John Doe A v. Penn State
First Penn State scandal lawsuit says Coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused a boy more than 100 times and the abuse was enabled by the school's "negligent oversight."
Bradley v. Lohan
Former Betty Ford Center employee sues Lindsay Lohan for assault, alleging the actress threw a phone at her and yanked her wrist while refusing to be breathalzyed.
N.D. v. New York Post
Hotel maid allegedly raped by French politician sues the New York Post for falsely reporting that she is a prostitute who "routinely traded sex for money" with male guests.
Reinhart v. Mortenson
Two Montana residents allege the author of "Three Cups of Tea" "fabricated material about his activities and work in Pakistan and Afghanistan" to sell the book.
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• Student alleges a prank involving a bottle rocket and another student's anus backfired, causing him to fall off the deck of a frat house.
Helmburg v. Alpha Tau Omega

• 5th Circuit reinstates a jury verdict finding a man employed by an engineering firm was sexually harassed by a male supervisor. "The text message 'I want cock' could be taken as an explicit sexual proposition." 
Cherry v. Shaw Coastal

• Massachusetts appeals court says the ex-wife of a man who fatally shot himself with a gun he had stolen cannot sue the gun's owner for wrongful death. "We conclude that public policy dictates that [Charles] Milot's criminal conduct acts as a bar to recovery."
Ryan v. Hughes-Ortiz

• Pennsylvania woman alleges her former employer discriminated against her because she wore a fake penis to assist her in her female-to-male transition. "Plaintiff's use of the prosthetic device was concealed and in no way interfered with the ability of Plaintiff to do her job." Davis v. J&J Snack Foods

• Son of a woman charged with murdering her husband cannot use the proceeds from the victim's life insurance policy to fund his mother's criminal defense. "[A]llowing the distribution of these proceeds to a third party who has clear intentions to transfer part of these proceeds to her, undermines the principles underlying the Slayer’s Act and federal common law."
In Re: Estate of Michael Burkland

• Oregon judge rules that a self-proclaimed "investigative blogger" is not "considered 'media' for the purposes of applying a negligence standard in a defamation claim." Obsidian Finance v. Cox

• Seattle judge says an actress cannot proceed anonymously in her suit against the IMDb.com website for publishing her age. "[W]hile Plaintiff may face public ridicule and embarrassment if she elects to go forward under her real name, the injury she fears is not severe enough to justify permitting her to proceed anonymously."
Doe v. Amazon.com

• Family of an 11-year-old girl who was crushed by a boulder of ice says forest ranger negligence caused her death. Rangers "did not warn users of the risk of harm associated with the dangerous, unstable snow and ice" at the Big Four Ice Caves in Snohomish County, Wash. Tam v. U.S.

• 3rd Circuit dismisses a breach of data security case against a payroll-processing company. "Appellants' allegations of an increased risk of identity theft as a result of the security breach are hypothetical, future injuries."
Reilly v. Ceridian Corp.

• Oregon judge denies First Amendment protections to a blogger. "Defendant cites no cases indicating that a self-proclaimed 'investigative blogger' is considered 'media' for the purposes of applying a negligence standard in a defamation claim."
Obsidian Finance v. Cox

• A transsexual who was fired from her government job while she was in the process of becoming a woman wins her sex discrimination suit. "[A] government agent violates the Equal Protection Clause’s prohibition of sex-based discrimination when he or she fires a transgender or transsexual employee because of his or her gender non-conformity."
Glenn v. Brumby

• New York man sues a Texas fertility clinic for wrongful insemination, alleging it failed to obtain his consent before using a sample of his sperm to impregnate his ex-girlfriend.
Pressil v. Advanced Fertility

• Nebraska judge rules that school officials may have illegally disciplined students for wearing t-shirts in honor of a slain friend suspected of gang membership. "[Q]uestions of fact remain whether Plaintiffs’ speech occurred in a context likely to provoke gang violence or other disruptions of school activities."
Kuhr v. Millard Public Sch. Dist.




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Insane Man Who Killed His Mother Can't be Her Heir Print

The Washington state Supreme Court has ruled that a criminally insane man who murdered his mother should not profit from his crime by pocketing a share of the proceeds from a lawsuit related to her death.

The decision was an emphatic victory for the estate of Pamela Kissinger in a case which focused on whether Joshua Hoge was a “slayer” under Washington's “slayer statute,” which bars “any person who participates ... in the willful and unlawful killing of any other person” from receiving any benefit from the death of the decedent.

After settling a wrongful-death suit against the state mental health agency, the estate invoked the statute to deny Hoge any share of the settlement. He stabbed both his mother and stepbrother to death in June 1999 while apparently under the delusion that they had killed his child.

An appeals court in 2007 remanded the case to a trial judge for a determination of whether Hoge killed his mother “willfully” -- a term which the state Supreme Court has defined to mean “'intentionally and designedly.'” The trial judge had used a different definition in ruling that Hoge could not be a beneficiary under the slayer statute.

But the Supreme Court held unanimously May 7 that no matter how “willfully” is defined, Hoge's state of mind at the time he killed Kissinger was that of a “slayer.”

“Certainly, Hoge could have been so delusional that he did not intend or even know that he was killing a human being,” Justice Tom Chambers wrote for the court. “Not every homicide committed by the criminally insane is willful and deliberate.”

“But the trial court made very specific findings of fact and conclusions of law,” he continued, “and determined that Hoge acted with premeditated intent when he killed his mother ... [O]n the record before us, the estate has established the requisite state of mind to invoke the slayer statute.”

The trial judge concluded that “[n]otwithstanding his mental illness, Hoge subjectively knew he was killing a human being when he stabbed Pamela Kissinger, and did so with premeditated intent.”

Hoge also argued that the killing was not “unlawful” because he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the criminal courts. But Chambers agreed with the appeals court that “The insanity statute does not make homicide lawful; it simply declines to punish a defendant who has committed an unlawful act but is found legally insane.”

Kissinger's estate sued the state for improperly medicating Hoge, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and a psychiatric condition that caused him to believe his mother and stepbrother had been replaced by imposters. He is now confined to a mental hospital.

This story linked by:


By Matthew Heller
5/13/09


 
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RC_OnTrial

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