2010 Legal Wrap Up Part I
December always brings an annoying slew of year end wrap-ups. Over the past 11 months, I’ve been so excited about this, I’ve flagged almost 30 different stories covering the best and worst in legal (and now that Avvo profiles doctors, a small sprinkling of medical) that I’m going to split this into two different posts.
Odd Websites
Strangest Site: Runnels Law – I can’t tell if this site is targeted towards the dungeons and dragons set or if she really wants Sigfried and Roy as clients.
Cheapest Site: Clark Balcom Law – which is nothing short of a low res image scan. At least he has a great Avvo profile.
Nastiest Assault Charge
Matthew Clemmens went above and beyond the call of duty to prove beyond a doubt that Philadelphia sports fans are the nastiest in the country when he deliberately vomited on a fellow spectator and his daughter. (Unfortunately for Clemmens, his victim turned out to be an off duty police captain.)
Its Not My Fault Award
Remember the woman who sued McDonald’s because her coffee was too hot? It’s a good thing she wasn’t reading Google Maps at the time, unlike Lauren Rosenberg, who sued Google in excess of $100,000 after being struck by a car while following directions from Google Maps.
Foreclosure Defense Batman
After foreclosures pushed him to financial ruin, non-lawyer Craig Cunningham, decided to get even with abusive debt collectors and now runs a side business luring debt collectors into violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Cunningham strikes back with lawsuits, providing some action for the 78,000 annual abusive debt collection complaints overwhelming to the Federal Trade Commission.
Star Wars Award Part I:
Remember the Star Wars Kid? Well he’s all grown up now and enrolled in law school this year. Be very afraid Vader.
Star Wars Award Part II:
Goes to Darth Vader for brazenly robbing a Long Island Bank – apparently he used a semiautomatic handgun instead of a lightsaber. (He also escaped via bicycle instead of Advanced TIE Starfighter.)
Trademark/Copyright Bullies
Honorable Mention: Goes to Lexis Nexis for forcing the shuttering of the Electronic Discovery Blog over legal threats around unauthorized publication of cases.
Bronze Medal: International House of Pancakes sued the International House of Prayer for “misappropriating the fame and notoriety of the household name IHOP.” Be careful who you mess with. Speaking of God, this year, The Lord Jesus Christ III was banned from the Clapp Memorial Library in Belchertown, MA for repeated bad behavior. The article reads like an odd Mad Libs. (That’s him on the left.)
Silver Medal: Godzilla, who threatened roadside barbecue restaurant Grill Zilla BBQ in Damriscotta, Maine. The small eatery is considering changing their name to Grill Zillaaaah to avoid further confusion. (only funny if you’ve ever lived north of Massachusetts.)
Gold Medal: Goes to South Korea who is filing a patent for the camouflage design of their new uniforms ostensibly to prevent Pyongyang from copying said pattern and confusing South Korean soldiers in the (increasingly likely) event of armed confrontation. Techdirt raises an interesting point: “if we’re talking about an army invading or infiltrating, one imagines that they wouldn’t have much concern about how they’re also infringing on the patent.”
Overworked Lawyer Award
This award goes to public defender Kristin Stahlbush of Toledo who billed the courts in Lucas County for more than 24 hours of work in a single day on at least three different occasions. She has since been suspended for two years (or 52 months).
Creepiest OBGYN Award
Dr. Red Alinsrod branded a patient’s name onto her uterus (clearly without consent). His reasoning? According to The Smoking Gun, it was “to avoid getting it confused with others.” Huh?
Thank God I Live In America
Iranian lawyer Mohammed Mostafaei represents Sakineh Ashtiani the woman who has been sentenced to death by stoning for allegedly committing adultery. Mostafaei was forced into hiding after the government’s response to the publicity around Ashtiani’s case. The Iranian government also detained members of Mostafaei’s family.
Consider also the case of Cheng Chunhui in China, sentenced to one year of hard labor for an anti-government tweet or . . . .
Asia Bibi sentenced to death by hanging for blasphemy in Pakistan.
We have a long way to go world.
I’ve got twelve more ready to go for next week . . . more than happy to take some suggestions.
December 16th, 2010 at 11:23 am
The MacDonald’s case is misrepresented above. The woman was seriously injured and the injury was compounded in corrective surgery and she became sexually disfigured. Worse, MacDonald’s already had known in house that their coffee was dangerously hot, but decided to opt for more sales and “take the risk”. Cases shouldn’t be reduced to the lowest common jingo–like the meaninglessness of much news. Did you know that BP had another big platform blowout in Azerbaijan? US press didn’t mention it. For American news you have to listen to foreign sources sometimes, like the BBC. Geez, America, wake up.
December 16th, 2010 at 11:32 am
I realize that the general public has grave misconceptions about the McDonalds “coffee burn case,” but this is a blog on a lawyer site, so it’s troubling to see that case compared to a groundless suit against Google in this forum.
While the general public uses the “coffee spill case” as a rallying cry for what’s wrong with the legal system, it was actually a very legitimate case where the person had very serious injuries caused by behavior of McDonalds that was completely out of step with what the rest of the industry was doing:
http://www.saynotocaps.org/op-ed%20page/The%20infamous%20coffee%20spill.htm
One other thing that is not mentioned in the story on the webpage linked above is the fact that McDonalds served its coffee so much hotter than everybody else in the industry purely because they had studied it and determined that the extra heat made it smell better. What’s also not mentioned is the fact that every McDonalds witness at trial apparently came off as callous and all seemed to actually believe that the better smell made the obvious danger of the extra heat worthwhile.
So, as lawyers, I’d hope at least we can get the facts straight about that case and avoid falling into the trap of criticizing our own system with that as the “evidence.”
December 17th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Oh, come on! I do believe McD’s should have paid reasonable Doctors’ fees if its negligence was a contributing factor to the woman’s injuries. However, the punitive damages were way out of line. Regardless of the facts, the McDonald’s Coffee Case has become a metaphor for the terrible human trait of ascribing blame being used to support attorneys who see a payday in such suits — regardless of the outcome in many cases.