Cancer-stricken Ground Zero worker gets check for $0.00 after the lawyers take their cut.

Holy Turkey Batman!

Apparently there is a town in Turkey named "Batman." And apparently the residents of Batman failed to notice over 65 years of Batman comics, several movies, animated series and a live action TV series of the same name. But they've noticed the latest installment of The Dark Knight with the result of "a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate."

So, Huseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of Batman, has filed suit seeking royalties from Warner Brothers. He proclaims:

There is only one Batman in the world

I think he's right, there is only one Batman, but the world is full of turkeys.

Here's an out of control bit of legal wrangling that even three other lawyers with a combined 58 years of experience can't figure out. A contractor, Mark Koch, pled guilty to criminal violations and was required to pay restitution. A bankruptcy judge then ordered the victim of the crime, Mark Poveromo, to pay the restitution back to the contractor:

Poveromo was ordered by a Federal Bankruptcy judge in St. Louis to pay Koch back the money he stole from him. The bizarre ruling claimed that by filing a complaint with Thomaston Police which led to Koch's arrest, Poveromo interfered with the contractors' attempt to file for bankruptcy, even though Poveromo had no idea Koch was attempting to do so.

Now if it had been a civil judgment, that would probably have been justified, but somehow the bankruptcy court thinks it's justified interfering with a criminal judgment. Now the victim faces bankruptcy himself - apparently this judge is just looking to do what he can to pump up the caseload. Oh, and he threatened to place liens or seize business assets if Poveromo appealed his bizarre order!

Ripped off businessman has to pay scammer

Government lawyers gone wild

The federal government has filed an asset forfeiture lawsuit against billionaire record executive Henry T. Nicholas III, co-founder and former CEO of Broadcom. They're wanting to lay claim to his Newport mansion and his Las Vegas penthouse based on:

claims Nicholas kept a stash of cash at his mansion in Newport Coast and used the money to buy drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy and have parties with musicians signed to his recording label, Level 7. He also allegedly held similar parties at his Las Vegas condo and used his private jet to transport drugs there.

Image via Wikipedia

So, a law intended to pursue drug dealers is being abused by government lawyers to seize the home of someone accused of using drugs. And the connection is about as tenuous as they come - he kept the money used to buy the drugs at his house. Wait until some local DA realizes he can seize all the money in every bank in his county because meth heads used some ATM machines.

Democrat lawyers eat their own

Democratic trial lawyer Philip J. Berg, Equire has filed a nuisance suit against Barack Obama claiming he's ineligible to be President.

The suit centers around evidence like Obama's school records which supposedly listed him as an Indonesian citizen. The Courts should have no problem quickly throwing this out as it was filled out by Obama's parent or guardian, who had no right to renounce Obama's US citizenship for him. Also, Obama was not yet of legal age, calling into question whether he could have legally renounced his citizenship himself.

The suit mentions that Obama was listed in the records as a Muslim, calling into question the Constitutionality of the suit itself since the Constitution specifically forbids religious tests for public office.

Image via Wikipedia

Finally, the suit diverges off into questions of Obama's use of the last names of his stepfathers as a child and the fact that he did not disclose this on his Illinois Bar application - facts that even if true are completely irrelevant to the very narrow Constitutional qualifications for the Presidency.

Full disclosure: I'm a McCain supporter - but I still wish these people would shut the hell up.

You'd think he'd NOTICE he was eating a 9-ft. tapeworm.

Man sues Chicago eatery for $100K, contending he got a 9-foot tapeworm after eating undercooked fish there.

How does he know that restaurant is where he got the tapeworm?

In the lawsuit filed Monday, Anthony Franz said he ordered salmon salad for lunch from Shaw's Crab House in 2006 and fell violently ill. He later passed the giant parasite, which a pathologist determined came from undercooked fish, such as salmon.

At best, that proves he COULD have gotten the parasite there, not that he DID get it there.

I don't think she had that thong on right

52-year old Los Angeles traffic cop Macrida Patterson is suing Victoria's Secret over a defective thong. She claims a metal staple used to attach a rhinestone to the thong popped off and ended up in her eye, injuring her cornea.

It seems a bit hard to believe that she was putting the thong on normally, in the normal place, and this piece shot off with such force that it ended up in her eye. Did it get caught on her foot and get stretched, creating a sort of slingshot effect? If that's what happened, I certainly have sympathy for Ms. Patterson, but it's hardly Victoria's Secret's fault. It falls in the category of things so unusual that no reasonable amount of planning is going to completely prevent them.

Every other scenario I can think of was even less Victoria's Secret's fault - standing on her head in her skimpy panties and the piece fell in her eye, wearing the panties on her head, purposely stretching the panties.

Woman sues Victoria's Secret claiming thong injury

These Lawyers and Their Suits

An administrative law judge in the District of Columbia is suing a dry cleaner for misplacing the pants from one of his suits. The pants were found after a week and have been in the office of the dry cleaner's lawyer for over a year. The top settlement offer from the dry cleaner: $12,000. What's the judge want? $65 million.

The lawsuit was filed by a District of Columbia administrative hearings judge, Roy Pearson, who has been representing himself in the case....

Manning said the cleaners made three settlement offers to Pearson. First they offered $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000. But Pearson wasn't satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants.

Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, part of his lawsuit calls for $15,000—the price to rent a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.

"He's somehow purporting that he has a constitutional right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment," Manning said.

Judge Sues Cleaner for $65M Over Pants

*WARNING* Squeamish much? Then skip this post.

Bill Clinton wondered what the definition of "is" is.

Now a Minnesota lawyer wonders what the definiton of "animal" is.

Bryan James Hathaway, 20, of Superior faces a misdemeanor charge of sexual
gratification with an animal. He is accused of having sex with a dead deer he
saw beside Stinson Avenue on Oct. 11.

A motion filed last week by his attorney, public defender Fredric
Anderson, argued that because the deer was dead, it was not considered an animal
and the charge should be dismissed.

“The statute does not prohibit one from having sex with a carcass,”
Anderson wrote.

Yeah. Let's all take a moment to ICK! and move on to what might actually be a legitimate question.

C'mon. Do I have to spell it out for you? All right I will.

What about salami or pepperoni sticks?

'Cause I'm guessing there are quite a few guilty women in Minnesota if that's the case.

[Gee, thanks for bringing this to my attention, Drudge.]

Aside: The sex of the deer was not mentioned in the article.

You're a grand ol' flag; you're a high-flying flag . . .

. . . which apparently irks the morons in charge of Palm Beach, Florida.

Palm Beach officials cited Trump for hoisting a large American flag atop an 80-foot pole at his lavish Mar-a-Lago estate and club.

Town officials said the real estate mogul has violated zoning codes with a flagpole taller than 42 feet and for erecting it without a building permit and permission from the landmarks board.

Trump has until November 27 to apply for approvals or face a December 21 code enforcement hearing that could result in $250-a-day fines.

The flag; can't burn it, can't fly it. So what do you do with it?

Tag, you're sued.

Mass. school bans playing tag, citing potential legal liability:

Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from
playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess
for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Banning dodgeball is bad enough, but TAG? What are kids supposed to do, just stand around outside (but only in the shade because of the sun's deadly cancer rays)?

When I was a kid, I got shoved on the bus by another kid, pushing a sharpened pencil through my bookbag and into my thumb. A piece of carbon (thankfully, it's not really lead) is still lodged in it, which you can sometimes still see through the skin. Perhaps we should ban pencils. Or flimsy bookbags. Or schoolbuses. Or kids.

Just please let me keep my thumbs.

California Suing Car Manufacturers

The state of California is suing auto manufacturers alleging that their perfectly legal product when used in perfectly legal ways caused global warming which in turn caused "significant harm to California’s environment, economy, agriculture and public health." The ultimate irony, California "has more vehicles than any other state." But I guess you can't sue your own taxpayers, so suing out of state companies just works better.

Note that this was a logical outcome of the myriad suits against gun manufacturers and tobacco companies for the consequences of their legal products.

New York Times: California Sues 6 Automakers Over Global Warming

IceRocket Tags: lawsuit,frivolous lawsuit,emissions lawsuit,California auto lawsuit

Would you like fries with that?

Very few people would dispute the one thing McDonald's does right - french fries. Several years back McDonald's stopped using beef fat to fry their fries because of health concerns and developed flavoring to keep the same good flavor. Many people (myself included) consider the current McDonald's french fries the best in the fast food world. As with any good thing these days, enter the trial lawyers:

On Wednesday, Nadia Sugich of Los Angeles sued McDonald's, saying she is a vegan and would not have eaten the fries if she had known they contained dairy products.

McDonald's sued over french fry ingredients

Overlawyered also reports on a class action suit in Cook County (Chicago, Illinois) Circuit Court alleging that McDonald's "falsely advertised that its french fries were milk and gluten free."

Family of Man killed by flying shrimp...sues

The family of Jerry Colaitis is suing Japanese steakhouse Benihana's claiming his death resulted from the chef flipping a shrimp at him during dinner. Anyone who's dined at a Japanese steakhouse knows that this is part of the "show". Part of the fun of this style of dining is the interaction with the chef who prepares the food at the table. Now liberal trial lawyer safety czars are on the warpath ready to protect us from the danger of flying shrimp. It'll be one damn boring world if these guys get all the safety they want.

The family of a 43-year-old Long Island man is seeking $10 million in damages, claiming he died months after ducking a flying shrimp tossed by a hibachi chef at a Japanese steakhouse.

$61 million to family of driver who fell asleep at the wheel

Driver falls asleep at wheel.

SUV can't drive itself.

SUV runs off the road and rolls over.

Driver dies.

No one else injured, so this should be the end of the story, right?

Wrong. Enter the lawyers. Sue the SUV maker. After all, it's Ford's fault he fell asleep, right?

Apparently a Miami jury thought so - $61 million.

Ford ordered to pay 61 mln usd to crash victim family

Free speech of libel suit prepackaged

The libel industry ambulance chasers are salivating over www.ratemyprofessors.com "where the students do the grading". As the owner of Cyberdads puts it:

The site "Rate My Professors" is now so hot that lawyers are circling seeing who gets to sue for libel first. See it before it goes...

California Food Police

First you couldn't eat a french fry on the D.C. subway (an unwise policy D.C. quickly retracted). Now, California's attorney general is suing french fry and potato chip makers...

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued nine fast-food giants yesterday, saying the law requires them to tell the public their potato chips and French fries contain a toxic chemical.

The "toxic chemical" in question, acrylamide, occurs naturally in all starchy foods when they are cooked at high heat.

Lawsuit filed over labeling potato chips and French fries

How lawyers behave when the clients aren't watching

A new "tell all" novel written by a young City of London lawyer, Fish Sunday Thinking by Alex Gilmore.

young women are ranked by the size of their breasts rather than their legal acumen...sex is a commodity designed to advance careers...a large proportion of workaholic young lawyers blow their pay packets on alcohol.

Fish Sunday Thinking by Alex Gilmore

They couldn't do it without the jurors

Texas jurors awarded $253 million in the first ever verdict against Merck & Co. in a trial involving a death linked to its painkiller, Vioxx. Aside from the outrageous size of the verdict generally, things get even screwier. The jury awarded $24 million in actual damages. The largest component of actual damages is usually lost income- right or wrong, that's the way our legal system is supposed to work. The poor fellow that died was a 59 year old produce manager at Wal-Mart. Let's be generous and say that his ticker would have lasted 30 years without the Vioxx and that he would have worked 20 of those 30 years (to age 79). Now let's assume Wal-Mart pays way more than it does, say $100,000 a year and a discount rate equal to today's federal funds rate which is historically low. (A higher rate would make future wages worth less). The lost wage portion of actual damages would be $831,660.33 with those generous assumptions.

Needless to say, Merck will appeal.

(You can use this Net Present Value calculator to check the results.)

Pentagon lawyers

More information on how lawyers prevented intelligence sharing during the Clinton administration that could have stopped 9/11 cold in its tracks:

Shaffer said Able Danger identified Atta and three other Sept. 11 hijackers in 2000, but that military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI out of concerns about the legality of gathering and sharing information on people in the U.S.

“The lawyers’ view was to leave them alone, they had the same basic rights as a U.S. citizen, a U.S. person and therefore the data was kind of left alone,” Shaffer said.

Shaffer said he and a Navy officer disagreed with that and tried to set up meetings with the FBI, but each time the idea was rejected by lawyers from the Special Operations command.