Man, the California State Bar is really cracking down these days. Slip up just 810 times and they'll insist on disbarring you. Try to save them a bunch of work by stipulating to misconduct in 14 cases, and do you get any credit? No, it's all "look at these other 796 complaints." Please.
The Canadian couple who sued Air Canada after they ordered le 7-Up but received le Sprite instead, and more importantly were not offered service in French, will have to settle for an apology. Canada's Supreme Court ruled last week that although the airline had technically violated the Official Languages Act, language-law violations are not among the kinds of lawsuits permitted by air-travel treaties. The trial court apparently had awarded them $12,000 for the outrage.
"When the plaintiff initially presented for his colonoscopy," alleges thiscomplaint, "he had not been wearing pink women's underwear and at no time did the plaintiff voluntarily, knowingly or intentionally place the pink women's underwear upon himself." This is way too many words to make a simple point. When plaintiff went to sleep, he was wearing his own underwear. When he woke up, he was wearing someone else's. Ergo, another party clothed him in said inappropriate undergarments. He did not do that himself, on purpose or otherwise. We get it.
I would suggest using the extra words to explain why, although this is certainly weird, it constitutes "extreme and outrageous conduct" that "caused severe emotional distress which caused the Plaintiff to lose his employment." Believe me, I've looked over the complaint for facts supporting that last allegation, and they're not here. Please amend ASAP.
For those of you wondering whatever happened to Manuel Noriega, former dictator of Panama, turns out that he is currently a guest at El Renacer prison in that country, having previously been incarcerated in the U.S. and in France. Who cares? No one, except that he sued Activision recently claiming that it violated his right of publicity by depicting him in the game "Call of Duty: Black Ops II" without permission. Last week, a judge dismissed the case, noting that Noriega had a very small role in the game and so his publicity interests were outweighed by the defendant's First Amendment rights. Bonus points: Activision was represented by former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Did Giuliani miss his chance to compare Noriega to Osama bin Laden? No he did not. He did wait until after the hearing, at least.
