Category: Torts

Free Speech, Media, Society, Torts

Coming To A Court Near You: The Revenge of the Pink Slime

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.

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Bizarre, Society, Torts

A Wynn Wynn Situation: Girls Gone Wild Founder Hit With $20 Million Defamation Verdict

“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.

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Bizarre, International, Society, Torts

Doctor Banned From Practice After Ordering Chemical Castration To “Cure” Homosexual Teen

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.

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Bizarre, International, Society, Torts

Swedish Police Shutdown Downtown Area Only To Uncover Scourge of Surströmming

For years I have tried to raise international awareness of the menace of Surströmming, fermented herring. Now, Swedish police has faced the reality of Surströmming terror. The police closed off a whole street after hearing reports of a gas leak only to find a stash of fermented herring.

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Bizarre, Politics, Society, Torts

Riche Con or Pauvre Victime? French Tycoon Sues Newspaper Over Story On His Seeking Belgian Citizenship

We have discussed the plan of the new French government to impose a 75% tax on the top earners in the country, a move that in my view is better politics than economics. Now there is an alleged tort to go with the politics (Thank God). France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, announced that he was seeking Belgian nationality. The response from the leftist Liberation newspaper was a giant headline superimposed over Arnault’s face reading “Get lost, rich jerk”. Now Arnault is suing for for “public insult” – over the offending headline’s “vulgarity and brutality.”

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Bizarre, Criminal law, Torts

Keeping Abreast of Crime: Police Officer Arrested For Allegedly Pulling Over Women To Look At Their Breasts

There is a bizarre case out of Miami where officer Prabhainjana Dwivedi, 33, was arrested by the FBI for allegedly pulling over female drivers solely to look at their breasts and make “sexually suggestive conversations.” What was most striking about the story is that this was an FBI investigation based on the claim of a civil rights violation. It shows how far federal jurisdiction has extended into previously state areas.

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Bizarre, Torts

Former Federal Prosecutor Faces Defamation Lawsuit Over Alleged Anonymous Internet Attacks On Landfill Owner

Fred Heebe, a Louisiana landfill owner, has filed an interesting defamation lawsuit against a federal prosecutor who he claims has used anonymous identities to trash him on the Internet. Using a former FBI forensic linguist expert, Heebe has shown remarkable similarities between language used in filings by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sal Perricone and statements written by someone on media websites under the name “Henry L. Mencken1951.” With the finding that the language overlap “strongly indicates” Perricone, Heebe has filed suit and issued subpeonas. The federal case involves alleged bribes (including an almost $500,000 bribe to a state official) to close a rival landfill in Gretna, Louisiana. Heebe however was never charged with a crime. Perricone, 61, has since resigned after 21 years as a prosecutor but an investigation continues at the Justice Department as well as the civil lawsuit. He recently admitted to posting hundreds of comments.

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Bizarre, International, Torts

Rude Awakening: Woman Falls Asleep on Scooter and Collides With Truck

This incredible video shows a Russian woman falling asleep while driving a scooter down a highway. She is jolted awake when she collides with the side of a truck. The most incredible aspects of the film is that the woman does not appear seriously injured and is able to walk away.

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Bizarre, International, Torts

Swedish Man Dies After Doctor Leaves For Lunch In Middle of Surgery

A 72-year-old man died after his anesthesiologist left for lunch in the middle of his surgery to have a tumor removed at the Lidköping hospital in Sweden. Not only did the doctor leave for lunch but soon after the head anesthesia nurse took lunch — leaving a nurse from the orthopedic ward who did not know how to operate the respirator. It turns out that the machine was turned off.

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Bizarre, Society, Torts

LaBelle Pays $100,000 After Allegedly Abusing Pregnant Mother and 18-Month Old Daughter For Playing In Front Of Her Apartment Building

Patti LaBelle has long given divas an even worse name for her outbursts and public conduct. She reportedly hit a new low on Nov. 10, 2010 when she started screaming profanities at a pregnant mother, Roseanna Monk. and a little girl in the lobby of a Manhattan apartment building where she was staying. She has now agreed to pay $100,000 for the tirade in a settlement.

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Courts, Criminal law, Politics, Society, Torts

Massachusetts Judge Denied Disability Pension For Hate Mail

Former Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy will not be receiving disability payments in addition to his multimillion dollar libel award against the Boston Herald. Murphy filed for disability pension based on a claim of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression linked to receiving hate mail and death threats due to his ruling in a rape case. The Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts found unanimously that the Contributory Retirement Appeal Board was correct in denying Murphy the disability pension.

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Criminal law, Society, Torts

LAPD Officers Caught On Video Body Slamming Nurse After Traffic Stop and Then Giving Each Other Celebratory Fist Bump

There is another claim of excessive force and abuse against officers with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) after two officers who were allegedly caught on surveillance camera (shown below) slamming a nurse, Michelle Jordan, 34, on the ground twice after a traffic stop. Not only is the basis for the action in doubt, but the two officers are shown giving each other a fist bump afterwards.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Society, Torts

Gay Couple Sued Continental Airlines After Sex Toy Is Taped To Outside Of Their Luggage

There is a bizarre lawsuit this week against Continental Airlines by a gay couple who say that the airline caused them emotional distress after baggage workers removed a dildo and taped it to the outside of their suitcase. Christopher Bridgemann and Martin Borger say that the sex toy was openly displayed to other passengers when they picked up their luggage.

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Criminal law, Torts

Storage Locker Of Former Florida Medical Examiner Found To Contain Human Brains, Lungs, and Hearts

For Storage Wars star Dave Hester, this might be one that deserves more of a “Yuuuk” than a “Yuuup. When a storage locker in Florida was auctioned off, the new owner found the interior that an unpleasant odor. He then uncovered a gruesome scene of human organs in drinking cups, Tupperware and other containers saturated in formaldehyde. Police say that the locker belonged to former medical examiner in Florida, Dr. Michael Berkland. Berkland was fired from the Medical Examiner’s Officer in Pensacola in 2003 after working there since 1997.

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