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…



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…