February 2005

Dog Fetches at Wrong Time

Training your dog well can come back to haunt you, as Matt Porter of Richland Hills, Texas, found out on Monday. Porter, his friend Micah Hays, and another man had been stopped by Officer Cris Brichetto on Monday afternoon at…


Update: Virginia Low-Pants Legislation Dies in Senate

 Sadly, the Virginia Senate has already killed the low-pants legislation that passed the state House on Tuesday. After a standing-room-only hearing, a Senate committee voted unanimously to kill the bill, apparently having been embarrassed by news reports about it. Committee…


L.A. Jury’s Mistake A Mere $1.8 Billion

The latest reason to perhaps tinker with the jury system a bit comes to you (again) from sunny Los Angeles, where a jury awarded $1.8 billion (and change) to class members who had sued a Manhattan Beach man for fraud….



Valiant Legal Defense Fails to Save McMuffin Hurler

Scott Rodgers was convicted Thursday in Holland, Michigan, of misdemeanor assault and battery for an incident in October in which he threw an Egg McMuffin at a McDonald’s restaurant manager.  (Assault for threatening with the McMuffin, and battery for hitting…



Healthy Woman Evicted from Hospital Bed After Year-Long Stay

A Marin Superior Court judge ruled on Wednesday that Sarah Nome could be legally evicted from the hospital bed she has been occupying since January 2004. Nome, who is 82, was admitted to the Kaiser Permanente facility in San Rafael,…


Man Who Tried to Kill Pope Wishes Pope Swift Recovery

Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, sent the Pope a letter this week wishing him a quick recovery from his recent breathing problems. Agca was writing from a jail cell in Turkey, where he was…


How to Turn a $250 Job Into $15.6 Million

Sue in L.A. County, that’s how. In the latest (relatively) monstrous verdict from that jurisdiction, an L.A. jury awarded Russell Christoff $15.6 million dollars for the unauthorized use of his face on Taster’s Choice jars for seven years. Christoff had…