Facebook Putdown Leads to Lawsuit Between Sorority Sisters--Grimes v. Saban

This is an assault case brought by Sarah Grimes against her sorority sister, Kristen Saban. Grimes and Saban went out for a night of partying. Afterwards, Saban and Grimes were allegedly arguing, with Saban telling Grimes “no one liked her…

Stupid Online Teen Banter Isn't "Disorderly Conduct"--State v. Nelson

We’re revisiting the perennial topic of how to address teens doing stupid teen things online. As we’ve discussed repeatedly, teens constantly test limits online and typically lack the wisdom and perspective of adults. In my era, typical offline teen pranks…

Fair Use Protects Sending Expert Witness' Resume to Opposing Counsel--Devil's Advocate v. Zurich Insurance

Most of us probably have never thought about the coprightability of our resumes or curriculum vitae. Most resumes are highly functional documents, i.e., we don’t write them for fun; and they are just an input into a more important output…

Appeals Court: Accepting Lawyer's Prove-me-Wrong Challenge Does not Form a Contract

This is a great case where a defense lawyer made a passing statement that his client could not have committed a murder he was charged with due to the sheer impossibility of traveling logistics. The Defendant was spotted via surveillance…

Will A 'Cast Of Thousands' Become A 'Cast Of Thousands...Of Plaintiffs'? A Preview of Garcia v. Google (Forbes Cross-Post)

[Note: I wrote the following post on Monday before the oral arguments. I haven’t had a chance to view Monday’s oral arguments, but from the news reports and Twitter feeds, it sounds like Kozinski and McKeown will be squaring off….

eBay Isn't Liable for Selling Recalled Merchandise--Hinton v. Amazon

Due to Section 230, eBay generally isn’t liable when its merchants sell problematic goods. I believe the earliest ruling establishing this proposition is Stoner v. eBay, a 2000 case over bootleg recordings. More recently, in 2011, a court held that…

First Amendment Bars School Discipline For Student's Rap Video About School Coaches

Bell was a student at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi. A few female students told Bell that two male athletic coaches had made inappropriate comments toward them. Bell, an aspiring rapper, made a video about the two coaches….

Lawyer Disciplined for Sending Facebook Message to Adverse Party

An 18 year old had sex with a co-worker and ended up pregnant. She gave up the baby for adoption, but the biological father did not consent. The mother had signed an adoption consent form. Prior to the date of…

Legal Blog Faces Defamation Liability for Mischaracterizing Prior Legal Proceedings--Huon v. Above the Law

Plaintiff, a lawyer, was charged with assault in 2008 and charged in 2009 for cyberstalking and witness harassment (based on one of his blog posts?) involving the same alleged victim. He was acquitted of both charges. His charges and trial…

Bust Up Google? Only If Europe Wants To Make Things Worse (Forbes Cross-Post)

Recently, the European Parliament passed a resolution urging the European Commission to “consider proposals aimed at unbundling search engines from other commercial services.” The resolution was mostly symbolic. It was really just a straw poll on European policy-makers’ high level…