Earlier this year, an Akron Ohio Mom (Kelly William-Bolar) was ordered to jail for allegedly “falsifying documents” that permitted her daughters to attend a school in the next district over. Not fined, jailed! She used her father’s address for residency purposes because she did not want her daughters attending a presumably dangerous school which, according to a [...]
Archive for the ‘Law’ Category
Irony in Ohio or Does the Constitution not Apply in Akron?
Posted in Law, tagged akron, Constitution, william-bolar on April 20, 2011 | 6 Comments »
D’oh – foolish or fraudulent?
Posted in Law, tagged Chevron, Ecuadorean rain forest, expert witness on April 16, 2010 | 15 Comments »
If any of you have ever watched Damages on TV you probably wonder where they come up with their plot lines. (If you haven’t seen it, you should – but watch it from the beginning.) I often tell people they wouldn’t believe half of the insane stuff that goes on in lawsuits. Anyway, in a [...]
Who owns the Meg-a-tar?
Posted in Law, tagged California governor, meg whitman, meg-a-tar, right of publicity on March 30, 2010 | 3 Comments »
New technology has made its way into campaign ads. A group that wants to “counter-balance” Meg Whitmans’ financial advantage in the California Governor race has come out with an advertisement using a computer-generated avatar for Meg named “Meg-a-tar.” Meg is the former CEO of Ebay. Although the avatar is not flattering and speaks poorly about [...]
King Kirby Kids v. Minacious Marvel and Dauntless Disney
Posted in Law, Uncategorized, tagged copyright, disney, kirby, marvel on March 26, 2010 | 13 Comments »
Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment last year for quite a chunk of change. One of the most important assets of Marvel is its superhero collection, many of which were developed by Jack Kirby who has since passed away. The heirs of Kirby sent out a notice of copyright termination under Section 304(c) of the Copyright Act [...]
A Judicial Temper Tantrum – Chicago Style (Gettleman v. Trudeau)
Posted in Law, tagged contempt, criminal contempt, FTC, Kelleman, Trudeau, Weight Loss Cures on March 6, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In FTC v. Trudeau No. 10-1383 (7th Cir. order Feb. 19, 2010)., Judge Gettleman held Trudeau (a writer and infomercial fixture) in contempt and tried to sentence him to 90 days in jail because . . . wait for it . . . the Judge received emails supporting Trudeau. The Judge held Trudeau in CRIMINAL contempt, [...]
Why doesn’t the First Amendment apply to minors anymore?
Posted in Law, tagged doninger, First Amendment, Free Speech, Sotomayor on February 27, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In what seems to be a disturbing trend, yet another high school student was punished by school officials for comments made on the internet about the school officials. In Doninger v. Niehoff, the 2nd District Court of Appeals held that the school officials were within their rights to discipline a student for comments made on [...]
Subpoenas, the First Amendment and Anonymous Posters
Posted in Law, tagged anonymous posters, anti-slapp, First Amendment, stone v. paddock, subpoenas on February 15, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In the case of Stone v. Paddock Publications, 09 L 5636 (Cook County, IL 2009), an Illinois court issued a subpoena to obtain the identity of an anonymous poster, but then indicated that the poster would be kept anonymous, for a while anyway. This case involves false and offensive postings made to and about a [...]
Old Declaration, New Constitution – all in one weekend!
Posted in Law, tagged Constitution, Declaration of Independence, James Wilson, John Dunlap on February 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
This past weekend I went to the LBJ Library & Museum on the University of Texas campus to view one of 25 copies of the “Broadside” Declaration of Independence. Because it was on a journey to only six cities, I was excited that Austin was one of them. According to the information provided by the [...]
Free Credit Report dot Com, Let’s Go!
Posted in Law, tagged class action suit, free credit report, freecreditreport.com on February 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
First let me say that I love those FreeCreditReport.com commercials. I sincerely hope they do not take them off the air. The problem is that the commercial itself does seem to imply that if you go to this website, you will receive a free copy of your credit report. The commercial does not make it [...]
Bloggers and the new FTC Guide
Posted in Law, tagged Bloggers, elaw, endorsement, FTC Guide on January 20, 2010 | 2 Comments »
The FTC updated its Guide Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising effective December 1, 2009, which concerns testimonials and endorsements on websites and blogs. Going forward, if you (or a user on your blog or website) represent results from the use of a product or service as typical when that is not [...]
