Kansas

Truth Is Not A Defense On Twitter
(Or, why Phill Kline is a total tool.)

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I was born and raised in Kansas. No big whoop. That state is where I took my first dump, drank my first beer, and felt my first boob. So, y’know, lotta fine memories. It’s where I first embraced my own mediocrity, never rising above third chair in a middle school band that had four trumpets. I have stories in which hay bales feature prominently. The town I was born in, Manhattan, is nicknamed the Little Apple. The more cosmopolitan among us always get a kick out of that last one.

Yesterday, a research attorney for a Kansas Court of Appeals judge was fired for tweeting the sentiment you see in the headline above these words. She was fired for getting all fired up and telling the world what she thought about one of the more irksome characters to pass through Kansas jurisprudence in the past many years. Sarah Peterson Herr, the lady who was fired yesterday for the tweets, learned an invaluable life lesson. Namely, that truth is almost never a defense. That you cannot, and probably should not, speak the truth whenever the mood strikes.

Even if it is about a man who doesn’t know how to spell his own first name…

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(Or, why Phill Kline is a total tool.)”

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Quote of the Day: Actually, We’re Pretty Sure That’s Exactly What It Is

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How many times do we have to go over this?

I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection. I do think the factual record could be supplemented.

– Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, defending a citizen’s formal effort to keep Barack Obama’s name off the Kansas ballot, over concerns about the President’s birth certificate that just won’t die.

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Morning Docket: 08.09.12

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Judge Judy

* Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may be the oldest member of the high court, but she’s still one bad ass bitch. She broke two ribs in June, and still fulfilled all of her duties on the bench. We <3 RBG! [Reuters]

* While merchants will now be able to charge more when customers use credit cards, they might not get much else from this Visa / MasterCard settlement because of an American Express catch-22. [New York Times]

* The Garden State just got a little greener (in a sticky icky way): starting today, doctors in New Jersey will be able to register their patients for the Department of Health’s medical marijuana program. [Star-Ledger]

* After some highly questionable opposition from government officials, the city of Macon, Georgia, has approved the placement of a park bench in memory of slain Mercer Law grad Lauren Giddings. [Telegraph]

* Kansas Law received a $1M donation to support scholarships. The dean is thrilled, because the school will be able to compete to attract and retain students who will someday be unemployed. [Lawrence Journal-World]

* The verdict is in on who reigns as the highest paid TV personality. Even if you pee on her leg and tell her it’s raining, Judge Judy will be able to afford the dry-cleaning bill, because she’s loaded. [New York Daily News]

* Even if you’re a ho fo’ sho, that doesn’t mean you can’t do business in a ho-tel, mo-tel, or Holiday Inn. An Australian court ruled that denying prostitutes rooms was discriminatory. [International Business Times]

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Kansas Attorney Accused of Upskirting His Female Employees

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It’s been a while since we’ve used the “Creep of the Week” tag here at Above the Law, but today, we’ve got a lawyer whose alleged conduct is quite fitting for the title. Back in May, we briefly mentioned the activities of an alleged law firm panty peeper — an attorney — who according to a lawsuit filed last year, used an iPhone or an iPad to take upskirt photos and videos of his female employees while they were at work at his firm.

Now, just a few months after the allegations hit the news, that attorney has been dragged into criminal court and charged for his allegedly pervy predilections. Let’s find out more about the charges, and the allegations made against him in the lawsuit….

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Morning Docket: 06.01.12

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No, not that gavel...

* Dewey retired partners with unfunded pensions get a seat at the table for this bankruptcy circus? Yeah, but only because the U.S. Trustee did something unheard of and appointed a committee of former partners as creditors. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Yesterday was definitely a great day to be gay on the east coast. In addition to the First Circuit’s DOMA decision, a New York appellate court ruled that being called gay is no longer defamatory per se. [New York Law Journal]

* Milberg is the latest firm to dump Paul Ceglia of Facebook lawsuit fame, but Dean Boland, his other lawyer, says the Biglaw firm just “serve[d] as a distraction.” Somebody please give this man a dislike button. [Buffalo News]

* Humblebrag of the day by Judge Alsup of Oracle v. Google fame: he’s written lines of code “a hundred times before.” He also squashed Oracle’s API copyright infringement claims like bugs. [Courthouse News Service]

* Remember Kimberly Ireland, the Kansas attorney who falsely accused Judge Kevin Moriarty of waxing his gavel beneath the bench? She got a retroactive two-year suspension. [ABA Journal via Legal Profession Blog]

* Elizabeth Warren has confirmed that she told Harvard Law and Penn Law that she was a Native American, but only after she had been hired. She didn’t get any action of the affirmative variety, no sir. [Associated Press]

* Recent law school graduates are a little more desperate than we thought they were. At least 32 people have already applied for that BC Law job advertising a salary below minimum wage. [Boston Business Journal]

* Activision settled a lawsuit with two Call of Duty developers, but isn’t worried about an effect on its financials due to a strong third quarter performance. And you can thank your damn Elite packages for that. [PCMag]

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Urban Skittles: The Newest Dumb — And Possibly Illegal — Game Taking Kansas by Storm

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The other day, I became aware of the term “Yolo,” the hip new teen abbreviation for “you only live once.” It seemed to me the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time, and the most recent indication that I’m quickly becoming a curmudgeon who grumbles things like “hurr, hurr, kids these days,” right before I hobble off to use my typewriter and abacus.

Unfortunately, it took less than a week before I found out about an even stupider “trend” that bored suburbanites in the flyover states have taken a fancy to. If you thought planking was bad, you’ve clearly never heard of “Urban Skittles.”

Sounds tasty, right? WRONG. Think more along the lines of Dog Day Afternoon….

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Lawsuit of the Day: Kidnapper Sues Hostages for Breach of Contract

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Nice acid wash jeans.

You always hear urban legends (and some of them turn out to be real cases) about burglars who sue — and win against — homeowners for injuries sustained during the robbery. These are the kinds of cases that make you wonder how the justice system even functions, because you can literally sue for just about anything these days.

Oh, you fell through a skylight while you were attempting to burglarize a home and cut your arm? File a lawsuit! You tried to steal a television set from your neighbor and got bitten by his dog in the process? Time to litigate! So, what happens when you’re on the run and you decide to break into a couple’s home and hold them hostage?

Our latest pro se criminal litigant decided to up the ante. He’s suing his former kidnapping victims for breach of contract….

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Did Facebook Illegally Wiretap 150 Million People? Maybe! Probably Not

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Earlier this week, the federal government got some heat for allegedly violating the common man’s electronic privacy by snooping around in email and the like. Today we have a lawsuit from Kentucky accusing a tech company, specifically Facebook, of doing nearly the same thing.

What is going on? It’s almost like there’s no privacy anywhere anymore! (I’m kidding, of course: Privacy completely disappeared years ago.)

The suit, filed by an average Facebook user like you or me (well, most of you are lawyers, so not quite like you), claims a class of 150 million people, and damages of hundreds or thousands of dollars per class member. Exactly what heinous offense has Facebook supposedly committed?

I’m so glad you asked….

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Law Student of the Day: The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Gunners

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You’re sitting in class, listening to your professor give a lecture. On this particular day, the content of the lecture is pretty interesting. You’ve minimized your Facebook window, and you’re actually enjoying yourself. As the class winds to a close, you see, out of the corner of your eye, a hand shoot up into the air. Dear Lord help us all. The gunner strikes again.

Your professor calls on the gunner, who then launches into a five-minute diatribe about some obscure aspect of the law. Class is over, and your classmates quietly sigh and groan as they watch other students leaving their classrooms. Your professor continues to indulge the gunner’s drivel. You’re trapped. Your class runs over, you’re now late, and you’re pissed.

Has this ever happened to you? Don’t you wish that gunners would just disappear?

Today’s Law Student of the Day has an idea that, if set into motion, will revolutionize and forever change the law school experience. What’s his plan, and where does he go to law school?

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Federal Judge Benchslaps Plaintiffs’ Counsel: Stop Being Tools

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Judge Eric Melgren (D. Kansas)

A trial was scheduled to start in Kansas federal court on June 14, 2011. Defendants moved for a short continuance because one of their lawyers is expecting his first child on July 3. (The lawyer in question, Bryan Erman, is quite cute — check out that chin dimple.)

Plaintiffs’ counsel objected to the continuance — strenuously. This took Judge Eric Melgren by surprise. And not in a good way.

Judge Melgren granted the continuance — and took the opportunity to benchslap the lawyers who refused to consent….

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