Facebook Posts Complaining About Supervisor Conduct do Not Support Retaliation Claim – DeBord v. Mercy Health System
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] DeBord v. Mercy Health System of Kansas, Inc., 10-4055-SAC (D. Kan.; Mar. 20, 2012) DeBord worked in Mercy Health Systems’ radiology department for approximately five years. She had a supervisor (Weaver) who the court describes as…
Qwest Gets Mixed Rulings on Contract Arbitration Issue—Grosvenor v. Qwest & Vernon v. Qwest
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] I recently blogged about Kwan v. Clearwire, which involved Clearwire’s efforts to force arbitration of a consumer dispute. The court in that case looked at Clearwire’s contracting practices and made an initial ruling that customers could…
No Breach of Contract Claim from Mid-Stream Change of WSJ Online Pricing – Lebowitz v. Dow Jones
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Lebowitz v. Dow Jones & Co., 06 Civ. 2198 (MGC) (S.D.N.Y.; Mar. 12, 2012) Dow Jones operates WSJ Online. Historically, it offered WSJ Online subscribers access to WSJ Online and Barron’s Online. At some point, Dow…
Suspension for Facebook/YouTube Rap Video Critical of High School Coach Does not Violate First Amendment – Bell v. Itawamba County School Board
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Bell v. Itawamba County School Board, 11CV00056-NBB-DAS (N.D. Miss.; Mar. 15, 2012) [.pdf] Bell posted a rap video while he was a senior at Itawamba Agricultural School. The video, which was shared which over 1300 of…
Facebook Faces Jurisdictional Hurdle in its Trademark Lawsuit Against Faceporn–Facebook v. Pedersen
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Facebook v. Pedersen, 10-Cv-04673 (N.D. Cal.; March 2, 2012) Facebook sued Pedersen, a resident of Norway, alleging that Pedersen’s use of the “Faceporn” mark infringed on and diluted Facebook’s trademarks. After the complaint was filed, Pedersen…
Group Text Services Grapple with TCPA Class Actions
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Pimental v. Google Inc., No. 11-2585 (N.D. Cal.; Mar. 2, 2012) Plaintiffs sued Google (and Slide), asserting that text messages sent via the “Disco” service offered by Google violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. As I…
Facebook and Zynga Privacy Litigation Dismissed With Prejudice [Catch up Post]
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] In re Facebook Privacy Litigation, 10-02389 (N.D. Cal.; Nov. 22, 2011) In re Zynga Privacy Litigation, 10-04680 (N.D. Cal.; Nov. 22, 2011) These decisions are several months old, but they remain worth mentioning despite the fact…
California Appeals Court Says Emails That Don’t Identify Sender Violate State Spam Statute – Balsam v. Trancos
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Balsam v. Trancos, Inc., 2012 WL 593703 (Ca. Ct. App.; Feb. 24, 2012) It seemed like most emailers and anti-spam activists have moved on from worrying about spam email to other things, such as social networks,…