Kenneth Herron may have picked the wrong cage but apparently the right counsel. Herron was acquitted of “disturbing dangerous animals” on a novel defense by deputy public defender James Conger. Conger argued that the bears were actually not that disturbed when Herron came into their cage after the San Francisco Zoo closed.
Continue reading “Bear Necessities of Law: Man Acquitted of Disturbing Bears in San Francisco Zoo”
Category: Torts
In Syracuse, New York, Rascell Williams is looking at a curious charge for a horrible crime. Williams, 28, is charged with hanging his girlfriend’s four-month-old kitten with a belt and making a video of the animal struggling. It was discovered by the girlfriend, Joanne Cichy, the day after Halloween and turned over the police.
In a highly disturbing video, Minneapolis police officers are shown tasering a man who is clearly shown with his hands on the hood of a car and not resisting arrest. Rolando Ruiz is seen and heard screaming in pain from the taser, which is applied to the back of his neck and held to his body as he falls to the street.
Military police at the Eielson Air Force Base are facing questions of the need to taser Glen M. Wilcox, an 81-year-old Episcopalian priest. Wilcox was caught allegedly going 11 miles over the speed limit.
Continue reading “Alaskan Police Taser 81-Year-Old Minister in Traffic Stop”
Scott Wright paid a heavy price for clean hands. Wright was working on his old Cadillac in a parking lot when San Jose police approached. When Wright reaches for a rag to wipe off the oil on his hands, the police tasered him and then beat him with their batons — breaking his arm. They proceeded to charge him with resisting arrest — a charge that we often see in such cases where officers seek to justify such encounters.
Continue reading “San Jose Police Taser Man and Break His Arm After He Tries to Clean His Hands”
A tort action in Chicago presents a somewhat novel dispute over the proper way to eat a sandwich. Mackenzie Seiler went to Jimmy John’s restaurant for a Turkey Tom sandwich. He went into anaphylactic shock after he bite into the sandwich, which turned out to be tuna and filled with cheese and mayonnaise. A person with severe allergies, he had specifically told them to hold the cheese and mayo — let alone the tuna. However, the restaurant says it was his fault for failing to properly unwrap the sandwich before biting into it.
Continue reading “Turkey Torts: Illinois Case To Determine Proper Way to Eat Sandwich”
We often follow dangerous products on this blog, such as the Halloween flashlight had risked bursting into flames. It turns out one such product literally walked in my front door. I will be reporting a dangerous product discovered by my son, Benjamin, who wore a costume of a man riding an ostrich at Party City. The only problem is that it proceeded to shock him from the internal engine that inflates the bird.
Continue reading “Shocking Costume: Party City Costume Results in Electrical Shocks at Halloween”
On this video, a Utah officer appears to taser a him for a traffic ticket simply because he does not immediately obey the officer’s demands. Watch how the officer immediately pulls out his taser when the man is simply refusing to sign the ticket.
Continue reading “Shock Video: Utah Officer Tasers Man for Traffic Ticket in Front of Pregnant Wife”
Halloween is the favorite holiday for all torts professors and personal injury lawyers. (Indeed, I am convinced it was invented by a personal injury lawyer). Common carrier hay rides, lighting vegetables on fire, handing out foodstuffs without a permit . . . It’s the most litigious day of the year. So, with no further ado, here is this year’s annual Spooky Torts and Crimes list of actual cases from Halloween. Happy Halloween everyone (except those avoiding the holiday due to demon-inspired soul-sucking candy or papal prohibitions).
Continue reading “HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! THE 2009 LIST OF SPOOKY TORTS AND SCARY CRIMES”
A Montana jury has rendered a surprising verdict. The jury ruled against the manufacturer of the Louisville Slugger bat, Hillerich and Bradsby. Notably, the jury rejected design defect claims but found a warning defect in the death of 18-year-old Brandon Patch who was hit in the head with a ball hit by a aluminum bat.
Maryland police Sgt. Eric Janik, 37, may not get the thrust of trick of treat traditions. The Baltimore police officer went to a haunted house called the House of Screams with friends and when confronted by a character dressed as Leatherface with a chainsaw (sans the chain, of course), Janik pulled out his service weapon and pointed it at the man, who immediately dropped character, dropped the chainsaw, and ran like a bat out of Halloween Hell.
Continue reading “A Bit Too Scary: Maryland Officer Arrested For Pulling Gun on Character in Haunted House”
San Bernadino police are under criticism today after the release of this video from a cellphone appears to show officers beating a suspect with a baton without cause. The man, Darren Johnson, 43, is a barber shop owner who was allegedly held without charge for two days and was never booked in the jail system. He says that he was also denied a telephone call to counsel. The department has been previously sued for keeping suspects “on ice” but holding them without booking or access to counsel.
This video is the focus of an investigation into the beating of a San Jose State student Phoung Ho by officers. Police reportedly had difficulty communicating with Ho and the encounter with the math major ended in beating Ho with batons and using a taser on him.
Continue reading “Video: Police Beat and Taser Foreign Student In San Jose”
Carmen Huertas, 31, had a fun game to play with a car packed with girls going to a slumber party at her house. No it wasn’t counting VW bugs or out-of-state license plates. She asked which of the seven girls thought that she would crash. Since at least one girl was begging her to slow down, it was clear that some of the kids thought the answer was yes. It is not clear how Leandra Rosado, 11, voted: she died when the allegedly intoxicated Huertas crashed. Huertas notably was sober enough to pull her own daughter from the wreck but left the rest of the kids to fend for themselves, including Leandra who died on the side of the road.
As years of teaching torts, I cannot quite recall anything quite this bad for a medical malpractice case. A Japanese man is suing after discovering that doctors removed his rectum and implanted an artificial rectum unnecessarily.
Continue reading “Japanese Man Sues After Doctors Unnecessarily Remove His Rectum”