• 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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Klan Murders of Teens Revived in Rights Suit |
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Henry Dee and Charles Moore
The lies that the Franklin County, Miss., sheriff told in 1964 about the whereabouts of two black teenagers should not result in the dismissal 44 years later of a civil rights suit against the county because of the statute of limitations.
A key threshold issue in the case filed in August by relatives of Henry Dee and Charles Moore is whether the three-year statute began to run when the youths' bodies were found in July 1964, as the county argues, or when a federal grand jury indicted a reputed Ku Klux Klan member on charges related to the murders in January 2007.
The indictment named Franklin County Sheriff Wayne Hutto, who died in 1984, as a co-conspirator, alleging he conspired with James Seale and other Klansmen on the day of the crime and helped cover it up.
Dee and Moore, both 19, were abducted and killed May 2, 1964. As part of the alleged cover-up, Hutto told Moore's mother two days later that the youths were in Louisiana and, on May 16, told other family members that he had no information about their whereabouts.
“[P]laintiffs claim in 1964 defendant Franklin County had an unlawful, racially motivated policy and practice of protecting the Ku Klux Klan,” the complaint, which describes Hutto as a “member or close affiliate" of the Klan, says.
In a motion to dismiss, county attorney Michael J. Wolf doesn't deny that Hutto lied to the family members. But he does make a creative attempt to, in effect, hoist the plaintiffs by their own petard.
Since the plaintiffs' theory of liability is that Franklin County had a “policy of tolerance toward Klan activity,” he argues, they
must have known that the information provided to them by the Sheriff, that the men were in Louisiana, would have been [ ] false. According to the Complaint, every reason to suspect some liability existed in 1964.
“Quite simply,” Wolf says in another brief, “the Plaintiffs were waiting for the criminal justice system to give them answers, rather than avail themselves of the civil remedies which were always available to them.”
Plaintiffs' counsel Dennis C. Sweet has correctly pointed out the irony of the county's position that “statements made by the sheriff that ... were clearly intended to discourage [the plaintiffs] from pursuing their right of injury should be construed as triggering the limitations period.”
Hutto's statements and the discovery of the bodies were “hardly sufficient evidence to lead the Plaintiffs to suspect the sheriff was in on the crime,” Sweet says in a brief opposing dismissal, and
It is simply not plausible to conclude, as defendant does, that the Plaintiffs should have suspected that their Sheriff had formed an alliance with private criminals when this information was unknown to the FBI, and when a sheriff is commonly seen to be a law enforcement officer, not a law-breaker.
The criminal indictment followed the confession of Klansman Charles Edwards, who, among other things, testified that Hutto had contact with the kidnappers of Dee and Moore before the youths were killed. “Sheriff Hutto was in a position to, but did not, intervene to protect Dee and Moore,” the civil rights suit says.
Seale was convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy and is now serving three life sentences in an Indiana prison.
By Matthew Heller
12/4/08 
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Jury Finds No Harm to Boy From Wrongful Circumcision
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Guest Can Sue Motel 6 Over Attack by Woman's Pimp
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Marsh v. Air Tran Airways
Subject: Roaches on a plane
Document: Complaint
Classic Media v. J.G. Wentworth
Subject: "Lassie" copyright
Document: Complaint
Kardashian v. Old Navy
Subject: Publicity rights
Document: Complaint
McKee v. Laurion
Subject: Doctor defamation
Document: Opinion
Francis v. U.S.
Subject: Bear attack
Document: Decision
more
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Doe v. Discovery Day Care
Court: Miami-Dade Circuit
Subject: Child molestation
Verdict: $3,000,000
Hoback v. City of Chattanooga
Court: USDC, E. Tenn.
Subject: PTSD discrimination
Verdict: $680,000
more
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Brown v. Herbert
Date: 12/16/11
Court: USDC, Utah
Hearing: Motion to dismiss polygamy case
more
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