Audrey Deen Miller has proffered a unique defense to charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon: she shot her husband to protect her cat. The police report that Miller’s husband threatened to shoot one of her cats with a pellet gun. She did him one better and shot him in the abdomen with a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun.
Source: KHOU
Continue reading “Texas Woman Shoots Husband To Protect Cat”
Dr Andrew Chung, a cardiologist, is under considerable public scrutiny after the arrest of a friend, Ebony Berry, 38, and the death of her daughter, Markea Blakely-Berry. The 16-year-old weighed only 40 pounds and the police discovered that Blakely-Berry was a follower of Chung hunger diet where he advocates the value of staying “wonderfully hungry” by eating no more than two pounds of food a day. Below is a video of his advocacy of the program, which appears as medically sound as hitting your head with a hammer because it feels so good to stop.
University of Tennessee student Alexander Broughton, 20, was hospitalized after he used one of the free alcoholic enemas passed out by the Phi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He was dropped off in an unresponsive state at a hospital due to alcohol poisoning. The case could present a rather unique tort action and, in the meantime, the entire fraternity has been wisely suspended over the incident.
Continue reading “Tennessee Fraternity Member Hospitalized After Using Alcohol Enema”
This week a jury cleared postal service driver Ian Clement in the death of the sister-in-law of Professor Alan Dershowitz. The defense accused Dershowitz of exerting pressure on the prosecutors to bring the case while Dershowitz’s brother implied that the prosecution did a poor job in the case leading to the acquittal.
Continue reading “Jury Acquits Driver Who Killed The Sister In Law of Professor Alan Dershowitz”
Yesterday, I watched with millions of fans for some great games in the NFL even with the questionable ref calls. I was not able to watch the Bears win unfortunately but I was able to bask in the glory from afar. The Patriots/Ravens games was exceedingly rough with both teams doing everything short of beating each other with folding chairs. However, the shocker came in the Texans/Broncos game where Houston quarterback Matt Schaub lost a bit of his ear to a late hit from Broncos defender Joe Mays. The video below raises a long-standing question of what constitutes a foul and what constitutes a tort in professional football.
Continue reading “Foul or Tort? Texans QB Schaub Loses Part of Ear After Late Hit By Broncos”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Three wounded patrons of the now infamous midnight showing of the latest Batman flick, The Dark Knight Rises, have filed suit against owners of the Aurora 16 movie theater. The negligence suit claims, that despite knowing about the large crowds sure to attend the blockbuster movie premier, movie-house proprietors failed to provide security personnel or door alarm systems that could have prevented the shooter, James Holmes, from unleashing his mayhem.
Continue reading “Three Victims Sue Theater At Center of Aurora Colorado Shootings”
Wayne Watson, 59, has won a major damage award in a “popcorn lung” case where a jury gave awarded $7.2 million for being injured by inhaling fumes from microwave popcorn on a daily basis. We previously discussed this new theory of causation and harm. In this case, manufacturer Gilster-Mary Lee as well as King Soopers supermarket chain and its parent, Kroger Co., were held accountable for the harm suffered by Watson who ate microwave popcorn every day.
Continue reading ““Popcorn Lung” Case Generates $7.2 Million Verdict Against Manufacturer and Store Chain”
Cindy Lee Garcia, the actress in the anti-Muslim film “Innocence of Muslims,’ has failed in her attempt to get Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin to order YouTube to remove the film. Garcia insists that she was not told of the real nature of the film and said that she has lived in fear since the protests erupted over the trailer of the film.
Continue reading “California Judge Refuses To Order YouTube To Remove “Innocence of Muslims””
Navy Cmdr. Michael P. Ward II has ended his career as the captain of a nuclear submarine with something of a crash dive. Ward reportedly first had an affair in violation of Navy rules and then tried to end his affair by sending a fake email from a friend informing the mistress that Ward, 43, had died. When the woman went to his house to give her condolences, she learned that he had moved with his family to Connecticut to assume control over the USS Pittsburgh.
This happy honeymoon picture of South Dakota couple Dustin Wiseman, 37, and Melissa Wiseman, 38, recorded the scene for an alleged tort by Medieval Times in Buena Park. The couple was eating dinner when a Medieval sword fight allegedly felled Dustin with a metal shard that broke off from one of the swords. Wiseman suffered a severe injury to his eye and is now seeking $10 million from the company.
Continue reading “He Who Injureth Must Payeth: Medieval Dinner Serves Up Modern Tort”
In a bizarre (and some would say poetic) twist on the recent violent protests against the United States, a Pakistani protester, Abdullah Ismail, died after reportedly inhaling smoke from a burning American flag in Lahore.
The Ninth Circuit has handed down an interesting ruling that reaffirms that sexual contact requires consent. What is different is that the case deals with prison sex. Former Idaho prison guard Sandra de Marti is accused of sexual harassment in groping inmate Conway Wood. The case is Wood v. Beauclair, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 18575 (9th Cir.).
After facing press accounts depicting its product as “pink slime,” Beef Products Inc. has brought a defamation action in South Dakota against ABC News Inc.and ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer for damages from the coverage. Notably, the lawsuit also includes Gerald Zirnstein, a U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist, as a defendant. It was Zirnstein who reportedly coined the catchy phrase “pink slime” for the beef product. The company is seeking $400 million in claimed actual and consequential damages, treble damages, punitive damages and attorney’s fees and costs.
Continue reading “Coming To A Court Near You: The Revenge of the Pink Slime”
“Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis, 39, has long shown remarkably bad judgment on legal matters, including his tax evasion conviction and charges of contempt. He can now add a $20 million damage award that he will have to pay casino mogul Steve Wynn — not counting possible punitive damages. The latest court loss for Francis was over an unpaid gambling bill and led to slander by Francis. He will now pay at least 10 times the amount of his gambling losses to Wynn, 70, and that is not counting a $7.5-million defamation judgment awarded by a Nevada judge this year. That is almost $30 million and counting.
Mark Christopher James Craddock, 75, will not be practicing medical any more in Australia after he prescribed chemical castration for an eighteen-year-old patient as a cure for his homosexual inclinations. Both Craddock and the teen were members of the Exclusive Brethren Christian sect.