Beauty pageant contestant ordered to pay Donald Trump $5 million.

Former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin inopportunely asserted that the Miss USA pageant was "rigged."

"I’m a very upstanding person with a crystal clear reputation."

Said the real-and-fake antiques dealer. "People believe what they want to believe."

Lawsuit for $1.2 million brought by a man named Butt, who learned his Faberge egg wasn't real at an Antiques Roadshow event.

"The attorney who said he would sue the state of Connecticut for $100 million after the Newtown school shooting is withdrawing his potential lawsuit..."

"... at least for now."

Irving Pinsky, who said Saturday he was filing the suit as a way to improve school safety, told the Connecticut Post that he’s received new information about security at Sandy Hook Elementary School and wants to review it....

"We all know its going to happen again," Pinsky said last week. "Society has to take action."

Oh, Irving. Lawyers and their motives. What have you added to our thinking on the subject?

"Animal activists have been attacking our family, our company, and our employees for decades because they oppose animals in circuses."

"These defendants attempted to destroy our family-owned business with a hired plaintiff who made statements that the court did not believe.... This settlement is a vindication not just for the company but also for the dedicated men and women who spend their lives working and caring for all the animals with Ringling Bros. in the face of such targeted, malicious rhetoric."

The ASPCA pays $9.3 million to get out of this case, which continues against the other defendants, the Humane Society of the United States, the Fund for Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, Animal Protection Institute United with Born Free USA, various lawyers, and a former Ringling employee named Tom Rider.

"British paper sues Lance Armstrong for $1.5m over lost libel action."

"Sunday Times paid now-disgraced cyclist $485,000 in 2006 over claims that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs."

That reminds me of this news item from The Des Moines Register, June 18, 1959, reprinted in Bill Bryson's "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir" (p. 106):

A high court jury awarded entertainer Liberace 8,000 pounds ($22,400) damages Wednesday in a libel suit against the London Daily Mirror. The jurors decided after 3½ hours of deliberation that a story in 1956 by Mirror journalist William N. Connor implied that the pianist was a homosexual. Among the phrases Liberace cited in his suit was Connor’s description of him as “everything he, she or it can want.” He also described the entertainer as “fruit-flavored.”

Suing the psychotherapists who offered to cure homosexuality.

The claim is consumer fraud.

The former clients said they were emotionally scarred by false promises of inner transformation and humiliating techniques that included stripping naked in front of the counselor and beating effigies of their mothers. They paid thousands of dollars in fees over time, they said, only to be told that the lack of change in their sexual feelings was their own fault....

Since the 1970s, when mainstream mental health associations stopped branding homosexuality as a disorder, a small network of renegade therapists, conservative religious leaders and self-identified “life coaches” has continued to argue that it is not inborn, but an aberration rooted in childhood trauma. Homosexuality is caused, these therapists say, by a stifling of normal masculine development, often by distant fathers and overbearing mothers or by early sexual abuse.

There's a lot of ineffective counseling out there. At what point do you call it consumer fraud and dole out damages to the patients who volunteered for it and emerged with new problems or the same problems/nonproblems they began with?

“The defendants peddled antigay pseudoscience, defaming gay people as loathsome and deranged,” said Sam Wolfe, a lawyer with the [Southern Poverty Law Center].

In the mental health (and religion) field, where does the science end and the pseudoscience begin? Freudian therapy is pseudoscience, isn't it? How about getting all the psychiatrists of the world to cough up all the fees they've collected over the decades?

Obviously, Wolfe begins with the position that the perceived problem is not a problem, and he has no sympathy for those who offer to cure the nonproblem and is uninhibited in his efforts to pump up hatred of those terrible bigots. Loathsome! Deranged!

We can find more civil, moderate, and non-litigious approaches to ending the pain caused by these misguided attempts at reorienting sexuality. I recommend more science, more conversation, more intelligence, more empathy... for everyone.

"If cellphone companies don’t want to take reasonable steps to ensure reliability..."

"... then they should be liable to customers who suffer injury from failed service."

Don't people kind of know cell phones don't work reliably? Isn't that the reason you're supposed to keep your land line? I've spent something like $30 a month for years maintaining a land line that mostly only collects commercial calls and wrong numbers because it just might happen that there will be an emergency and only the land line will work.

I finally cut of my land line, driven to it by a particular screw up. And I'd like to think the cell phone will fill the gap, performing like the old technology. But I think we know the risks and we've chosen them. What other predictable disappointments should be converted into lawsuits?

Halos for everybody.

At Drudge, right now, in the right-hand column, we've got both candidates, Romney and Obama,  emitting light rays from their noggins:



And in case you need a bigger nudge, there's good old Jesus, in his best internet-meme incarnation, that icon the old Spanish lady mis-restored. Botched-Icon Jesus is back on the front page today, because the old lady, wants to royalties now that fans are flooding into Zaragoza to see her painting.

An internet petition to keep the repair job garnered widespread support and seizing an opportunity to swell its coffers, the church began levying a 4 euro (£3) entrance fee on visitors, earning 2,000 euros in the first four days.

Lawyers acting for [Cecilia] Gimenez now insist she should be entitled to a cut of the profits, which she wants to go towards a charity of her choice....

Family of the original artist have called for the image of Christ with a crown of thorns to be restored to its former glory and have said they will seek legal action against Mrs Gimenez for "destroying" the work.

The Sancti Spiritus Hospital Foundation, which owns the Sanctuario de Misericordia, has also retained lawyers to defend the action and retain their right to proceeds from visitors to the church...

Art and law and religion... and greed. Always a fine mix!

ADDED: Note the line under the Obama pic: "Campaign Pitches Last Supper..." 

ALSO: The candidate's hands are funny, with Romney making an "O" and Obama pointing as if he could poke his finger into the hole. Freudian observations are obvious.

"Reading my testimony, anyone would get an idea that the person testifying is of a disordered mind."

Said Ira B. Arnstein, the crank, noodnik, and loser, who "for more than three decades he persistently sued the likes of Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, their publishers and their rights organizations for plagiarizing his own ditties."

[Judge Jerome] Frank went so far as to invoke Jonathan Swift and Friedrich Nietzsche in warning against creating a bad precedent "merely because we may think Arnstein is nutty."

The book reviewed at the link is "Unfair to Genius."

"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.

"This Court is not inclined to indulge [Lance] Armstrong's desire for publicity, self-aggrandizement, or vilification of Defendants..."

"... by sifting through eighty mostly unnecessary pages in search of the few kernels of factual material relevant to his claims."

Case dismissed less than 7 hours after it was filed.

ADDED: Who knew a judge could decide tl;dr?

"The two versions of ['What What (In The Butt)'] are very similar.... However the South Park version stars Butters..."

"... a naïve nine-year old, in a variety of costumes drawing attention to his innocence: at various points he is dressed as a teddy bear, an astronaut and a daisy."

An excellent discussion of the elements of "fair use" in copyright, from the 7th Circuit, in a case called Brownmark Films v. Comedy Partners (PDF). Via Above The Law.

You can watch the original "paean to anal sex" — "featuring an adult male singing and dancing in tight pants" — here. And the South Park parody — using "a large portion of the original version, using the same angles, framing, dance moves and visual elements" — is here. From the opinion:

The Copyright Act of 1976 sets forth four, non-exclusive factors that a court must consider in determining whether a particular use of a copyrighted work is a fair use: “(1) the purpose and character of the use . . . ; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.” 17 U.S.C. § 107 (2006). We consider each factor in turn, ultimately agreeing with the district court’s analysis and findings.

Central to determining the purpose and character of a work is whether the new work merely supersedes the original work, or instead adds something new with a further purpose or of a different character....

Regarding the third factor, SPDS’s use of the original WWITB was not insubstantial. Certainly, SPDS used the “heart” of the work; the work’s overall design and distinctive visual elements.... Parody therefore “presents a difficult case.” Id. Indeed, it may even seem as an anomaly under fair use that parody, a favored use, must use a substantial amount of qualitative and quantitative elements to create the intended allusion; there are few alternatives. But when parody achieves its intended aim, the amount taken becomes reasonable when the parody does not serve as a market substitute for the work....

It follows from the third factor that SPDS’s parody cannot have an actionable effect on the potential market for or value of the original WWITB video under the fourth factor. As the South Park episode aptly points out, there is no “Internet money” for the video itself on YouTube, only advertising dollars that correlate with the number of views the video has had. It seems to this court that SPDS’s likely effect, ironically, would only increase ad revenue. Any effect on the derivative market for criticism is not protectable. Id. at 592. And the plaintiff has failed to give the district court or this court any concrete suggestion about potential evidence indicating that the South Park parody has cut into any real market (with real, non-Internet dollars) for derivative uses of the original WWITB video.

I'm not a copyright expert, but I think that's well analyzed. It's good to see parody getting room to breathe, and I think the original artist is better off after having this boost from South Park. His litigiousness makes him less likeable. I can see why he wants his cash, but I don't like copyright litigation as the way to monetize your YouTube videos.

The case also has some great material for civil procedure fans. The court says South Park should have "captioned" its motion as a motion for summary judgment rather than a motion to dismiss. The court notes the arguments about the fact that Butters is naïve and the lack of evidence on that score. The court says the Butters' naïveté isn't crucial to its analysis, but it nevertheless crafts a footnote pointing us to other South Park episodes establishing the naïveté of Butters:

See, e.g., Butters’ Very Own Episode (Comedy Central television broadcast Dec. 12, 2001) (perceiving sex as wrestling), see also Cartman Sucks (Comedy Central television broadcast Mar. 14, 2007); Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset (Comedy Central television broadcast Dec. 1, 2004). Indeed, in one of these episodes, Butters is dressed in the same teddy bear costume he wears in the WWITB video. Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset (Comedy Central television broadcast Dec. 1, 2004).

Madison school board votes down charter school designed to lift up poor minority kids.

It was a terrible clash between Madison interests: unionists against those who wanted to find innovative ways to serve the interests of the most downtrodden members of society.

Urban League of Greater Madison President Kaleem Caire immediately announced that he would sue the board for racial discrimination: "We are going to challenge this school district like they’ve never been challenged before, I swear to God."

From the comments at the link:

This was never about Unions. Mr. Caire's tea party pals play the union card because they understand how divisive and powerful it can be.

This was an attempt by the Urban League to create a private school with public money. Their attempt has failed. That Mr. Caire is now apparently going to sue (and further drain resources that could be used to close the achievement gap), reinforces the assertion that the real objective is to put public money into private pockets.

Mr. Caire is behaving like a professional victim.

When liberals attack liberals! What to look for: 1. They'll call each other conservatives. 2. Race card. 3. Lawsuit!

ADDED: If you leverage your proposal on race — thinking that's a great way to get Madison liberals to give you what you want — when they vote it down, do you get to cry race discrimination? Seems to me, that's counting race twice. Or... to put it another way... it's arguing that affirmative action is not merely permitted, but required.

I think Caire should show his good faith by withdrawing the race card and declining to sue. He lost a political fight. The place to fight a political fight is in the political arena. You're competing for taxpayer money, so prove your commitment to not wasting taxpayer money by not draining it through litigation. Caire should focus on the next election. Try to put people who support the charter school on the school board.

"Lawsuit for ADA violations and wrongful seizure. The plaintiff's four service monkeys..."

"... were taken from her as she attempted to change their diapers and feed them on Bourbon Street."

From "Today in Pro Se Litigation," noting a lawsuit against the Louisiana State Department of Wildlife & Fishery, and the fact that these monkeys on Bourbon Street were dressed up as pirates.

(Via Boing Boing.)

What if the famous mudflap girl...

... had nipples?

Would you call the cops?

NY police union threatens to bring civil lawsuits against the protesters who assault police officers.

The NY Daily News reports:

[T]he president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association warned demonstrators that he will pursue civil suits against anyone who assaults any union member.

"New York's police officers are working around the clock as the already overburdened economy in New York is being drained by 'occupiers' who intentionally and maliciously instigate needless and violent confrontations with the police," SBA President Ed Mullins said in a statement....

Seventeen demonstrators were arrested and six officers were assaulted during a chaotic march to Union Square on Wednesday night, police said.

A protester responds:

"We have been brutalized and mass-arrested by the NYPD. They can threaten us all they want - we've got lawyers, too."

That's the classic informed citizen's response: You sue me, and I'll sue you.

"Musician suing for age bias says his 88-year-old judge is too old to preside..."

Violinist Martin Stoner knows "it sounds kind of like hypocrisy," but Judge Robert Patterson is, he says, "slow-witted and unable to function." The federal judge is 88. Stoner, who is 60, is suing the Young Concert Artist for excluding him from a their competition which is for... young concert artists (apparently capped at age 20).

Patterson refused to comment, but his defenders claim he's sharp as a tack. When another judge fell ill two years ago, Patterson stepped in midtrial, ripped through a 2,282-page legal transcript in a single weekend and handled the case with aplomb, Manhattan Federal Court Chief Judge Loretta Preska told the New York Law Journal.

Stoner — are you surprised to hear? — is representing himself in this lawsuit.

"Sotheby's to sell real drawing by fake artist."

"The London auction house said Monday it is offering a drawing by the talented but fictional American abstract expressionist Nat Tate."

You can see the drawing — "Bridge No. 114" — and read about the creation of Nat Tate by writer William Boyd here.

It all started in 1998. I was on the editorial board of Modern Painters magazine, then a very classy and influential art quarterly, and one day in a meeting the editor of the magazine, Karen Wright, wondered out loud if there was a way we could introduce some fiction into the mix of artists' profiles, exhibition reviews and general essays in which the magazine specialised. I don't know what made me speak out but I said, without really thinking: "Why don't I invent an artist?" And so Nat Tate was born.

So Boyd wrote his story, making Tate an Abstract Expressionist who gets depressed about his art after meeting Picasso* and ends up burning all his artwork and committing suicide.** Boyd allowed his fictional story to be published as a glossy art book with illustrations of artwork, and it was presented as if it were about a real artist. That it, it was a joke — the launch party was on an April Fool's Day 1998 — or, if you prefer, a hoax. People fell for it. The truth was revealed. Boyd professes himself hurt that it was called a hoax and not a joke. (Contemplate the hoax/joke distinction.)

Dogged by the accusations of hoax, Boyd conceived closure:

If this fictional artist could sell an artwork for real money then the Nat Tate story would have reached some kind of apotheosis and consummation. So I "found" another Nat Tate drawing – one from his famous bridge sequence... Sotheby's had form when it came to selling art by fictional artists, having successfully auctioned a Bruno Hat painting some years previously. Hat was a spoof artist that a group of bright young things had invented in 1929 and staged an exhibition of his work in a London town-house.... Hook consulted with colleagues and in due course I was told the sale was on...

Presumably, the form attends to all the incipient legal issues. If you go looking for closure, you surely don't want to touch off litigation. But the notion of closure is also fictional, no? I hadn't remembered the 12-year old story, and now I'm propagating it.

Actually, I like the idea of a fictional artist, and the artwork itself is real. (I've read "The Recognitions" by William Gaddis — "a masterwork about art and forgery, and the increasingly thin line between the counterfeit and the fake.") In the blogosphere, boring, humorless people express outrage when pranksters and artists experiment with "sockpuppets." It's too hard to play in this complex world we've made for ourselves. (Why did we go to all this trouble to exclude play?!)

But Boyd duly anticipates outrage. The proceeds from the sale of "Bridge No. 114" will go to a charity. Artist's Benevolent Institution. Wouldn't it be funny if that the name of William Boyd's bank account? No, you're not laughing? You're one of the killjoys!
_____________________________

*And Braque. Seriously, why kill yourself over Braque? What cherry on the top of a depression sundae is Braque? I'd have to read the book to tell you. There, I just bought the book. I'll tell you later. You, the 2 people who read this blog and want to know how Braque augmented Picasso in the emotional arc toward a fictional suicide.

** He uses the same suicide method — jumping off the Staten Island ferry — used by Spalding Gray. I hope Gray didn't read this book, looking, perhaps for inspiration.

ADDED: From Boyd's book:

... Nat felt vastly more at ease with Braque than with Picasso and gladly accepted when Braque offered to show him around his studio. Braque was then reworking his painting La Terrasse, which he had begun some eleven years earlier, a fact that Tate found astonishing, not to say incomprehensible. He was also deeply moved and captivated by some of the smaller elongated landscapes and seascapes in the studio. Apparently Tate ventured the opinion that they reminded him of van Gogh’s late landscapes. After gently correcting Tate’s pronunciation (‘Van Go? Non, mon ami, jamais’), Braque commented that he ‘regarded van Gogh as a great painter of night.’ The observation seemed to trouble Nat unduly, as if it was prophetic or gnomic in some sinister way... There is a photograph of the fête champêtre that Nat and Barkasian had with Braque and his family and friends during that visit, taken by Barkasian, one assumes, as he is absent from the picture. Braque himself sits at the centre of the table, dappled with autumn sunshine, while the women of the household fuss over the food and the placement. Nat stands close to the master, on his left, a plate in his hand, almost as if he is about to serve him. But his gaze is unfocused, he looks out of frame, at something in the middle distance, or perhaps just lost in his darkening thoughts. Nothing would ever be the same again.

So what was it about Braque that could drive you to suicide? His douchebag pronunciation of "Van Gogh"? His high school French? (I can talk French like that: Oui, mon ami, toujours!) Or was it the fact that — unlike an Abstract Expressionist — he fussed over a painting for 11 years, and — unlike an Abstract Expressionist — he maintained a calm and pretty domestic life? Dammit, that's it! I can't take it anymore!

"That's the best way: You just get on with the whole thing. Never mind suing anyone. And just do something different."

That's Bill Cunningham, the NYT fashion photographer/commentator, talking specifically about the failed lawsuit over red soles on shoes, and, in the process, making a nice general point about litigiousness.

ADDED: If you watch the clip, you'll see Cunningham doesn't think much of Christian Louboutin for suing to protect its distinctive trademark red soles. It lost the lawsuit against YSL. But he mainly jumps forward to delight at the other shoemakers who are making other colorful soles. We see yellow and blue soled shoes.

It's not very coherent as a legal concept. He never says YSL should have picked a different color than red. He just likes the other shoemakers who find something different to do. But does that mean that Louboutin should have found something different than bringing a lawsuit? It's not at all clear.

I think Cunningham is saying: I don't care about law! Law isn't delightful! Extravagant shoes are delightful! Let's engage with the things in life that are delightful!

The Blutarsky/Feingold Philosophy.

John Belushi as Blutarski in "Animal House":



Russ Feingold at the Wisconsin Capitol last Sunday:



And a few weeks ago, here at the Capitol:



"It's not over until we say it's over." That's the political theory. Meanwhile....

Unions representing public workers in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday to block the state's new curbs on collective bargaining... [claiming] the controversial measure is unconstitutional because it creates two classes of public workers in the state -- those covered by the new rules and those exempt from them.

What? Treating police differently from teachers is supposed to be an invidious discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause?! There's no suspect or quasi-suspect classification, so the courts will give this minimal scrutiny. How is this anything but a frivolous lawsuit?

Blutarsky/Feingold marches on.

NOTE: The "Animal House" epilogue tells us what ultimately happens to each character, and the biggest joke is that Blutarsky becomes a U.S. Senator! (Thanks to Bruce Hayden, in the comments, for reminding me of that.)