I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) And The Second Winklevoss Lawsuit Against Facebook
Facebook, I wish I knew how to quit you. If we're not discussing why Mark Zuckerberg won't sue The Social Network, then we're talking about you unilaterally changing your Terms of Use or your potential patent battle with Google over Foursquare. And now this: Olympic rowing twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are pushing ahead with another suit against Facebook, a day after they decided not to appeal [to the] U.S. Supreme Court [a] ruling [by the Ninth Circuit] upholding their $65 million settlement with Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. I added the edits above because the original report was just wrong. ... Continue Reading
The Scary New World Of E-Discovery Artificial Intelligence In Big Lawsuits
The NYTimes had an article this weekend about the growing number of e-discovery vendors who can go beyond mere keyword searches into linguistic and sociological reasoning about millions of pages of documents: [T]hanks to advances in artificial intelligence, “e-discovery” software can analyze documents in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. In January, for example, Blackstone Discovery of Palo Alto, Calif., helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000. Some programs go beyond just finding documents with relevant terms at computer speeds. They can extract relevant concepts — like documents relevant to social protest in ... Continue Reading
Charlie Sheen, The Morals Clause, And Legal Indeterminacy
[UPDATE II: As I wrote below, Sheen "held up his end of the bargain." The Hollywood Reporter says that case is settled and he's walking away with $25 million and a reinstatement of his revenue stream from Two And A Half Men.] [UPDATE: Above the Law parses the termination letter sent to Charlie Sheen. The reasons given for his termination are surprisingly weak; fact is, Sheen's lawyers got the better of Warner Bros. in negotiating such a favorable contract for him.] I'm litigator and trial lawyer, and so do not normally get involved in contracts until after everything has fallen ... Continue Reading
Third Circuit Reinstates Civil Rights Suit Of Rape Victim Arrested For Telling The Truth
Yesterday the Third Circuit released a unanimous precedential opinion in Reedy v. Evanson: While working as a cashier at a convenience store, nineteen-year-old Sara R. Reedy was sexually assaulted and robbed at gunpoint by a serial sex offender. She reported the crime to the police within minutes, subjected herself to a rape kit examination, and gave detailed and consistent statements to law enforcement officers and hospital staff. Reedy needed Sam Spade. Instead, she got Der Prozess: However, Detective Frank Evanson of the Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania Police Department, the lead investigator assigned to Reedy’s case, believed that Reedy had fabricated the ... Continue Reading
“The Shack” Lawsuits Raise A Law School Exam’s Worth of Federal Courts Issues
The Los Angeles Times featured a story about the legal saga that has enveloped the Christian bestseller The Shack: "The Shack," William Paul Young's novel about a man rediscovering lost faith after the murder of his 5-year-old daughter, started out as a manuscript no one would touch. Finally, pastors Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings discovered the book and created a start-up, Windblown Media, to publish it. The novel sold a million copies for them in the first year, eventually ending up at No. 1 on the New York Times' trade paperback bestseller list. Then Hachette Book Group got involved. In ... Continue Reading
The Duck Boat / Tugboat Crash And The Limitation of Liability Act
Today's The Legal Intelligencer includes an article titled, "Limited Liability Law May Apply in Duck Boat Accident" about the effect of the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 on claims arising from last's weeks collision between a tugboat and a duck boat on the Delaware River. The Limitation Act — which nominally limits the liability of a ship owner to the value of the ship itself — is a fascinating relic from a turbulent time in the United States, when whispers of war were beginning and the young agrarian nation was painfully converting to a steam-powered industrial society. The world's first ... Continue Reading
Bilski v. Kappos: SCOTUS Doesn’t Recognize Business Methods Patents But Doesn’t Prohibit Them Either
The Supreme Court released its opinion in Bilski v. Kappos this morning, which tested the sufficiency of a "business method" patent relating to the hedging of risk in investments. Four Justices wanted to scrap "business methods" patents altogether. Five wanted to scrap just the patent at issue here. Given the complexity of the issues involved, I'm pleasantly surprised to report that the actual holding of the case can be summarized with just a few quotes: Section 101 defines the subject matter that may be patented under the Patent Act: “Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or ... Continue Reading
The Boy Scouts’ Ironic, Pyrrhic Free Speech Victory Against The City of Philadelphia
As widely reported last week, the local Boy Scouts won a partial victory against the City of Philadelphia from a federal jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania: A federal jury on Wednesday declared that the city of Philadelphia had violated the First Amendment rights of the local chapter of the Boy Scouts of America by moving to evict it from its city-owned headquarters if it refused to repudiate the anti-gay policies of the Scouts' national parent group. In its verdict, the jury of six women and two men found that the city had imposed an "unconstitutional condition" on the ... Continue Reading
The Barnes Museum and The Dilemma of Dead-Hand Control
At the Weekly Standard, art critic Lance Esplund has an essay decrying the upcoming move of the Barnes Museum from Lower Merion, Pa., to Philadelphia: Now after years of litigation, Albert Barnes’s intentions have been subverted and his will broken. And the Barnes Foundation is scheduled to be moved. Galleries have already been closed. Ground broken. Pictures crated. The thousands of artworks are all being uprooted from their home in Merion, Pennsylvania, a leafy suburb 20 minutes from downtown Philadelphia, and transplanted to the mall on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway next to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Advocates claim the ... Continue Reading
Univ. of Chicago Professors and Judges Debate “Ambiguity About Ambiguity”
The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog is hosting a debate over a new paper, Ambiguity About Ambiguity: An Empirical Inquiry Into Legal Interpretation written by Ward Farnsworth, Dustin F. Guzior, and Anup Malani. As the paper's abstract says: Most scholarship on statutory interpretation discusses what courts should do with ambiguous statutes. This paper investigates the crucial and analytically prior question of what ambiguity in law is. Does a claim that a text is ambiguous mean the reader is uncertain about its meaning? Or is it a claim that readers, as a group, would disagree about what the text means ... Continue Reading
