmensex is not a porn site; it is an advertisement portal for adult entertainers offering information very similar to information offered by Google and Yellow Pages.”

And the verbal equivalence isn’t even that great. “Goldman Sachs” sounds like “Goldman Sex” only if you pronounce it with a really heavy Russian accent.
This is so wrong. Rob Muller needs your help, ATL readers. Anyone looking for a good pro bono [sic] project?
After Taking Down Goldmansex, Goldman Takes On Goldmensex [WSJ Law Blog]
There Is No Sex in Goldman Sachs [DealBreaker]

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Writing Mean Stuff About People on the Internet: It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses $11.3 Million

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big mouth.jpgThis news comes as a bummer to anyone who writes for the internet:

A Florida woman has been awarded $11.3 million in a defamation lawsuit against a Louisiana woman who posted messages on the Internet accusing her of being a “crook,” a “con artist” and a “fraud.”

Legal analysts say the Sept. 19 award by a jury in Broward County, Fla. — first reported Friday by the Daily Business Review — represents the largest such judgment over postings on an Internet blog or message board. Lyrissa Lidsky, a University of Florida law professor who specializes in free-speech issues, calls the award “astonishing.”

We agree. Eleven million dollars? You can call us whatever you like for that kind of money.
Granted, the defendant — Carey Bock, a Hurricane Katrine victim who couldn’t afford a lawyer — lost on the issue of liability because she never showed up for trial. But a jury did consider the issue of damages, before deciding to award plaintiff Sue Scheff this staggering sum.
Eleven-point-three million? Most wrongful-death awards that are smaller than that. And it’s not like Scheff is some movie star who can no longer command $10 million a picture because someone called her a child molester on a blog. She’s just a small business owner whose ex-client said some negative things about her on a random website. Jeez.
Jury Awards $11.3M Over Defamatory Internet Posts [USA Today via How Appealing]

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The Runaway Bride Chases After Money — And Ugly Furniture

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gold sofa golden sofa.jpgOur long national nightmare is not yet over. Jennifer Wilbanks, aka “The Runaway Bride,” is making headlines once again.

The “runaway bride,” who took off days before her lavish wedding in 2005, is suing her former fiance for $500,000, claiming he defrauded her out of her share of their assets.

Jennifer Wilbanks is seeking $250,000 as her share of a home she says John C. Mason purchased through the partnership with proceeds from $500,000 received for selling their story to Regan Media in New York.

Leaving your fiancee high and dry at the altar, disappearing for several days, and telling the police a phony story of abduction and sexual assault are pretty bad things. But the lawsuit has brought to light an even greater transgression:

[L]etters included as exhibits in the lawsuit show that the former couple has been in dispute over personal property Wilbanks claims Mason has kept. The items include a ladder that belonged to her father, a gold-colored sofa, a new vacuum cleaner and wedding shower gifts.

A “gold-colored sofa”? Quelle horreur! Did they go dumpster-diving at Trump Tower?
Yet Wilbanks, who presumably registered for or picked out said sofa, wants it back. And that, in our book, is a capital offense — against good taste.
‘Runaway Bride’ Sues Her Former Fiance [Associated Press]

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Lawsuit of the Day: Skimping on the Scampi?

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shrimp and scallop verdura.JPG

Photo and caption from the St. Petersburg Times. We adore the earnestness with which they’re reporting this story.
We’re sorry to be arriving late to the party on this one. So if you’re already familiar with this story, then just skip this post. But if not, read on — it’s well worth your time.
From the St. Petersburg Times (via How Appealing):

Ralph Paul’s story began on March 31 when he and his girlfriend ate at Angellino’s Italian Restaurant in Palm Harbor. Paul ordered the shrimp and scallop verdura.

Since the item wasn’t listed as a pasta dish even though the menu said it came with pasta Paul believed the majority of the dish would be seafood. He said he was surprised to see only five shrimp and five scallops, all of which were “bite-size.”

Paul ate the shrimp and scallops, then poked around the dish for more seafood and, after finding none, asked the server to take the dish back and remove it from his bill.

A manager and owner told Paul he had to pay the entire bill. Paul and his girlfriend believed both were hostile toward them. Paul offered – five times, he said – to pay for some of the $15.99 meal, but the manager and owner demanded full payment.

Paul said he believed the situation was getting heated, so he left a few dollars on the table for a tip, walked briskly out of the restaurant, got into his silver BMW convertible and left. Someone at the restaurant got his tag number and called sheriff’s deputies.

The $46 bill Paul didn’t pay included his girlfriend’s mussels marinara, iced teas, dessert and coffee.

Wow — truth really is stranger than fiction. The Onion couldn’t do better. So what happened next?
Find out, after the jump.

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