The song ‘We Shall Overcome’ is accustomed to struggle – it is the anthem of the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. But now a new lawsuit aims to free the work from copyright. Appropriately, this protest anthem is the subject of a class action claiming that it cannot be owned and belongs to all. The defendants are The Richmond Organization and its label Ludlow Music, which copyrighted the song in 1960....
Some things get better with age: a fine wine, a great book, this pun about a snickers ad campaign from the ’80s. And some things don’t age as well: sushi, JNCO jeans, and criminal prosecutions. Which is why the North Dakota Supreme Court just tossed out a man’s DUI conviction that came 20 years after the fact. The only things that should still be around from March of 1995 are re-airings of “Tommy Boy....
Psychics are supposed to know what’s coming, that’s why people go to them, after all. But it seems that one psychic in Maryland didn’t see her arrest coming. Gina Marie Marks, who used the name Natalie Miller when conducting business, was arrested at Miami International Airport and has pleaded guilty to multiple counts of felony theft. She now faces up to 6 years in prison for scamming $340,000 out of her clients....
In a wrongful death action arising out of a fatal accident at a railroad crossing, the California Public Utilities Commission’s petition for a writ of mandate challenging the trial court’s denial of a motion for summary adjudication is granted and the trial court’s order denying the motion is set aside in part as decisional law supports a conclusion that a public entity’s ability to regulate property it neither owns nor possesses is not equivalent to a public entity having control of the property within the meaning of Gov....
With data breaches occurring daily, the courts have become center stages for deciding who is responsible. In Attias v. CareFirst, Inc., the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reviewed the story of customers against a health insurer after hackers compromised their data. A trial court said the plaintiffs didn’t allege sufficient injury to confer federal court standing. Drawing on “experience and common sense,” however, the appeals court turned the spotlight on the company and said the potential for identify theft was injury enough....
Trial court judgment denying plaintiff’s petition to require the Real Estate Commissioner to set aside the decision revoking his license as a real estate broker is affirmed where plaintiff’s crimes were substantially related to the qualifications, functions or duties of a real estate licensee. Read Robbins v. Davi, No. B199013 in PDF Read Robbins v. Davi, No. B199013 in HTML Appellate InformationAPPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles....
Trial court’s grant of preliminary injunction ordering defendant to issue plaintiff a permit for vehicle access to Gold Bluffs Beach located within Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park is affirmed where the National Park Service is not an indispensable party to these proceedings, despite the cooperative arrangement between defendant and the National Park Service for managing the parklands within the Redwood National and State Parks, as defendant retains the authority to issue permits for access to the area that remains within state jurisdiction....
The federal judge in a student’s “hot for teacher” lawsuit was hot for the university, and not for the student. U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan ruled Tuesday that Joseph Corlett, a college student suspended for writing an essay entitled “Hot for Teacher,” had no First Amendment right to express his sexual attraction for his instructor. Corlett, who was 56 when he wrote the essay, filed a lawsuit against Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, over his suspension....
Federal judges have been known to wax poetic on a topic, and even go on long rants about the process, which can make for some pretty ironic reading. So, in the spirit of the year’s end, here are the top three most twisted things to come out of the Article III courts in 2013: Nothing could be more hilarious than U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Shelby stating that he “agrees with Justice Scalia” (see page 13) and in the same legal breath, striking down Utah’s gay marriage ban as unconstitutional....
In Missouri, if you’re interested in supporting Eric Greitens’s gubernatorial campaign. The Republican candidate and former Navy SEAL officer is selling “ISIS hunting permits” to raise money for his campaign. So how many ISIS can you bag under this (fake) permit? And will the scolds down at the fish and game office really be out tracking this season? Bag ‘Em and Tag ‘Em Hunting is deeply woven into the fabric of American culture....
Self-proclaimed “Chick Bank Robber” Hannah Sabata successfully robbed a bank and shared her accomplishments on YouTube. So no one was surprised when the teenager was busted by the cops shortly thereafter. The 19-year-old Sabata held up a bank in Waco, Nebraska, and stole a car, according to her own YouTube confession. She bragged about her crimes in a video clip that runs nearly 8 minutes long. Unfortunately for Sabata, her video also alerted police....
Hay isn’t the only thing for horses anymore. Apparently Connecticut Supreme Court decisions about their innate “viciousness” are too. The Connecticut High Court issued a decision Wednesday in a case involving a 2-year-old boy who was allegedly bitten on the cheek by a horse named Scuppy, The Connecticut Post reports. But did the Connecticut Supreme Court actually rule that horses are “vicious” animals, as some news headlines suggest? The answer is “neigh,” not really....
Free range chickens are a good thing, right? Free from fences, they wander around with plenty of access to fresh vegetation, sunshine, and room to exercise. On the other hand, fences are also meant to keep predators out. So what is this proposal to take down admissions tests for law schools? Radical Change The American Bar Association is proposing to eliminate admission testing for incoming law students. If approved, the ABA would no longer require law school applicants to take the Law School Admission Test....
There’s a new kind of “sexy” for the digital age, and you may be part of the trend: “Datasexuals” get turned on by recording data about themselves, and then sharing that information with the world. Datasexuals “think that data is sexy. In fact, the bigger the data, the sexier it becomes,” the website BigThink.com explained in introducing the phrase. With little actual data available about datasexuals, BigThink’s article describes the history and future of the trend....
An alleged backrubbing bandit has been caught… again. Julio Antonio Yanez, 29, is accused of breaking into apartments, getting into bed with female occupants, and attempting to give them backrubs, reports Charlotte, North Carolina’s WBTV. Yanez has been linked to similar incidents in April and June of this year, along with two more recent incidents in July. He claimed, during his initial arrest, that he believed one of the homes belonged to an acquaintance of his....
In a mother’s petition seeking return of her children under the Hague Convention alleging that the father wrongfully retained the two older children and wrongfully removed the two younger children to the United States in violation of the Convention, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed where: 1) trial court had the power to dismiss the Convention petition for delayed prosecution and proceed on child custody matters; and 2) Convention and the International Child Abduction Remedies Act do not preclude dismissal of a petition for delayed prosecution....
So a chicken, a duck and a shark walk into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of a corny joke right? Well it’s not. Right now, California’s prohibitions on shark fins, foie-gras and the confines of egg-laying hens are coming to national attention, and raising issues of federalism and the dormant commerce clause. In 2008, California passed Proposition 2, defining humane confines for certain animals, including egg-laying hens, and requires that hens have room to spread their wings....
ESPN’s firing of an editor over a racially charged headline about the NBA’s Jeremy Lin likely won’t lead to a lawsuit by the fired employee – or, for that matter, by Lin or his representatives. ESPN fired editor Anthony Federico on Sunday, after he wrote a headline that included the phrase “Chink in the Armor” to describe Lin’s penchant for turnovers as the New York Knicks’ point guard. The headline was quickly taken down, the New York Daily News reports....
What’s up next in the Quinn Emanuel case docket? A race discrimination case. Against the firm. Alleged by a former staff attorney. Whenever a law firm is sued, it seems ironic. You’d think that BigLaw attorneys and partners would tread lightly enough that lawsuits would be avoided at all costs. After all, they should know the law. Though if the facts that former staff attorney Kisshia Simmons-Grant alleges are true, they might have made a grievous error....
Knowing that you aren’t going it alone, and that, in fact, you are joining a community of legal scholarship and practice is not only interesting, but even a little exhilarating. The field of law is far more expansive than a single person and far more pervasive than a single case. Striving to understand it from multiple angles and through different lenses is what we as participants in the legal community can aim to achieve collectively....
