Verdicts & Settlements

Naked Cowboy’s Legal Suit Over CBS Soap Opera Character Is Found Lacking

A federal judge in Manhattan has reviewed a legal suit brought by a Times Square entertainer known as the Naked Cowboy and found it lacking. Robert John Burck had contended that CBS Corp. stole his shtick by including a similarly unclad character strumming a guitar in a Nov. 1, 2010…

Feb 24, 2012 6:35 PM CST

Model Who Said Her Skintight Outfit Showed She Wasn’t Armed Wins $1.2M in NYPD Excessive-Force Suit

A Manhattan jury awarded $1.2 million to a former Playboy Playmate yesterday—nearly $400,000 more than her lawyer had sought—in an excessive-force lawsuit she brought against the New York police department after a 2006 dispute with a cabdriver. Stephanie Adams, 41, initially called police to complain about the driver, who then…

Feb 22, 2012 7:45 PM CST

Juror Who Sent Defendant Facebook Friend Request and Joked About Being Booted by Judge Gets 3 Days

A Florida juror who sent a friend request to the defendant in an auto negligence trial on Facebook in December was dismissed from hearing the case as a result. But what apparently really got Jacob Jock into trouble was a subsequent Facebook post. The message: “Score … I got dismissed!!…

Feb 17, 2012 10:41 PM CST

Atheists Group Gets $1, Lawyer $388K as Utah Mulls Roadside Cross Alternatives for Slain Officers

After news that Utah has settled for nearly $400,000 a suit over roadside crosses placed to commemorate troopers slain in the line of duty, lawmakers and others are considering alternatives. Only $1 of the settlement will go to American Atheists Inc. and the three members who filed the federal civil…

Feb 17, 2012 10:01 PM CST

2nd Circuit Axes Espionage Conviction of Goldman Sachs Programmer Who Took Source Code to New Job

Apparently deciding that federal prosecutors overreached by charging a former Goldman Sachs Group computer programmer under a commercial espionage statute for taking source code he developed there with him to a new job, a federal appeals court in Manhattan has not only reversed the criminal conviction of Sergey Aleynikov but…

Feb 17, 2012 7:24 PM CST

Fined $14K in Fed’l Court for Frivolous Filings, Lawyer Is Suspended, Fined $21K by Top Fla. Court

Ordered by a bankruptcy judge to pay a $14,000 penalty for frivolous filings, in a sanction later upheld (PDF) by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a Florida attorney has now been suspended from practice for three months for the same conduct. The Florida Supreme Court order imposing the…

Feb 17, 2012 2:20 PM CST

Lawyer’s 25-Percent Contingent Fee for Getting Exonerated Clients Millions Not Proven Excessive

A judge trying a legal ethics case has ruled that the State Bar of Texas failed to prove attorney Kevin Glasheen charged excessively while obtaining millions of dollars in compensation for prisoners exonerated by DNA evidence. Glasheen, who is credited with persuading state lawmakers to raise the amount of yearly…

Feb 16, 2012 11:36 PM CST

Federal Judge’s Order Takes Swipe at Politicians Who ‘Demagogued’ School Prayer Case

A federal judge whose writing attracted a newspaper’s attention earlier this year is back in the news again, this time for taking a swipe at his critics. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio approved a settlement in a school prayer case last Thursday and added an unusual personal…

Feb 14, 2012 12:00 PM CST

Widener Settles Suit Filed by Law Prof Criticized for His Violent Hypotheticals

Widener University’s law school has settled a suit by a professor who claimed he was defamed when the dean criticized his violent hypotheticals. Terms of the settlement with law professor Lawrence Connell are confidential, report the Associated Press, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Delaware Online. He will not continue teaching at…

Feb 9, 2012 6:05 PM CST

$26B Foreclosure Settlement Announced After Holdout AGs Join Pact

Updated: State and federal officials have announced a $26 billion foreclosure settlement with five of the nation’s largest banks that was reached after two holdout attorneys general supported the deal. The pact announced today is the largest since a multistate tobacco settlement was reached in 1998, the Washington Post reports.…

Feb 9, 2012 12:44 PM CST

Federal Judge Nixes EEOC Breast Milk Pumping Case, Finds No COA re ‘Lactation Discrimination’

A federal judge in Texas says a mother was not protected by law from losing her job even if it’s true she was fired for asking to pump breast milk at work for her baby. “Lactation is not pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition,” and hence there is no…

Feb 9, 2012 12:01 AM CST

Lawyers Must Keep Representing Murder Defendant Who Won’t Communicate With Them, Judge Rules

It’s been at least a year since Jose Garcia-Morales communicated with his public defenders, if he ever did. But Shelley Ajax and Moe Spencer must continue to represent the 28-year-old murder defendant, a Washington state court judge has ruled, denying their motion to withdraw on the basis that the attorney-client…

Feb 8, 2012 5:48 PM CST

Lawyer Faces Ethics Case Over His Claimed Role in Dividing $1.6M Settlement Among Clients

Successful in obtaining $1.6 million in out-of-court settlements on behalf of 15 men who said they were sexually abused as teenagers by a Catholic priest serving as a prison chaplain at an Oregon reform school in the 1970s, a Salem lawyer now faces a legal ethics case over the manner…

Feb 7, 2012 4:30 PM CST

Full 2nd Circuit OKs Hefty Sanction for 2 Lawyers re ‘Cynical Delusion and Fantasy’ 9/11 Case

Local counsel beat the rap. But in an en banc ruling today, the New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that that two other lawyers involved in the filing of a 9/11 case described by a U.S. District Court judge as a “cynical delusion and fantasy” should…

Feb 2, 2012 10:24 PM CST

Both Sides Fire Parting Salvos as Runaway Grand Jury Probe of Texas DA’s Office Fizzles

After months of speculation, a runaway Texas grand jury that decided on its own to launch an investigation of the local district attorney’s office has issued a brief report blasting prosecutors but no indictments. It criticized the Harris County District Attorney’s office for allegedly investigating grand jurors and “unexpected resistance,”…

Feb 2, 2012 6:32 PM CST