Tort Law

Banned from campus over ‘Hot for Teacher’ essay, college student loses free speech suit

A federal judge in Michigan has dismissed a free-speech suit filed by an Oakland University student who was banned from campus for several semesters after writing an essay about his attraction to his creative writing instructor. It was titled “Hot for Teacher” and described her as “tall, blonde, stacked,” the…

Jul 23, 2013 10:40 PM CDT

Ex-clients can seek emotional distress damages in legal malpractice case, top state court says

Iowa’s top court has, for the first time, OK’d potential emotional distress damages in a legal malpractice case. An immigration lawyer should have known that his inaccurate advice could cause severe emotional distress to his clients, an Ecuadorean couple who were separated from their children for a decade after following…

Jul 22, 2013 10:15 PM CDT

Judge OKs $1.6B pact in Toyota class action as trial begins in first wrongful death case

A record $1.6 billion settlement approved last week by a federal judge in Orange County, Calif., is only part of the potential liability that Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc. is facing as the first trial begins in more than 80 state court suits filed over alleged sudden-acceleration defects in the…

Jul 22, 2013 7:57 PM CDT

Lawyer uses copyright law to attack negative Web reviews

A Boston lawyer is using copyright law as a way to avoid a federal statute that grants immunity to website operators for third-party posts. Richard Goren persuaded Massachusetts courts to award him the copyright to posts on the Ripoff Report deemed libelous, and now he has filed an infringement suit…

Jul 19, 2013 3:18 PM CDT

Jaywalker handcuffed and put in police car was not arrested, city says in response to his civil suit

Stopped by a police offer in 2010 as he was admittedly jaywalking across a Portland, Ore., street, Scott Miller was handcuffed, placed in the back of a squad car and told he was under arrest. But he wasn’t actually arrested, the city is now contending in response to the federal…

Jul 18, 2013 7:45 PM CDT

Penn State OK’d $60M settlement with two dozen claimed Sandusky abuse victims, WSJ says

The trustees of Pennsylvania State University have OK’d a settlement of approximately $60 million with about two dozen claimed victims of sexual abuse by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. The university announced a settlement on Friday, but not the amount or the number of victims, and declined to comment…

Jul 18, 2013 3:30 PM CDT

Client who lost $6M to pin-up ex-wife sues lawyer for advising him to put money in wife’s name

Facing a $2 million clawback suit by the bankruptcy trustee in the Bernard Madoff case, an Atlanta entrepreneur says, he sought advice from the New York office of Becker & Poliakoff. They referred him to asset protection specialist Richard Cahan in the firm’s Miami, Fla., office, alleges now-former client James…

Jul 17, 2013 9:20 PM CDT

Lawyer’s demand-letter threat to reveal sexual liaisons was not extortion, appellate court says

Ruling in a case that has been closely watched by lawyers, a California appeals court held that a pre-litigation demand letter threatening to reveal an opponent’s sexual activities if he did not provide an accounting and return allegedly embezzled business funds did not amount to extortion. The opponent, former reality…

Jul 17, 2013 7:30 PM CDT

Federal judge OKs feds’ $5B suit against Standard & Poor’s, blasts ‘troubling’ defense of ‘puffery’

A federal judge in Santa Ana, Calif., has given the green light to a Department of Justice lawsuit claiming that Standard & Poor’s Rating Services fraudulently misrepresented its evaluations of companies as independent and objective. While U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has not ruled on the merits, he denied…

Jul 17, 2013 4:55 PM CDT

Apple’s lack of porn filter caused my addiction, lawyer says in product liability suit

A Tennessee lawyer has filed a federal products liability lawsuit against Apple Inc., contending that the company is strictly liable for selling “unreasonably dangerous or defective” electronic devices that lack pornography filters and do not adequately warn consumers about the dangers of surfing the Internet. Chris Sevier says in the…

Jul 16, 2013 4:40 PM CDT

Asiana drops planned suit against TV station that aired fake pilot names

Updated: Asiana Airlines has announced it will not sue a California television station that broadcast fake names of the pilots in the crash of Flight 214 that killed three passengers. Airline spokespersons had announced Monday that the airline had decided to sue KTVU-TV to “strongly respond to its racially discriminatory…

Jul 16, 2013 3:29 PM CDT

Law firm’s mailroom supervisor sent laminated erotic poem to subordinate, says harassment suit

A former mailroom supervisor at a Wall Street firm has been accused of sending an illustrated, laminated, erotic poem to a married woman he supervised. The allegations are contained in a sexual harassment lawsuit by a former employee of an outsourcing company for the firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, the…

Jul 15, 2013 10:15 PM CDT

Privilege protects in-house law firm communications about malpractice claim from client discovery

When a law firm faces a possible malpractice claim by a current client, confidential communications between the lawyers working for the client and designated in-house ethics counsel about how to handle the potential malpractice matter are privileged, providing certain rules have been followed, a top state court says. Attorney-client privilege…

Jul 11, 2013 12:30 PM CDT

Ex-Miss USA contestant must pay $5M to Donald Trump; judge blames her ‘poor choice of counsel’

A former beauty contestant must pay $5 million to Donald Trump for defaming his Miss USA pageant, a federal judge in Manhattan has ruled. Upholding an arbitration award, which determined that the well-known millionaire’s company had suffered a seven-figure loss from a potential sponsor after she resigned as Miss Pennsylvania…

Jul 8, 2013 7:25 PM CDT

Attorneys wonder if law firm break-in was politically motivated

Attorneys at a Texas law firm are wondering if a recent break-in could have been politically motivated. Hence, the partners of Schulman & Mathias have contacted not only Dallas police about the burglary at their firm but also the FBI, according to a Fox 4 News video and the Raw…

Jul 8, 2013 4:05 PM CDT