Verdicts & Settlements

Attorney and client fined $15K for frivolous appeal after lawyer didn’t recall arguments

A California lawyer says a former client either forged his signature or altered the content of some 25 filed documents in trial and appellate court and the Sacramento district attorney’s office has been investigating. But meanwhile a state appeals court on Wednesday imposed a total of $15,000 in sanctions on…

Jun 19, 2014 4:50 PM CDT

Woman convicted of filing fake $100B liens against former US attorney and others

“I don’t owe anyone $100 billion,” former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald testified in federal court in Chicago this week, and a jury apparently believed him. After testimony from Fitzgerald, a sitting federal judge and a current and former magistrate judge concerning $100 billion maritime liens allegedly filed by Cherron Phillips…

Jun 18, 2014 10:30 PM CDT

City faces suit over police stop based on license-plate reader error

As law enforcement agencies throughout the country move toward a world in which, it appears, government cameras, license-plate readers, public records and facial recognition technology will be combined with cellphone records to identify criminals before officers even see them, a California woman’s case serves as a reminder that old-fashioned police…

Jun 18, 2014 9:50 PM CDT

Prosecutor asks circuit judge to hold district judge in contempt over secret case dismissals

A prosecutor has asked a Michigan circuit court judge to hold a state district court judge in contempt for failing to disclose all of the domestic violence cases he handled. In a Tuesday complaint, Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper says 52nd District Judge Brian W. MacKenzie violated a February circuit…

Jun 17, 2014 8:20 PM CDT

Federal judge nixes receiver’s suit, says law firms aren’t ‘insurers of good behavior’ by clients

A federal judge in Georgia has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a receiver against an Atlanta law firm, finding that attorneys have no duty to blow the whistle on their clients. On the contrary, except in very limited circumstances, lawyers are bound by a duty of confidentiality to their clients,…

Jun 16, 2014 10:30 PM CDT

6th Circuit reverses $338K libel verdict for ex-Bengals cheerleader against website

A federal appeals court has reversed a $338,000 libel verdict awarded to a former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader. Allegations made on TheDirty.com about Sarah Jones were indeed defamatory, the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its Monday opinion (PDF). However, the company that operates the gossip site and…

Jun 16, 2014 10:05 PM CDT

LA to pay $215K to black man ejected and cited after wearing Ku Klux Klan hood to public meeting

The city of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $215,000 to a man who was kicked out of a governmental meeting in 2011 after wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and a T-shirt with a racial slur and being cited for disturbing a public assembly. Although the case against Michael…

Jun 16, 2014 6:50 PM CDT

Elevator conversation results in new trial for BP engineer convicted in Deepwater Horizon case

A federal judge in New Orleans on Thursday blasted defense lawyers in a high-profile criminal case for interviewing jurors after their guilty verdict. Doing so may have violated his instructions to the jurors not to discuss their verdict even after the trial had concluded, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr.…

Jun 13, 2014 11:45 AM CDT

Hung jury acquits defendant by mistake

Updated: After convicting a co-defendant in a California burglary case, a Fresno jury deadlocked 8-4 on the charges against Bobby Lee Pearson. However, he was acquitted Wednesday when the jury mistakenly signed a not-guilty form, reports the Fresno Bee. A third defendant earlier took a plea. Polled as the verdict…

Jun 12, 2014 4:10 PM CDT

Speeding motorcyclist busted by YouTube video and ankle monitor

A speeding motorcyclist who initially evaded police during a chase in the Chicago suburbs put on new twist on a daredevil practice of recording such incidents on camera. In addition to posting a video on YouTube, motorcyclist Hamza Ali Ben Ali was wearing a GPS ankle monitor during the 2012…

Jun 11, 2014 3:10 PM CDT

2nd Circuit OKs searchable book database, calls copying entire volumes for this purpose fair use

Copying entire books in order to create a searchable database of millions of volumes is a “quintessentially transformative use,” a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. Siding with a group of universities sued by authors alleging infringement, the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the full-text database…

Jun 10, 2014 10:25 PM CDT

A sweet federal court ruling for Mister Softee owners doesn’t prevent Master Softee ice cream sales

For the past decade, attorney Jeff Zucker says he has never lost a case on behalf of a client whose family began selling ice cream in 1956 from what is now an 18-state fleet of some 600 Mister Softee trucks. And, so far, his latest litigation, against a former franchisee…

Jun 10, 2014 2:55 PM CDT

$10.1B verdict against maker of light cigarettes in 2003 is resurrected and appealed

A St. Louis lawyer who succeeded in getting an Illinois appeals court to reinstate a $10.1 billion verdict against a maker of light cigarettes is fighting to preserve the judgment. Lawyer Stephen Tillery’s $10.1 billion verdict against Philip Morris in 2003 was a record amount in Illinois, the Chicago Tribune…

Jun 10, 2014 1:48 PM CDT

Judge fines man $50 for saggy pants despite lawyer’s claim they revealed gym shorts

Called up in front of a Pennsylvania district judge, told to turn around and then ordered to exit the courtroom and return after he’d pulled up his saggy pants, 18-year-old Adam Dennis complied. But a subsequent wardrobe malfunction the same day, in which his pants again descended to a level…

Jun 9, 2014 6:15 PM CDT

Federal jury awards $4.7M to Yemeni-born man named Osama who was taunted and punched at work

A manager of a women’s clothing store in Brooklyn, New York, testified that a security guard was just teasing when he referred to a Yemeni-born stock clerk named Osama Saleh as “bin Laden” and a terrorist, in an apparent reference to the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on…

Jun 9, 2014 5:05 PM CDT