Ramzi Yousef, convicted after the 1993 WTC bombing, sues for relief from solitary confinement.

He'll never get out of prison, but — after 15 years — should he get out of solitary confinement? But that's not the question asked in a lawsuit. To win the lawsuit, a court has to deprive government of the choice to treat him like that.

Colin Dayan, a humanities professor at Vanderbilt University who has studied solitary confinement in Arizona, said many prison administrations use isolation without regard to psychological damage to inmates.

"You no longer know what's real," she said. "You can't speak to anyone; you can't touch anyone: your senses no longer have any outlet. You have delusions and become psychotic. Your mind deteriorates."

After his arrest, Yousef — who expected the death penalty — told FBI agents that he had intended "to topple one tower into the other, and cause a total of 250,000 civilian deaths."

"The jelly looked like pus, the peanut butter like God knows what and the bread was hard as a rock..."

So says Frank Hannibal, describing the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in jail, where he was sent after he joked about his expensive peanut butter. When the TSA agent at LaGuardia Airport opened the jar, Hannibal said "They’re looking to confiscate my explosives."

What idiot doesn't know not to joke about bombs in the airport security line? Now, this guy is suing for $5 million.

This lawsuit looks like pus. There. Whatever judge gets stuck with it is welcome to use my joke against this phenomenally stupid man who purports to be a connoisseur of humor and peanut butter. Hannibal should have to reimburse the taxpayers for all the public money he's consumed and will continue to consume.

Donald Trump says he's suing Bill Maher for $5 million after Trump accepted his offer, making a valid contract.

The "offer," made last month, was to "pay $5 million to Trump’s charity of choice if he provided a birth certificate proving that he’s not 'spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan.'"

Maher was comically commenting on Trump's offer to pay $5 million to Obama's charity of choice if Obama releases his college records.

This lawsuit news is, of course, Trump, once again, hogging — orangutanning — the media spotlight. Fine. I don't care. But to actually file a lawsuit is: 1. An offense against free speech, and 2. An irresponsible appropriation of the public wealth that will be consumed processing the lawsuit.

“I don’t think he was joking. He said it with venom. That was venom. That wasn’t a joke. In fact, he was nervous when he said it. It was a pathetic delivery,” Trump said on Fox News.

Speaking of pathetic... go away, Donald. And take your hair with you when you leave. 

If the airline "managed to get her over there," was it "obligated to get her home"?

So says the lawyer for an obese woman who died after the airline could not get her onto a plane in Hungary.

They spent several relaxing weeks at a vacation home they owned in the Hungarian countryside. It was a trip they took almost every year....

How many weeks? Did her condition change over that time? The lawyer "is mulling a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the airlines accusing them of violating laws protecting the disabled."

On the plane, the crew, with help from the local fire department, was unable to move her from her wheelchair to the three seats assigned to her. The captain ordered them off after 30 minutes of no success.

“We had 140 passengers on board, and they had connections and needed to travel,” said Lufthansa spokesman Nils Haupt. “The question was never the seat belt. The question was the mobility of the passenger.”

“She was very ill and did not trust that the hospitals in former communist Hungary could attend to her needs,” [the lawyer] said.

I'm sorry but this is a lawsuit I hope will fail. If you are that sick and that mobility-impaired and you insist on treatment only from your doctors in the United States, don't leave the country.

"France's far-right National Front is to sue Madonna..."

"... after an image at the US singer's Paris concert showed party leader Marine Le Pen with a swastika imposed on her face."

National Front vice-president Florian Philippot said the party could not accept "such an odious comparison."

Idiots. Use the "more speech" solution or you are helping her make her point.

I'm sure she doesn't mind the publicity. Go ahead, make me a free-speech martyr.

Idiots.

"Basically, if she wins, then every single junior office worker in law or finance should be able to sue their employers."

"Which makes me think she’s not going to win."

ADDED: But if she wins... maybe women will be able to have it all.

"Austrian Politician Photographed Having Sex In Forest By Hidden Wildlife Camera."

Oh, no!

Have you ever considered this possibility when you were having sex in the forest?

IN THE COMMENTS: AprilApple points to the part of the linked article that says the politician "will get up to $25,000 in compensation if the court rules his privacy was invaded." That does shed a different light on it — a less gentle, dappled light.

"In truth, the art project is akin to a massive resource extraction project, and under federal law should be treated as one..."

So reads the complaint in a lawsuit brought by a group of University of Denver law students against federal land managers who approved Christo's draping fabric over 6 miles of the Arkansas River.

[I]n classifying an art project as a “recreation activity,” the suit says, the federal analysts framed their assessment in ways that excused the impact of the thousands of bore-holes, rock-bolts and anchors that will have a cumulative effect, the suit says, not unlike industrial mining.

This is a new twist on the old "what is art?" question. These law students are arguing about the art/mining distinction.

Let me add: I love Christo. I used to hate him.

American Atheists sue to keep the WTC cross out of the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

The cross, you may remember, is not something human beings constructed intentionally. It is steel that remained standing after the buildings collapsed. But it was noticed, honored, and preserved because of the Christian symbolism:

"This cross is now a part of the official WTC memorial. No other religions or philosophies will be honored. It will just be a Christian icon, in the middle of OUR memorial,” Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, said in a release.

Silverman added that the memorial must allow atheists and other belief groups to include their own displays of equal size. For the past several years the cross has been housed at St. Peter's church. On Saturday it was permanently moved to the 9/11 Memorial Museum after a ceremonial blessing at Zuccotti Park. The 9/11 Memorial Museum, which will officially open next year, said its mission is to tell the history of the attacks through artifacts like the cross.

"This steel remnant became a symbol of spiritual comfort for the thousands of recovery workers who toiled at ground zero, as well as for people around the world," said 9/11 Memorial President Joe Daniels. "In the historical exhibition, the cross is part of our commitment to bring back the authentic physical reminders that tell the story of 9/11 in a way nothing else can.”

I think the historic significance of the cross justifies its inclusion in the museum. Human beings cannot construct equivalent monuments for other religions, even if it were, in fact, legally required. Silverman's argument assumes that a historical museum is a free-speech forum that must be open to the speech of all groups, but that's not what a museum is.

Sometimes organizations file lawsuits not because they think they will win but to gain publicity for their cause. This is a case, however, of an organization drawing bad publicity, though, isn't it? I suppose this group seeks favor among a fairly small percentage of the population. If that is the goal, outraging the majority could feel like a good thing.

What will the unions do now?

Probing into the unions' strategy here in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel only comes up with 2 things:

1. The recall elections. The article mentions the "so-called in-kind work" which "gives union members the ability to go door-to-door lobbying to defeat Republican senators facing recall." Gives union members the ability...? You mean allows unions to pay people to do door-to-door work. [ADDED: That sentence should end in a question mark. I really don't understand whether the members are paid to perform this "in-kind work" for candidates. Are they volunteers?] If you're in a recall district, steel yourself for paid [?] union activists coming to your door. Or maybe you already have the homeowner policy that I have: I don't answer the door unless I know who's there and want to see them. By the way, how many of the protesters in February and March were paid by the unions?

2. The federal court lawsuit challenging the collective bargaining legislation on equal protection grounds, the absurdly weak theory being that the state can't treat different categories of its own employees differently.

Walker's bill exempted firefighters and police officers, as well as some transit workers, from the legislation. The unions say, at least in the cases of the police and firefighters, that was political payback for their support of Walker in the gubernatorial election.

Imagine courts striking down legislation on the ground that the political majority drew lines that seemed to favor its supporters! The unions also contend that free speech rights require the state to submit to collective bargaining with its employees. Here's a clue: The First Amendment protects us from compelled speech. It doesn't require it!

So that's it for the unions' strategy. How many people reading the linked article are fooled by all the bluster? The strategy is pitifully weak!

The unions suffered a crushing defeat, and the only way back — not mentioned in the article — is to regain the legislature and the governorship in future regular elections. That's a long time line, and it will give the people of the state a chance to see if the Republicans' budget fix worked.

At this point in the protracted budget battle of 2011, the people of Wisconsin deserve that information before we plunge into another big change. If the unions look too desperate grasping at strategic moves like #1 and #2, above, then Wisconsinites ought to suspect that they are afraid to let us see how good the new policy really is.

"[T]he courts have no obligation to entertain pure speculation and conjecture."

Said the Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit, threatening sanctions against the plaintiffs' lawyer:

[T]he appeals court said, the plaintiff advanced inconsistent theories, including that the defendants may have ordered explosives to be planted in the Pentagon, may have hired Muslims extremists to carry out the attacks, may have used Muslims as dupes or patsies, or may have fired a missile into the Pentagon. Nor did the plaintiff cite any facts to support a conspiracy among the defendants, according to the opinion....

The lawyer, William Veale, said the judges were "dishonest" and "didn’t mention half of what we presented to them in the complaint. They simply disregarded mountains of evidence.”

Here's the opinion (PDF):

While, as a general matter, Gallop or any other plaintiff certainly may allege that the most senior members of the United States government conspired to commit acts of terrorism against the Untied States, the courts have no obligation to entertain pure speculation and conjecture.

The Untied States? Perhaps that's another clue for your imaginary mountain range, Mr. Veale.

Indeed, in attempting to marshal a series of unsubstantiated and inconsistent allegations in order to explain why American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon, the complaint utterly fails to set forth a consistent, much less plausible, theory for what actually happened that morning in Arlington, Virginia. See, e.g., Complaint & 3 (alleging that defendants may have caused “high explosive charges to be detonated inside the Pentagon”); & 21 (alleging that defendants “may have employed Muslim extremists to carry out suicide attacks; or . . . may have used Muslim extremists as dupes or patsies”); id. (alleging that “four planes” were in fact hijacked on the morning of September 11); & 33 (alleging that “[i]f Flight 77, or a substitute, did swoop low over the [Pentagon], to create the false impression of a suicide attack, it was then flown away by its pilot, or remote control, and apparently crashed somewhere else”); & 40(d)(3) (alleging that apart from Flight 77 “a different, additional, flying object . . . hit the Pentagon”); & 43 (alleging that there “may have been a missile strike, perhaps penetrating through to the back wall, which helped collapse the section that fell in, possibly augmented by explosives placed inside”).

Bratz wins $88.4 million from Mattel... and Mattel started the legal battle.

Let this be a lesson to all you litigious people!

Mattel had argued that the dolls' designer Carter Bryant developed the Bratz concept while working for it in the late 1990s and secretly took the idea to MGA. MGA denied the claims and countersued, accusing Mattel of corporate espionage, using spies with fake business cards and dummy invoices to gain access to MGA's ideas. MGA also accused Mattel of threatening to scupper business deals with retailers and media firms if they did business with Bratz....

Hail, the countersuit! Let those who start lawsuits cringe!

Oh, Barbie! How far you have fallen:



(That's my original Barbie doll, people. Bow down to the awesome Barbie!)

Arianna says "the lawsuit completely ignores... how new media... have changed the game, enabling millions of people to shift their focus from passive observation to active participation — from couch potato to self-expression."

"Writing blogs, sending tweets, updating your Facebook page, editing photos, uploading videos, and making music are options made possible by new technologies... The same people who never question why someone would sit on a couch and watch TV for eight hours straight can't understand why someone would find it rewarding to weigh in on the issues — great and small — that interest them. For free."

You desk potatoes!

"And of course I run a veritable forced labor camp here...

"... where the authors of our million comments are (doubtless to their shock and horror) entirely unpaid, even though they drive up our page views and thus our income stream. And remember: Every comment you write in response to this post is just further oppression of you. Have you no self-respect?"

Says Eugene Volokh at the end of a post pooh-poohing the lawsuit against the Huffington Post, which made lots of money without paying its writers.

How is it a crime to lie to a woman and thereby obtain her consent to have her breasts touched?

I don't understand this:

Police in Idaho have arrested a woman who impersonated a plastic surgeon so she could carry out breast exams to random strangers....

The victims said they believed [Kristina] Ross because she used medical vocabulary.

She said Ross even gave them a phone number to an actual plastic surgeon's office in order for them to make follow-up appointments.

Ross is charged with a felony — "practising medicine without a licence." Oh, blech, it's the Daily Mail. Why do I keep reading that lurid trash! The charge is practicing medicine without a license. Oh, what bullshit. She wasn't practicing medicine. She was lying to ladies in a bar.

The Daily Mail also makes a big deal out of the fact that Ross's "gender category" is "male to female."

Another classic case of hardass New Yorkitude.

From the comments section of the NY Post:

this story actually makes me furious. she peed her pants and she's suing a club. another classic case of an "entitlement cvnt".

last time i checked pregnancy was a personal choice. you aren't bestowed with any special powers, knowledge, or freedoms.

don't like being pregnant in big bad ny -- then leave, and go the burbs where you and giant stroller belong.

i have a country house in CT. they'll let you pee anywhere here. get out of ny, spoiled whining cow.

This story makes me furious too, by the way. I'm furious that a newspaper reports on a lawsuit without stating what the legal claim is. Is there a tort claim in New York for failing to give special treatment to pregnant women? "She blames Hammerstein management for the humiliation of wetting her pants"... but isn't this publicity, brought on by the lawsuit, humiliating? Or is she trying to "humiliate" the Hammerstein Ballroom into paying her off to undo the bad publicity she's giving them — with the help of a lawsuit and NY Post?

ADDED: I'm removing the "lawsuits I hope will fail" tag, because I don't understand what really happened here. My criticism is of the journalism, and my reason for writing the post was the hilariously unsympathetic comment. I'm not entirely unsympathetic myself. I remember being pregnant in New York City — twice — and wanting people to be spontaneously helpful to me — giving me a seat on the subway or offering me a place to nap at the law firm — and feeling sad about humanity because I didn't get that help. But I never asked for special concern.

Except once, actually. It was 1982, and I was going on a religious retreat with a group of individuals from a Manhattan church. It was about a 3-hour drive to the place, and a woman in the van lit up a cigarette. Would you please not smoke? I asked. She said she would continue to smoke, so I said that the reason I felt I had to ask is that I was pregnant. The woman and everyone else in the van rejected my request. I was told that smoking is only bad for the smoker — as if I were dumb to think otherwise. I said I couldn't go with them, and they stopped the van and gave me my luggage. As they left me there on the wrong side of the West Side Highway, which I would have to cross, at night, before hiking a couple of unfamiliar blocks to get to a place where I could begin to try to hail a cab, one young woman detained me for a little lecture: I was being selfish and not considerate of others, and therefore I was not a good Christian. I used to feel chastened by criticisms like that, and it wasn't until I was in the cab, crying, heading back toward Brooklyn, that it occurred to me that I might have said to her that I was concerned for others, because I was concerned about my unborn child.

CORRECTION: That was the NY Post, not The Daily News. Sorry.

"If Google told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?"

For some the answer is: Yes, I would and then I'd sue.

***

Bonus lawsuit story that I wouldn't have blogged if I hadn't run across that other one:

Upper West Side couples counselor Jeffrey Mechanic is being sued [for $4 million] by two of his former clients who say he nearly destroyed their marriage in his wacky attempts to save it....

"He would tell me constantly that my wife was not capable of satisfying me... For 10 years, I was faithful. Then I just caved in and had an affair, and [Mechanic] said there was nothing wrong with that"....

Aren't marriage counselors always dealing death blows to marriages? That's my observation. But this couple actually stayed together, so... seems the husband got good mileage out of Mechanic when he used him as an excuse for cheating.

"I woke up when he was starting to tattoo my nose. ... I counted 56 stars, it is frightening."

"I explicitly said in my native tongue, French, and also in a little bit of English when he looked confused, that I wanted three little stars only near my left eye."



Don't fall asleep in the tattoo parlor. Don't rely on a verbal description of the tattoo you want when you are speaking a foreign language. Don't get tattoos when you are a teenager. Don't get tattoos on your face. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't.....

And now a word from the tattoist:



Yikes! I know what you're thinking. Don't let anyone who looks like that do anything to your face. But wait. Listen to him:

"She was awake and looked into the mirror several times as the procedure was taking place... The trouble all started when she went home and her father and boyfriend threw a fit... They are saying things now like I doped her or hypnotised her. What rubbish. She asked for 56 stars and that's what she got."

This is a lawsuit, people.

The girl, Kimberley Vlaeminck is suing the small businessman, Rouslan Toumaniant. Who do you think is telling the truth?

***

Why would anyone ask for 56 stars? Maybe it's for the stars on the flag, one for each of the states, or maybe... I think... one left to go... one left to go...

"A network of 30 'phantom' companies, some complete with logos and websites, to obscure the true nature of the movie he was making."

Assuming you're a lawyer, wouldn't you love to do the legal work that supports Sacha Baron Cohen?

The nature of the challenging and complicated work has come to light in the course of a lawsuit that may or may not be trumped up:

The court documents say the comedian has established “greater than 30 fraudulent corporations that set-up websites and mission statements to mislead individuals form (sic) discovering the true identity and purpose of the requested appearance by... Sacha Baron Cohen”.

At least 29 company name registrations linked to the film have been filed with the LA County Clerk, all in 2007. Many of them give the appearance of being German or Swiss broadcasting firms, such as Deutsches Modefernsehen and Deutsches Unterhaltungsfernsehen.

Among the firms that seems to have been most used as a front for the film is Amesbury Chase.
Its website is now blank, but before being removed, it described Amesbury Chase as a production company offering “world class facilities, and state-of-the art equipment to help you create dynamic and compelling content”.

Its address was a mailbox on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. At least three other “front companies” – Chromium Films, Cold Stream Productions and Coral Blue Productions – used the same address and phone number and had identical websites.

Production staff working on the film used the companies as fronts to contact several organisations and individuals to persuade them to take part in the documentary they were filming, often pretending it was a European production looking at American culture.

Among those taken in were the Alabama National Guard, which was contacted by staff from Amesbury Chase to say they were an affiliate of a German TV station shooting a documentary on what it was like to be in officer recruitment school. Baron Cohen was allowed to train alongside new recruits and was filmed changing into uniform, exposing a thong he was wearing.

Or would you hate to use your legal skills to trick people like this? Come on, I said assuming you're a lawyer.

"Courts from California to Alabama to New York have enforced those same contractual provisions..."

"... in the face of claims not as weak as the bogus allegations of your clients."