• Nevada man sues the Mormon church over a back injury he suffered performing baptisms for the dead. The church was negligent in not warning Daniel Dastrup that "the repetitive motion required for performing baptisms for the dead could cause serious damage to a person's back."
Dastrup v. LDS Church
• Attorney says he was harassed by his boss at a Newport Beach, Calif., law firm because refused to attend a seminar "where he would be stripped naked, not allowed to leave, be required to discuss details of his sex life, handle a wooden dildo, and potentially allow other men to touch his genitals."
Eggleston v. Bisnar/Chase
• Parents of a 10-year-old boy who witnessed a killer whale's fatal attack on a trainer sue Sea World Orlando for infliction of emotional distress. "Without question, it was reasonably foreseeable and in fact predictable that an attack such as this one by a killer whale with the tendencies of Tilikum was inevitable." Connell v. Sea World
• Denver judge dismisses Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols's civil rights claims against prison officials for denying him a high-fiber diet.
Nichols v. Federal Bureau of Prisons
• Illinois teenager with cerebral palsy sues the Special Olympics for refusing to let her play basketball with the help of a service dog.
Youngwith v. Special Olympics
• Montana judge sets aside a government decision removing protections for the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf. The Endangered Species Act "was not intended to sow the dragon's teeth of strife or to plant the seeds of future conflicts that have given rise to this case."
Defenders of Wildlife v. Salazar
• San Francisco judge dismisses a cereal consumer's false advertising suit. "[T]here is nothing in the packaging or marketing of Cap’n Crunch that would in any way deceive a reasonable consumer into believing that the cereal contains or derives nutritional value from real fruit." Werbel v. PepsiCo
• Iowa judge says a sheriff denied the applications of a father and son for concealed weapons permits in retaliation for their political activism. "This is a great reminder that the First Amendment protects the sole individual who may be a gadfly, kook, weirdo, nut job, whacko, and spook, with the same force of protection as folks with more majoritarian and popular views." Dorr v. Weber
• 5th Circuit rules that a school district violated the religious freedom of a Native American boy by requiring him to wear his long hair in a bun on top of his head or in a braid tucked into his shirt. The boy "has a sincere religious belief in wearing his hair uncut and in plain view."
A.A. v. Needville Ind. Sch. Dist.
 
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Probate Ruling Punishes Good Samaritans? |
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Michael Evans
An appeal in a Chicago police misconduct case will focus on whether officers can invoke the Fifth Amendment in pretrial proceedings and then testify at trial without being impeached for their prior assertions of privilege.
A federal jury earlier this month ruled that 10 officers did not frame Michael Evans for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in 1976. Evans, 47, served 27 years in prison before he was released in 2003 based on DNA tests that showed he was not the source of semen recovered from the victim.
The officers all worked at Area 2, a notorious Chicago police station where suspects were allegedly tortured. Citing a special prosecutor's investigation of Area 2, eight defendants took the Fifth at their original depositions in Evans' civil rights case.
But with the investigation winding down, all of the defendants chose to waive their Fifth Amendment rights and testify at trial. And over the objections of Evans' lawyers, U.S. District Judge David H. Coar ruled that the jury could not draw any “adverse inferences” from the prior assertions of the privilege against self-incrimination.
"The jury did not hear that eight of these police officers took the Fifth the first time they were asked about this investigation," Jon Loevy (Loevy & Loevy, Chicago), lead counsel for Evans, said.
In court documents (see below), Loevy has argued that the officers asserted the privilege to avoid pretrial discovery. By avoiding impeachment at trial, they, in effect, got to have their Fifth Amendment cake and eat it, too.
Another area of concern involves Judith Januszewski, the only eyewitness to link Evans to the slaying of Lisa Cabassa on Chicago's South Side. Evans alleged that the officers manipulated her into identifying him as one of the two men she saw struggling with the girl on a street corner.
One juror, Olaseinde Sapara, said after the trial that Januszewski came up with Evans' name, not the police, giving them probable cause to arrest him. But Januszewski testified that officers said the name “Michael Evans” before she ever identified him.
“I know one thing: Justice was not done,” Sapara admitted to the Chicago Sun-Times, going on to say that “All of us, I believe, knew a lot of police misconduct took place.”
Evans, who received the maximum $160,000 from a state compensation fund for his wrongful imprisonment, was seeking about $60 million in damages. During the trial, he rejected a $2.7 million settlement offer.
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Evans v. Chicago Court Documents
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By Matthew Heller
8/23/06
By broadly interpreting a law designed to protect the elderly from abusive caregivers, a divided California Supreme Court may have ended up punishing Good Samaritans who provide care to the elderly out of friendship.
The decision in Bernard v. Foley bars two friends of a widow from inheriting the “lion's share” of her $448,000 estate. Camille Bosco changed her will three days before she died to name both James Foley and Ann Erman as 50 percent residual beneficiaries.
A provision of the California Probate Code enacted in 1993 lists a “care custodian” of a dependent adult among those who cannot validly benefit from a will. A “catchall” provision of another statute defines “care custodian” as a “person providing health services or social services to elders or dependent adults.”
Foley and Erman, who cared for Bosco during the two months before her death, argued that the 1993 law did not apply to them because they acted as personal friends of the widow rather than in a professional or occupational capacity.
The Supreme Court split 4-3, with Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar writing for the majority that “neither the statutory language nor the legislative history supports a preexisting personal friendship exception to [the law's] presumptive disqualification of care custodian donees.”
In a dissent, Justice Carol A. Corrigan said the catchall provision of Welfare and Institutions Code Section 15610.17 should be “fairly interpreted” as covering only those who “provide care or assistance through some formal relationship.”
“In terms of public policy, it seems unwise to penalize Good Samaritans by making them less eligible to receive the gratitude of those they help, the kinder they have been,” she concluded.
By Matthew Heller
8/23/06
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Court Raps Judge Over 'Moral' Views in Adoption Case
The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected the reactionary views of a family court judge who ruled that a foster parent could not adopt a child because her out-of-wedlock relationship with a man was “immoral.”
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Off With His Head! Woman Sues 'Mad Hatter' Actor
Experimental theater clashes with premises liability law in the case of a Kentucky woman who claims she was injured while watching a performance of a circus-inspired play when one of the actors balanced his knee on her head.
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Charity Worker Accuses CEO of Hypnotic Seduction
A former charity worker may be pushing the limits of sexual harassment law by alleging that her boss required her to participate in “relaxation sessions” on his “magic couch” during which he hypnotized and molested her.
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Appeal is Expert's Latest Challenge to Judges
Expert witness Dr. David Egilman was previously successful in showing he had standing to appeal a judicial order in a case in which he was not a party — but that case may not help him in his latest challenge to a trial judge.
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Plaintiff's Expert Files Appeal in 'Popcorn Lung' Lawsuit
A controversial expert witness for plaintiffs has filed an unusual non-party appeal of a Washington state judge's decision finding his theory that snackers can contract lung disease from exposure to microwave popcorn is not scientifically sound.
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Philly School Sued Over Race Attack on Student's Mom
Taking civil rights law to what may be an extreme, an Asian-American woman is alleging a Philadelphia high school's tolerance of racism rendered her “helpless prey” to African-American students who attacked her when she picked her child up from the school.
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'McSteamy' Sex Tape Suit Cools off With Settlement
Acting couple Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart have dropped a $1 million lawsuit against Gawker.com for publishing a videotape featuring them in a nude threesome with a friend after the gossip website agreed to take down the much-viewed posting.
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McCourt v. McCourt
Court: L.A. Superior
Subject: Dodgers divorce
Pom Wonderful v. Welch Foods
Court: USDC, C. Calif.
Subject: False advertising
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McCourt v. McCourt
Date: 8/30/10
Court: L.A. Superior
Hearing: Dodgers divorce trial
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