An Arizona coupe, Lisa and Anthony “A.J.” Demaree, have filed an interesting lawsuit against Walmart (and the state) after being accused of sexual abuse and having their children taken away the State. Their suspected crime? Developing pictures of their children taking a bath.
Continue reading “Arizona Couple Sues Wal-Mart After Store Calls the Police on Them For Developing Pictures of Their Children in a Bathtub — And the Children Are Taken By the State”
Category: Torts
Tiffany Hunter, 26, takes a different approach to neighborhood or schoolyard fights than most parents. While most parents tell their children to avoid fights, Hunter is accused of holding down a 6-year-old boy and ordering her 5-year-old boy to beat him in the face.
Police in England are using this video put on the Internet to search for a man who calls himself Adeel Ayub after he (and apparently an accomplish) filmed Ayub committing gross acts of vandalism at a Asda store (owned by Walmart), including opening packages and licking fresh chickens.
Continue reading “Video: English Police Search for Mad Chicken Licker”
Eric Henry, Jr., 19, of Winnabow, North Carolina may have had the best intentions when his friend, John Ferguson, 23, died from a suspected overdose and put him in the car. However, he appears to have concluded that there was a lack of urgency in getting him to a hospital and instead drove around town with the body in the passenger seat as he handled various errands.
Continue reading “To Do List: Buy Milk, Visit Grandpa, Drop Off Corpse — North Carolina Man Arrested for Driving Around Dead Friend on Errands”
A Johns Hopkins University student appears to take a literal view of the Castle Doctrine: he defended his domicile the old-fashioned way with an actual sword. The student encountered a man who had broken into the garage of his off-campus housing and proceeded to kill him with a Samurai sword.
Continue reading “Burglary and Bushidō: Johns Hopkins Student Kills Intruder With Samurai Sword”
Chanda Davina Warren, 21, has a novel criminal charge. Police say that she was running a beauty shop out of her apartment when she demanded payment for a hair styling half way through the haircut to pay her bills. When the customer refused, she allegedly grabbed her hair and held scissors to it to demand payment forthwith.
The video below shows what would be considered rude and brutish conduct in every culture from the American society to the Klingon society. But was it actionable?
Continue reading “Legal Question of the Day: Can Kanye West Face Legal Action For His MTV Conduct?”
ACORN has fired the two employees shown in the recent undercover video by filmmaker James O’Keefe of Veritas Visuals— showing the staffers advising a faux pimp and prostitute (here) on how to get federal assistance and lie on federal forms. Now, however, it is threatening legal action in what would be part of a trend of cases involving companies and organizations suing investigative reporters and filmmakers.
Continue reading “ACORN Threatens Legal Action Against Filmmaker Over Investigative Film”
There is an interesting decision out of Indianapolis where a board has ruled that Boston’s Gourmet Pizza must pay for weigh-loss surgery of a 340-pound employee, Adam Childers, after he suffered a back injury at work.
Now, here’s a novel legal question. If someone is a hermaphrodite, can they choose to run in either male or female races? That is a question that may face international sporting events after a report that an examination of Caster Semenya, 18, discovered that she has both male and female sexual organs. This one may be a slightly tougher question than our bicycle debate.
Continue reading “Media Report: Caster Semenya is a Hermaphrodite”
There is an interesting case out of England on the limits of self-defense, a question that we often discuss in class. Munir Hussain, 52, has been convicted for attacking an armed robber who broke into his house and held him and his family hostage — while reportedly promising to kill them all. They were eventually able to free themselves and turn the tables on the three robbers. Walid Salem, 56, was beaten in the aftermath with bats. He can only sue the family for tort damages for the assault and battery. Hussain’s brother Tokeer was also convicted.
Continue reading “Homeowner Convicted for Beating Armed Robber — Faces Tort Liability”
James Tyler Markle, 19, has been arrested in another prank case. In this case, his prank at a Wendy’s in Texas cost over $20,000 and resulted in charges of one count of terrorizing and one count of felony criminal damage to property.
Continue reading “Texas Teenager Arrested in Wendy’s Prank Posted on YouTube”
It is not clear what is more interesting the legal problems in the trial over Merck’s osteoporosis drug Fosamax or the alleged assaults occurring in the jury room during deliberations. United States District Judge John Keenan in Manhattan was forced to issue the novel “time out” order this week and send home the eight men and women on the jury after lawyers heard yelling from the jury room and a juror alleged that she had been physically threatened and had a chair thrown at her.
Continue reading “Eight Angry Men: Jury Sent Home After Alleged Brawl During Deliberations”
The State of Georgia has a curious way of protecting animals. In 2005, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources raided the home of amateur herpetologist Steve Santhuff and seized 500 turtles. Santhuff was ultimately able to prove that he was not guilty of criminal charges when a jury acquitted him of all charges. He then learned that the state had killed as many as 362 of the turtles during the interim.
Continue reading “Georgia Accused of Killing Hundreds of Turtles To Protect Them From Their Owner”
It turns out that your “personal space” is all in your head. There is a fascinating story in the current issue of Nature involving the ability of human to sense and maintain proper “personal space.” Researchers at Caltech found a woman who had extensive damage to her amygdala, the part of the brain known to help process strong negative emotions. They discovered that she not only had difficult in recognizing fear in the faces of others but had no less of a sense of “personal space.”