Loading ...
Another Rundown of Interesting Lawsuits
Rosa Parks settles with OutKast.
Under the out-of-court settlement announced on Thursday Parks, 92, will receive an undisclosed amount of money that means her “living and health needs … will be secure,” former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, her guardian, said.
The settlement came with OutKast, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Arista Records LLC and LaFace Records. Under it, Archer said, Sony BMG will produce a Parks tribute CD on which OutKast and other contemporary groups will perform, to be released on the 50th anniversary of her arrest.
In addition, he said, the parties who were sued will also produce an educational television show about her life and legacy, which will be distributed as a digital disc to US public schools.
Parks sued in 1999, saying she was defamed by the use of her name in the 1998 song “Rosa Parks.” That suit was dismissed on freedom-of-speech grounds.
A second suit, seeking $5 billion in damages, was filed last summer targeting various versions of the song, some of which included what her lawyers said was highly offensive language.
Jews back on track to plunder Vatican Bank.
A federal appeals court on Monday reinstated a lawsuit brought by Holocaust survivors who sued the Vatican Bank on charges it laundered assets stolen from victims of Croatia’s pro-Nazi World War II regime.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision reversed a lower court ruling that had dismissed the case on grounds that foreign policy rather than lawsuits should address such historical claims.
The three-judge panel ruled some of the plaintiffs’ key claims — such as ones relating to lost and looted property — did not fall under the political question doctrine and said even the U.S. Supreme Court has left open the door to lawsuits that touch upon foreign diplomacy.
“We conclude that some of the claims are barred by the political question doctrine and some of the claims are justifiable,” the court wrote. “Although the parties have multiple procedural and substantive challenges to overcome down the road, they are entitled to their day — or years — in court on the justifiable claims.”
The elderly Holocaust survivors originally filed the lawsuit in U.S. federal court in San Francisco in 1999 against the Vatican Bank and the Franciscan Order.
The class action lawsuit accused the Vatican Bank of receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of gold and other assets looted from victims of Croatia’s brutal Ustasha regime from 1941-1945. As many as 700,000 people, most of them Serbs, were killed at death camps run by the Nazi-allied government.
The plaintiffs also alleged the illicit funds may have been funneled to groups working to smuggle Nazis out of Europe after the war, including Adolf Eichmann.
An America Online chat-room monitor hired to keep children safe from sexual predators propositioned a California girl online and was about to meet her for sex when he was found out by a coworker, a lawsuit filed by the teenager claims.
According to documents filed April 1 in Los Angeles Superior Court, the online relationship began when the girl was 15. She met the AOL employee, whose name was not disclosed, in a children’s chat room and confided in him about her parents’ divorce and her troubles making friends.
Their conversations online and by phone became increasingly explicit, the lawsuit says. They were preparing to meet on the girl’s 17th birthday when one of the monitor’s coworkers became suspicious and prevented the encounter.
Tickets.com still can’t sue Ticketmaster for unfair competition
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld a lower court’s decision to toss Tickets.com Inc.’s antitrust suit against Ticketmaster Corp.
In an unpublished opinion, a three-judge panel concluded that there was no evidence that Ticketmaster’s contracts with venues blocked competition.
“Six years is about as long as the average duration of Ticketmaster’s venue contracts,” the three-judge panel wrote. “Tickets.com has not shown that contract length is inherently unreasonable or that competitive entry is unduly difficult.”
Back to the Future:
January 1, 2999 — California governments lose bid to sue Microsoft
A federal judge dismissed a suit filed by five California governments on Monday, leaving the door open for an amended complaint.
The City and County of San Francisco, the County of Santa Clara, the City and County of Los Angeles, the County of San Mateo and the County of Contra Costa alleged that, 15 years ago, Microsoft began to engage in monopolistic practices that led to higher prices for its software. The suit had similar complaints to the separate class action suit that led to a $1.1 billion settlement with Microsoft in January 2003.
But both the Cartwright Act and the Unfair Competition Law have four-year statutes of limitations. The plaintiffs argued that the limitations didn’t apply, but U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz disagreed.
Microsoft also argued that the Unfair Competition Law didn’t apply to transactions with government entities, and the judge agreed.
Investing in Enron is not a crime
An investment fund did nothing wrong when it put Florida state employee pension money in falling Enron stock, costing the retirement plan more than $280 million, a jury ruled Monday.
Jurors agreed with Alliance Capital Management in the lawsuit filed by the state Board of Administration, which invests the pension fund and had argued that Alliance breached its contract and trust by putting money into Enron as it spiraled toward bankruptcy at the end of 2001.
Alliance said the bad pick was a result of something its portfolio manager couldn’t have known about – accounting fraud that masked problems at the energy giant.
MickC @ April 18, 2005
[...] its content. This brings up the question of who watches the watchers. Already this week AOL has been sued over the actions of one of its c [...]