|
|
|
Hustler targeted for printing photos of dead woman
Topics |
2012/01/26 12:39
|
Hustler Magazine argued Wednesday in a federal appeals court that its decision to publish nude photos of a model months after she was killed by her wrestler husband was protected by the First Amendment because she was a newsworthy figure.
The family of Nancy Toffolini Benoit has waged a legal battle against the pornographic magazine since it published the photos after she and her son were killed in 2007 by wrestler Chris Benoit. Her family said she never gave the magazine permission to print the photos.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in June 2009 that a notorious death doesn't give publishers a blank check to publish any images they wish. The case went to trial, and a jury in June 2011 voted to slap Hustler Magazine with $19.6 million in punitive damages for running the photos. A federal judge soon reduced that award to $250,000 to abide by a Georgia law capping damages.
The debate before the court on Wednesday was not only whether to reinstate the jury's eye-popping verdict, but also whether the case should have even gone to trial. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
In Vt., an attorney general's losses raise doubts
Topics |
2012/01/25 09:44
|
The first was Vermont's campaign finance law setting the lowest contribution limits in the country — shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The same fate befell the state's attempt to restrict drug company efforts to collect data on doctors' prescribing habits. On a 6-3 vote, the justices said Vermont's law was an unconstitutional infringement on free speech by drug and data collecting companies.
Now, in yet another case that has garnered national attention, the office of Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell has suffered a stinging defeat, this time in a federal trial over the state's bid to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
Some observers are starting to see a pattern — one in which Sorrell and his team have gone to the legal big leagues three times and fallen flat on each attempt.
The state now has sort of a reputation in the 2nd Circuit and the Supreme Court of not having their act together, said Patrick Parenteau, a former state commissioner of environmental conservation who is now a professor at Vermont Law School. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amazon Hit With Class Action Over Zappos Data Breach
Topics |
2012/01/18 10:05
|
Shoe retailer Zappos is facing a national class action suit one day after it warned customers that its servers had been hacked.
On Monday, the Amazon-owned shoe company sent a mass email stating that 24 million customer accounts had been breached. The incident resulted in hackers obtaining names, phone numbers, emails, encrypted passwords and the last four numbers of customer credit cards.
The lawsuit claims Amazon violated a part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to properly encrypt and secure customer information, and seeks unspecified damages for 24 million customers.
The lead plaintiff in the case is a Texas woman but the suit was filed in federal court in Louisville, Kentucky on the grounds that Amazon has servers located in that state.
As these type of hacking incidents have become more common, so too have related lawsuits. So far, though, few of these lawsuits been successful because customers have been unable to show that they have been harmed by the data breaches.
The Kentucky lawsuit appears based in part on a novel legal theory that customers will now be more susceptible to phishing and other online scams because hackers have their email. It also alleges the plaintiffs suffered emotional distress. Other high-profile data breach cases such as one involving Sony’s Play Station have been based in part on state consumer laws.
Although courts have been reluctant to find that customers have been harmed by data breaches, there is evidence this may be changing. A security publication recently reported
that an appeals court allowed customers to claim they suffered harm in the form of having to buy insurance for identity theft.
Some media publications this week praised Zappos’ for having a pre-arranged plan to respond to the data theft. The company claims that its customer credit cards remained secure because they were stored in a separate server. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
MT court restores corporate campaign spending ban
Topics |
2012/01/01 10:53
|
The Montana Supreme Court restored the state's century-old ban on direct spending by corporations on political candidates or committees in a ruling Friday that interest groups say bucks a high profile U.S. Supreme Court decision granting political speech rights to corporations.
The decision grants a big win to Attorney General Steve Bullock, who personally represented the state in defending its ban that came under fire after the Citizens United decision last year from the U.S. Supreme court.
The Citizen's United decision dealt with federal laws and elections — like those contests for president and congress, said Bullock, who is now running for governor. But the vast majority of elections are held at the state or local level and this is the first case I am aware of that examines state laws and elections.
The corporation that brought the case, and is also fighting accusations that it illegally gathers anonymous donations to fuel political attacks, said the state Supreme Court got it wrong. The group argues that the 1912 Corrupt Practices Act, passed as a citizen's ballot initiative, unconstitutionally blocks political speech by corporations. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Del. court says ex-HP CEO can't keep letter secret
Topics |
2011/12/31 13:09
|
Former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd will have to make public a letter detailing sexual-harassment allegations that led to his ouster.
The Delaware Supreme Court, the state's highest, ruled on Wednesday that Hurd's lawyers didn't show that disclosing the letter would invade California privacy rights. The ruling said information that is only mildly embarrassing is not protected from public disclosure. The letter, it added, does not contain trade secrets or non-public financial information that would qualify.
Although the letter goes into embarrassing detail about Hurd's behavior, it does not describe any intimate conversation or conduct, the ruling said. Some sentences, concerning Hurd's family, were ordered redacted, but no one appealed that part of a lower court's decision, according to the ruling.
Celebrity attorney Gloria Allred sent the letter last year on behalf of Jodie Fisher, who was hired to help with HP networking events and later accused Hurd of sexual harassment. Although an investigation did not find any sexual harassment, it uncovered inaccurate expense reports that ultimately pressured Hurd to resign. Hurd now works as co-president at rival Oracle Corp. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appeals court upholds sentence of former deputy
Topics |
2011/12/30 10:09
|
An appellate court has upheld a four-month prison sentence of a former Shelby County Sheriff's deputy involved in a fatal crash.
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals this week rejected the petition of Alvin Dortch, who was convicted last year of filing a false report, according to The Commercial Appeal. Dortch was acquitted by the trial court of a reckless homicide charge.
In 2008, Dortch shot out the tire of a fleeing DUI suspect whose car crashed moments later, killing him. Investigators didn't discover that Dortch had fired at the vehicle until they reviewed dashboard video more than 12 hours after the incident. |
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
