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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• Roommate referral website does not discriminate by allowing users to list their preferences for roommate characteristics. "Holding that the [Fair Housing Act] applies inside a home or apartment ... would be a serious invasion of privacy, autonomy and security."
Fair Housing Council v. Roommate.com

• 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

• 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

• 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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Decision Makes History for Transsexual Rights Print

Diane Schroer

Ultimately, a District of Columbia judge did not need science to decide whether the Library of Congress discriminated against a job applicant because she planned to change her sex. In a landmark decision, he simply found that Title VII means what it says in prohibiting discrimination “because of ... sex.”

“Imagine that an employee is fired because she converts from Christianity to Judaism,” U.S. District Judge James Robertson reasoned. “Imagine too that her employer testifies that he harbors no bias toward either Christians or Jews but only 'converts.' That would be a clear case of discrimination 'because of religion.'”

The same logic, he concluded, means the Library of Congress violated Title VII by withdrawing a job offer to Diane Schroer “when it learned that a man named David [Schroer] intended to become, legally, culturally, and physically, a woman named Diane.”

“This was discrimination 'because of ... sex,'” Robertson said in a decision following a bench trial that makes Schroer, a former U.S. Army colonel, the first transsexual to win a sex discrimination case based on the theory that gender identity is a component of “sex.”

U.S. courts have previously followed the lead of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Ulane v. Eastern Airlines, 742 F.2d 1081 (1984), which held that Congress only intended Title VII to cover the claims of biological males and females.

Schroer tried to counter the Ulane line of cases by presenting scientific testimony that the term “sex” encompasses “gender identity” -- defined as a person's sense of being male or female. An expert for the Library of Congress testified conversely that “sex” refers to “chromosomal configuration” at birth.

Robertson -– who had earlier invited the parties to develop “[a] factual record ... that reflects the scientific basis of sexual identity in general, and gender [identity disorder] in particular” -- described the expert testimony as “impressive.” But he decided the case on the statutory, rather than scientific, definition of “sex.”

“The decisions holding that Title VII only prohibits discrimination against men because they are men, and discrimination against women because they are women, represent an elevation of 'judge-supposed legislative intent over clear statutory text,'” he said, quoting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Since Scalia is the strictest of judicial “textualists,” Robertson may have found a clever way of making his ruling attractive to conservatives on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and, perhaps, even the Supreme Court.

Schroer also prevailed on her other theory of liability –- that the Library of Congress did not hire her as a terrorism research analyst “because her appearance and background did not comport with [its] sex stereotypes about how men and women should act and appear.” Robertson still has to decide how much, if anything, to award her in damages.

“It is especially gratifying that the court has ruled that discriminating against someone for transitioning [from one sex to another] is illegal,” Schroer, 52, said in an ACLU press release.

UPDATE

  • Schroer filed a proposed order Jan. 8, 2009, seeking $467,558 in back pay and damages.


  • Other Schroer Case Sources


    By Matthew Heller
    9/21/08

     
    rc_insidestories
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      Jurors may have opened the door to a new trial in a Maryland school bullying case by saying they returned a verdict for the defense because they were afraid of setting a bad precedent for school systems throughout the country.
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      In a first-of-its-kind unprofessional conduct lawsuit, a woman has sued her former boss at a Michigan funeral home for making an indecent comment about the body of a dead man in front of her.
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      Read more...
    • Guest Can Sue Motel 6 Over Attack by Woman's Pimp

      A guest who paid for sex with a prostitute at a Motel 6 did not assume the risk of being attacked several hours later by the prostitute's pimp, a Pennsylvania judge has ruled in an unusual premises liability lawsuit against the motel operator.
      Read more...
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