John Goodman, 48, appears to have come upon a legal strategy that clenches the title of the worst person in the world. Goodman, the wealthy founder of the International Polo Club Beach in Wellington, was arrested after he killed Scott Patrick Wilson, 23, while driving drunk. Facing a civil lawsuit from his family, Goodman has legally adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend, Heather Laruso Hutchins, as his daughter to protect some of his money.
Category: Torts
We have previously seen stories of the banning or threatening dogs by Muslims who believe that all dogs are “unclean” and an afront to Islam. Now, Hasan Küçük, a Turkish-Dutch representative on The Hague city council for the Islam Democrats, has called for all dogs to be banned from The Hague, the third-largest city in the Netherlands.
Continue reading “Dutch Politician Proposes Ban On Dogs In Hague As “Unclean” Under Islam”
The Economist just published an amazing chart of “Two Thousand Years In One Chart.” However, the most interesting claim is this: “[o]ver 23% of all the goods and services made since 1AD were produced from 2001 to 2010.” That is from the first product (the fig leaf outfits of Adam and Eve to last year’s Britney Spears CD).
Continue reading “Study: Over 23% of All Goods Created Since 1AD Were Made Between 2001 and 2010”
The South African government has long been accused of mixed efforts in combating AIDS despite the country having one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. Now the government is accused of handing out more than a million free condoms at the African National Congress centenary celebrations that are defective and leak.
This week’s most frivolous lawsuit was filed by Dr. Randeep Dhillon of Bakersfield on behalf of himself and Bol Punjabi All Regions Community Organization in California. Dhillon is suing Jay Leno for showing a picture of the Sikh holy shrine Golden Temple in Amritsar, India as the image of Mitt Romney’s summer home. The obvious parody is entirely protected but Dhillon has claimed that it constitutes libel.
Continue reading “Sikhs Sue Leno Over Joke Involving Sacred Temple”
In Texas, investigators are demanding answers from Dallas meat-packing company Columbia Packing Company after photos appeared to show the company dumping pig blood into the Trinity River. The case raises some interesting legal questions.
Continue reading “Texas Company Accused Of Dumping Pig Blood Into River Used For Recreation”
One can certainly understand why victims of the recently wreck of the Costa Concordia were a little put out by a recent offer. The company, owned by Carnival, called to offer them a 30% discount on their next Carnival cruise after 12 people died on the last voyage and 20 are still missing. Truly savings to die for. For crash victims, it is like Ford’s Theater offering Mary Todd Lincoln “buy two, get one free” ticket deal on the next performance of “Our American Cousin.”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Cheryl Jones was attending services at the Disciple Fellowship Christian Church of East St. Louis, Illinois, when a female parishioner received the Holy Spirit. When she fell, she knocked over others in a domino effect. Jones was knocked to the floor and several people fell on top of her. Jones alleges she suffered injuries to her head, neck, back, and buttocks.
In Florida, Melbourne police Officer Derek Middendorf is accused of beating a 66-year-old man suffering from dementia. A dash camera shows Middendorf delivering a kick to the stomach of Albert Flowers, then punching him after Flowers falls to the ground. The video also shows another officer running over and tasing Flowers in the face. The beating left Flowers in the hospital for a month. Yet, the police department only issued a written reprimand for one of the officers turning off the dash camera and audio equipment. A written reprimand. That’s it.
Bed, Bath, & Beyond is recalling its metal tissue boxes after California health officials found a shipment to be radioactive. The boxes made in India appear to have been made from metal irradiated with cobalt-60. The “Dual Ridge Metal Boutique tissue boxes” are not exactly weapons of mass destruction but they do present a health risk.
Continue reading “Bed, Bath & Beyond Tissue Boxes Found To Be Radioactive”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Almost four weeks ago I read an article in Huffington Post entitled: “Can Loving A Robot Lead to Divorce?” by Vicki Larson, a journalist. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vicki-larson/robots_1_b_1150679.html Ms. Larson introduces her piece by quoting the claims of a current manufacturer of anatomically correct “sex robots”, who presumably speak and move in sexual ways. I followed the article’s link to the website of the robots inventor, Douglas Hines, who enthusiastically discusses his creation and has a few videos (non-explicit) that demonstrate the robot’s “capabilities”. While the HuffPost article links the Company’s website, I’m not doing it here, since publicizing this device is not my aim. Should you want further information it is available at the articles link. The “sex robot” being produced now is but an update on inflatable sex toys, though with a “skeleton”, rudimentary movement and speech added. It therefore is only an opening reference to a real issue that will shortly become scientifically possible.
The next part of this short article is an overview with of the opinion of Artificial Intelligence Expert David Levy http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=humans-marrying-robots “It also may be the future of love and marriage, if you believe artificial intelligent (AI) expert David Levy, author of Love and Sex With Robots. According to Levy, human-robot sex, love and marriage is inevitable — perhaps as soon as 2025. He predicts that robots may not only be more lovable and faithful than many humans, but they may even be more emotionally available than the “typical American human male.” Not only will they make us become better, more creative lovers, but they also will offer those singles who feel a void in their emotional and sexual lives and married couples with differing sexual needs new, nonjudgmental ways to be happy and healthy. Although Levy believes that the “availability of regular sex with a robot will dramatically reduce the incidence of infidelity as we know it today,” he also acknowledges there may be some potential sticky points. “Some human spouses and lovers might consider robot sex to be just as unfaithful as sex with another person.”
Levy’s view naturally flows into the conclusion of the article which is an E Mail interview with Sonya Ziaja, a San Francisco Bay Area attorney who blogs at numerous law and policy media outlets as well as her own, Shark. Laser. Blawg.
“And what could be more fraught with legal dilemmas than a love triangle among a married couple and a sexbot? How that might impact a divorce? That’s what Ziaja explores in her paper, “Homewrecker 2.0: An Exploration of Liability for Heart Balm Torts Involving AI Humanoid Consorts,” which she presented at the 2011 International Conference on Social Robotics that took place in Amsterdam at the end of November.
“If the doll’s owner becomes enamored with the doll, and leaves his spouse, can the spouse sue as she or he would be able to if the interloper had been human? And who would be sued? The manufacturer? Inventor? The AI itself?” she questions. “So long as we’re intent on adding socially interactive AI into situations that would ordinarily be only human. … socially interactive robots need to be ‘safe to play with’ in a way that manufacturers of toaster ovens never had to imagine.”
Thus we are presented here with a legal quandary instigated by the advent of revolutionary technology affecting serious legal, moral and ethical issues. How should we view this inevitability and how shall we deal with it as a society? Continue reading “Robot Love?”
Now this is going to be an interesting case. Pauline Davis, 45, has filed a gender discrimination case against J&J Snack Foods after the company (making churros and other frozen snacks) allegedly fired her for wearing a prosthetic penis to work. She seems to have a viable case.
There is an interesting criminal and tort case being investigated in England. Martin Henderson was celebrating his 37th birthday when he found himself airborne — thrown by another man in the bar who saw him as a dwarf for the tossing. Henderson suffered injuries as a result of the toss and the man fled.
Continue reading “Police Seek Culprit Who Seriously Injured Man In Spontaneous “Dwarf Toss””
Ben Stein is an actor who often appears at conservative conferences and events — often speaking against such things as global warming. Stein’s hard-right politics has made him a hero for conservatives and a villain for liberals. Now, however, he is suing after a company decided that his political advocacy undermined his value as a spokesman. While some conservatives might view such discrimination lawsuits and emotional distress claims as another sign of our litigious society, Stein is suing Japanese company Kyocera Corporation and the New York ad agency Seiter & Miller for the loss of a $300,000 gig. He says that Kyocera then tapped a University of Maryland economics professor whom his lawsuit portrays as a Stein lookalike or clone. Stein declares in his lawsuit that he is “the most famous economics teacher in the world.” Sure there were Adam Smith, John Kenneth Galbraith, and John Maynard Keynes. There were even people like Karl Marx who fashioned themselves as well known economists. But none of them appeared in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
Continue reading “Ben Stein’s Money: Actor Sues Japanese Company For Dumping Him For Another Nerdy Economist”
It is with an extremely heavy heart that I have to report that nine-year-old Kathleen Edward died of Huntington’s disease on Wednesday night. We discussed Kathleen’s illness as part of a horrific case about bullying by a neighbor, Jennifer Petkov.
Continue reading “Kathleen Edwards, 2003-2012”