This Product Contains 100% Something!
A reader noticed this label on a carpet: More specifically, this: My first thought was, how do they know? What if I can identify one of the fibers? Can I sue because I was promised a mystery rug? It turns…
Civil
WARNING: Peanut Shells May Contain Peanuts
Here's how utterly ridiculous this story is. In the UK, unshelled peanuts are called "monkey nuts," as depicted here, but although this story therefore involves people being "warned not to eat roasted monkey nuts," THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH BY…
No Damages for Embarrassment of Owning Three-Legged Dog
Hard cases make bad law, as the saying goes, but sometimes they are also stupid. Brown v. Swindell, a 1967 case out of Louisiana, is one of those cases where all the parties deserve some criticism, though the real creeps…
Bad News for Dog-Flinging Mascots
The case against the Kansas City Royals for negligence based on the acts of "Sluggerrr," the team's strange crown-headed lion-like mascot, has been reinstated by the Missouri Court of Appeals. If you've been following this story as I have, and…
Seismologists Convicted of Not Predicting Earthquake
Still dumb. (The Italian justice system, not seismologists.)
City Pays Protection Money to Stop Serial Litigant
Like California's "Unfair Competition Law," a favorite of consumers outraged by such things as sailors fraudulently marketing crunchberry-flavored cereal and soap that did not attract women as allegedly promised, disability-access laws are also frequently misused. Access for the disabled is a…
It Was the Curb’s Fault [Updated]
From a Courthouse News summary of a case recently filed in San Francisco, including a sentence presumably taken from the complaint: Paulina H. v. Flyers Energy LLC et al., CGC-12-525132 (S.F. Superior Ct. filed Oct. 15, 2012) Trip and fall. The unmarked raised…
Justin Bieber Wins First Round Against “Joustin’ Beaver”
Well, this exists: Needless to say, this drew a cease-and-desist letter from Bieber's lawyers, and the company selling the app responded with a declaratory judgment action against Bieber in Florida, where it's located. It portrayed the app as a "parody…
Joe Francis Only Human “Startled” by $40 Million Verdict Against Him
"Today, I am incredibly disappointed the jury grossly misinterpreted the facts presented in the courtroom," said the roughly human-shaped piece of slime mold frequently referred to as Joe Francis, after said jury tacked on another $20 million in punitive damages…
Order Overruling Objection to Motion Filed About Four Minutes Late
Specifically, four minutes and twenty-seven seconds. I’ve known about this order for a while now—it was issued in a case called Hyperphrase Technologies v. Microsoft Corp. in 2003—but was surprised to note (after somebody sent it to me today) that I…