Here is our annual list of Halloween torts and crimes. This holiday remains a favorite for personal injury lawyers around the world and this year’s additions show why. Halloween has everything for a torts-filled holiday: battery, trespass, defamation, nuisance, product liability and more.
So, with no further ado, here is this year’s updated list of actual cases related to Halloween.
Continue reading “Spooky Torts: The 2015 List Of Halloween Litigation Horrors”
An older man at the Consol Energy Center may not be the ideal neighbor for your kids to visit on Halloween. The man stole a puck being tossed to the boy named Trey during the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Thursday night game against the Buffalo Sabres. It started as an act of kindness when the Sabres’ new head coach (and former Penguins head coach) Dan Bylsma noticed a small boy standing in the aisle just beyond the glass and tried to toss a hockey puck to him as a souvenir. That is when this man swooped in and snatched the puck.
Continue reading “Worst Person of the Week: Man Steals Puck Being Thrown To Boy At Penguins Game”
A former prosecutor in Ohio, Jason Phillabaum of Cincinnati, has had his law license suspended for a year after pleading guilty to adding a charge to a criminal indictment and then signing the document. Frankly, I am astonished that the Ohio bar considers this misconduct as warranting only a year suspensions as opposed to disbarment. This constituted not only the creation of a false indictment and false filing but the denial of basic constitutional rights and protections in our system. It is hard to image a more serious form of prosecutorial misconduct and yet he will be practicing again in Ohio in a matter of 12 months?
Those crazy guys from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia are at it again. The Saudi religious police have long been viewed internationally as menacing clowns who beat and arrest people deemed immoral under the country’s medieval Sharia law. Indeed, it is often difficult to distinguish the enforcement of Islamic values by the Saudis from stories in The Onion. This is another such case. Saudi Arabian actor Abdul Aziz Al Kassar has been arrested in a shopping mall for “taking selfies with female fans.” That’s right, satanic selfies.
Daniel Salata, 32, violated the first cardinal rule of interviews: Never incriminate yourself in any criminal conduct in the course of your interview. Most people seem to be able to navigate around possible crimes fairly easily but Salata not only opted to disclose a penchant for child pornography but did it in an interview for a job with the Mount Vernon Police Department. The result of the incriminating statements made in pre-employment screening has now led to his rapid introduction to the criminal justice system . . . as a defendant.
There is an interesting controversy brewing between academics and Jewish groups in Germany as the deadline approaches for the end of the copyright over Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, the book that laid the foundation for the Nazi takeover and ultimately the genocidal crimes of World War II. For seven decades, the copyright has rested with with Bravarian officials who have prevented the publication of the work. Now, academics are arguing that the book should be reprinted due to its obvious historical significance. However, Jewish and other groups are demanding a continuation of the ban on reprints.
Continue reading “Mein Copyright: Controversy Erupts Over The Reprinting Of Hitler’s Infamous Work”
In an unbelievably tragic story, the widow of a slain runner in Texas has committed suicide. Patti Stevens, 54, a physical therapist, was found dead of suspected suicide at her home in Sunnyvale after her husband, Dave, was slain by Thomas Linze Johnson, 21, a mentally ill former Texas A&M football player. The case is likely to raise serious mental capacity questions for Johnson who is reportedly schizophrenic as well as questions of whether the impact on Stevens (and her suicide) should be considered in any sentencing.
Continue reading “Widow Of Murder Victim Commits Suicide In Texas”
Carrie Pernula, 38, has a curious way of responding to what she considers pesky children and she is now the subject of an equally curious criminal case. The Minnesota woman reportedly confessed to send menacing notes to a family saying that she wanted to “taste” their children. She is now charged with stalking and disorderly conduct.
MSNBC weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry has drawn fire after objecting to a seemingly innocuous reference by a guest to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) as a “hard worker.” Harris-Perry suggested that the use of this term for someone like Ryan is insulting to people who once picked cotton or mothers without health care.
Continue reading “MSNBC Host Objects To Description Of Paul Ryan As “Hard Worker””
There is a new example of how free speech values are declining in England, particularly on college campuses this week. Students at Cardiff University launched an online petition trying to bar Germaine Greer, the Australian feminist author, from speaking at the school next month because of her views on transgender women. Rather than recognize that Greer has an opinion to share as part of the pluralistic academic forum, these students sought to bar her from sharing her views and engaging in a debate in the area. To its credit, the university has thus far stayed committed to free speech and refuses to bar Greer.
I am finally back in Washington after a wonderful trip to my old stomping grounds in New Orleans. I fell in love with New Orleans during my clerkship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and lived in the city as a faculty member at Tulane Law School. The city has bounced back after Katrina. Indeed, there are major improvements with a plethora of new shops and an ever-expanding World War II museum and other attractions. Hotels appear near capacity and the city is bustling.
Real Communists don’t golf. That appears the message this month from those brilliant Chinese Communist Party functionaries. The latest edict from the Party has banned all 88 million of its members from joining golf clubs or gyms. The move appears part of the latest anti-corruption campaign in China, which is targeting these clubs as common places for bribes and special dealing. Of course, it is little problem to achieve that same corruption deals at a restaurant or a Mah Jong parlor. However, the way that central planners think is that you can fight corruption by attacking a common place for corrupt discussions. It is akin to fighting insider trading by barring limousines.
Continue reading “Real Communists Don’t Golf: Chinese Party Bars Members From Joining Golf Clubs”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Sometimes drunk drivers by their actions seem to almost want to be arrested, and a woman in Lakeland, Florida allegedly made this all the more apparent.
Whitney Beall, police say, drove intoxicated while video streaming her actions via Periscope. Viewers of the video then telephoned 911 reporting a drunk girl was driving through town.
Police later discovered her and placed her under arrest. Video follows this article.
Certainly this is going to be a most difficult violation to defend.
Continue reading “Police Arrest Woman For Alleged DUI After She Used Streaming Video While Driving”
This is truly something that belongs in The Onion. Indeed, I had to double check to be sure that it was serious. China, one of the most oppressive nations on Earth, has given a human rights award to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, one of the most oppressive and corrupt leaders in the world. China continues its almost comical issuance of the Confucius Peace Prize, its answer to the Nobel Peace Prize. China was tired of the Nobel people giving a human rights price to human rights advocates, particularly Chinese dissents or the Dali Lama. So it created its own prize to give those hard-working dictators an opportunity to shine. So this year, China is honoring a man who has destroyed the economy of Zimbabwe, starved his people, oppressed dissidents, and maintained one of the most disgusting levels of corruption and personal excess of any dictator in the world. Vladimir Putin previously won the award. Last year the recipient was that great humanitarian Fidel Castro.
Our close ally, Egypt, continues to lay waste to free speech this month with the absurd sentencing of a Facebook user to three years in jail for simply putting Mickey Mouse ears on a picture of president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Amr Nohan was charged with an “attempt to overthrow the regime” for the comical Facebook posting and tried in a military court.