• Boston judge refuses to require Massachusetts to include materials that deny the Armenian genocide in the public school curriculum.
"[T]he decision as to what to teach about ... the Armenian genocide must be made by elected officials, educators, and teachers rather than by federal judges."
Griswold v. Driscoll
• Kentucky Court of Appeals upholds a $3.7 million jury award against a school board for ignoring a student's complaints that several teachers had molested her. Plaintiff Lynne Maner "presented sufficient evidence that the Board was deliberately indifferen[t] in its failure to act." Maner v. Fayette County Board of Education
• 6th Circuit revives the racial bias case of an African-American couple who sued a hotel for refusing to host their wedding reception. "There is a genuine issue of material fact in this case as to whether ... the Hotel denied them the right to enter into a contract because of their race." Keck v. Graham Hotel Systems
• San Francisco judge rules that a city did not violate a hiker's rights by failing to protect her from an attack on public land by a rancher's cattle. "[P]laintiffs have not alleged facts supporting a claim that the City was deliberately indifferent to a known or obvious danger" to Jo Dee Schmidt. Schmidt v. Hoover
• Divided New York appellate court says a golfer is not liable for striking another golfer in the eye with an errant drive. The defendant's failure to yell "Fore" before hitting the ball "does not rise to the level of creating a dangerous condition over and above the usual dangers inherent in participating in the sport of golf." Anand v. Kapoor
• Sioux tribal members file a class action seeking their share of as much as $900 million held in trust by the federal government as compensation for the "taking" of the Black Hills of South Dakota. The plaintiffs have split from other Sioux who refuse to take the money, insisting on the return of the land.
Different Horse v. Salazar
• Texas Court of Appeals says a gas station owner is not liable for the negligence of an attendant who accidentally shot a customer while showing him a gun. The attendant's "actions were not merely a misuse of his authority; they were utterly unrelated to his duties."
Glass v. Williams
• San Francisco judge denies Chevron Corp.'s request for $485,159 in court costs from impoverished Nigerian villagers who sued the company for human rights violations. "The economic disparity between plaintiffs, who are Nigerian villagers, and defendants, international oil companies, cannot be more stark."
Bowoto v. Chevron
  
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Court Slaps Down $1.7M Award in Spanking Case |
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Janet Orlando
A California appeals court has thrown out a $1.7 million award to an alleged victim of a hostile spanking environment, finding the jury may have failed to consider whether a former alarm company saleswoman was paddled during staff meetings because of her gender.
There was evidence to support the defense theory that the spankings of Janet Orlando were part of a misguided motivational exercise, the 5th District Court of Appeal said in granting Alarm One a new trial, and the trial court improperly instructed the jury on the elements of a sexual harassment claim.
“Under the instructions given, the jury could have found for plaintiff merely because offensive sexual comments were made or conduct was tinged with offensive sexual connotations, without finding plaintiff was subjected to the conduct because she was female,” the court explained in an unpublished opinion.
“The purpose of the [Fair Housing and Employment Act] is to eliminate invidious discrimination, not to ban all allusions to sex in the workplace,” it added.
The Fresno County Superior Court jury in April 2006 found Alarm One liable for sexual harassment and Rob Harlan and Nina Correia -- the supervisors who delivered the spankings with a rival alarm company's yard sign -- liable for sexual battery. The award to Orlando included $1.2 million in punitive damages.
Justice Brad R. Hill, writing for the appeals court, also wiped out the sexual battery verdict because it was inconsistent with the jury's finding that Harlan and Correia did not assault Orlando or commit a simple battery on her.
Orlando, who was 52 at the time, received her spankings while she worked at the Fresno office of Alarm One. The spankings, she argued, were “based on ... sex” in part because men in the audience shouted derogatory comments such as “Spank that bitch. Slap that ho” while women were spanked, but made no such comments when men were spanked.
On the special verdict form, the jury answered “Yes” to the question “Was Plaintiff subjected to sexually harassing conduct?”
But Hill said there was evidence that "The spankings were just one of a number of 'crazy' things the sales force did to motivate the salespersons and get them 'in the mood' to sell," and concluded that because of the instructional error,
the jury may have considered all offensive conduct, including exposure to profanity or sexual comments that were not gender-related. If the jury had considered only conduct that occurred because respondent was female, it might have concluded that conduct was not “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of her employment and create an abusive work environment.”
While the appeal was pending, Orlando filed a separate breach-of-contract and fraud suit against Alarm One. The company, she alleged, had reneged on a post-verdict agreement to settle the sexual harassment case for $1.4 million.
According to Orlando's attorney, Alarm One wanted another $200,000 to $400,000 knocked off the award. In light of the appeals court decision, that doesn't seem like too bad a deal now.
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UPDATE
The California Supreme Court denied Orlando's petition for review 3/26/08.
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Other Spanking Case Sources
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By Matthew Heller
1/14/08 
A probate law passed before the birth of the first test-tube baby does not allow a child conceived through in vitro fertilization to inherit from a father who died before he was born, the Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled.
The court interpreted the law at the request of a federal judge handling a death benefits case filed by the child's mother, Amy Finley. Her husband died in July 2001 without leaving a will and, after using previously frozen embryos created with her eggs and his sperm, she gave birth in March 2003.
Ark. Code Ann. Section 289210(a) provides that “Posthumous descendants of the intestate conceived before his or her death but born thereafter shall inherit in the same manner as if born in the lifetime of the intestate.”
The statute does not define the word “conceived,” but Finley argued that her child was conceived at the time her egg was fertilized in vitro with the father's sperm. That conforms to the medical definition of conception as “The formation of a viable zygote by the union of a spermatozoon and an ovum.”
The Social Security Administration, which denied Finley's benefits claim, said “conception” as used in Arkansas's intestacy law means the onset of pregnancy or the successful implantation of an embryo in the womb.
But in an advisory opinion, the state Supreme Court did not choose either of the parties' definitions because “we can definitively say that the General Assembly ... did not intend for the statute to permit a child, created through in vitro fertilization and implanted after the father’s death, to inherit under intestate succession.”
“Not only does the instant statute fail to specifically address such a scenario,” the court continued, “but it was enacted in 1969, which was well before the technology of in vitro fertilization was developed.” Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in 1978.
Finley also invoked a statute which says, “Any child conceived following artificial insemination of a married woman with the consent of her husband shall be treated as their child for all purposes of intestate succession.” But Justice Paul E. Danielson, writing for the court, said the law did not refer to the “completely different” procedure of in vitro fertilization.
In the first U.S. case on point, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that under limited circumstances, posthumously conceived children have inheritance rights under state intestacy law. Woodward v. Commissioner of Social Security, 760 N.E.2d 257 (2002).
Danielson indicated some dissatisfaction with the current state of Arkansas law. “[W]e strongly encourage the General Assembly to revisit the intestacy succession statutes to address the issues involved in the instant case and those that have not but will likely evolve,” he said.
By Matthew Heller
1/14/08
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No Prayer Now for Preacher's Suit Over "Religulous"
Less than three weeks after being sued for defrauding two former parishioners of $600,000, a Florida preacher dropped his $50 million lawsuit alleging the Bill Maher documentary “Religulous” falsely portrayed him as a charlatan, On Point has learned.
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Man Burned at Burning Man Assumed Risk
Get too close to the Burning Man fire and you assume the “obvious and inherent” risk of being burned, a California appeals court has ruled in dismissing a personal injury lawsuit against the operators of the iconic countercultural arts festival.
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Lawyer's 'Prove Me Wrong' Offer No Joke to Student
A Texas law student may have taken a $1 million “prove me wrong” challenge seriously, but the criminal defense lawyer who made the challenge on a TV news show appears to have done so with enough tongue in cheek to avoid liability for not paying up.
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Jury Chills Rights in Strip Search Case
A jury has reached a chilling decision in the civil rights case of a Southampton, N.Y., woman, clearing four police officers in the exclusive resort community of liability for performing a strip search on her after a minor marijuana bust.
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Toxic Bra Suits Won't be Combined in Ohio
A rash of lawsuits against Victoria's Secret alleging defectively manufactured underwear is continuing with eight new cases filed in the past two months. But in a setback for plaintiffs, a judicial panel has refused to consolidate all the litigation in Ohio.
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Wedding Fiasco Suit Really Takes Cake
Sandra Newsom's wedding disaster lawsuit may -– literally –- take the cake. The New York woman has sued a cruise ship operator for ruining her wedding reception by serving a coconut-containing cake to which she had an allergic reaction.
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Woody Allen Got $5M After Judge Shredded Defense
A week before American Apparel agreed to pay Woody Allen $5 million for misappropriating his image, a judge had shredded the clothing company's First Amendment defense based on its CEO's “mental processes,” On Point has learned.
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Capitol Records v. Thomas
Court: USDC, Minn.
Subject: Digital music downloading
Verdict: $1.92 million
ASPCA v. Ringling Bros.
Court: USDC, D. Col.
Subject: Illegal "taking" of elephants by circus
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Howard K. Stern v. Rita Cosby
Date: 7/7/09
Court: USDC, S. N.Y.
Hearing: Motions for summary judgment in defamation case.
Goldberg v. Paris Hilton Entertainment
Date: 7/9/09
Court: USDC, S. Fla.
Hearing: Jury trial in breach-of-contract case.
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