News & Media
Twitter Takes a Side in the Culture Wars – Lies About It
Twitter announced that in order to combat abuse and harassment on its increasingly unpopular online platform, that it would enact new rules and regulations that would hopefully get control of things. The stated mission was to cut down on loosely-defined “harassment.” But, what it seems to really be is yet another example of someone with a little bit of power
The Establishment Claus
by Jay Marshall Wolman Five years ago, Josh Blackman asked whether the NORAD tracking of St. Nick violated the Establishment Clause. After all, he is sort of a religious icon. I would suggest it doesn’t. This year, the Consumerist delved a bit more into the history. It seems that a kid was concerned about that right jolly old elf, and he asked CONAD
Free Speech and Discrimination Redux
by Jay Marshall Wolman Last week, I wrote about a potential implication from In re: Tam, based upon the hypothetical from a dissenting judge about a business calling itself “Spics Not Welcome”. There is a significant tension in the law between freedom of speech, which includes the right to offend, and anti-discrimination laws. The fine folks at the New York City
Lawyer Mind Tricks
by Jay Marshall Wolman, CIPP/US Like many of you, I saw Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I’m a lawyer and had law-oriented thoughts. This post contains spoilers, so scroll past this image: and this one: OK, that should be far enough. Cyber Security. Star Wars exists in a galaxy where they have some form of holographic Skype/Facetime/etc. The
Randazza: In These Parts, Claiming that a Republican Supports Harry Reid is Defamation
As readers may know, I have a bit of a soft spot (or a hard on, depending on how you look at it) for the Nevada Anti-SLAPP statute. See The Silver State Sets the Gold Standard. We don’t get many cases interpreting it out here in Nevada, so we generally interpret it the way that the California courts would look
Gag Clause Act Passes Senate
The U.S. Senate recently passed their version of the “Consumer Review Freedom Act” (CRFA), which would bar companies from trying to enforce “gag clauses” in contracts with consumers. It’s a good law that is long overdue, since clauses like these have been showing up much more often lately and serving as the basis of breach of contract claims bundled with
Spics Not Welcome
by Jay Marshall Wolman By now, you have probably heard that Simon Tam won his case before the Federal Circuit regarding his attempt to register a trademark for his band “The Slants”. (Disclosure: Randazza Legal Group represented the First Amendment Lawyers’ Association as amicus curiae in that case and was recently co-counsel with Mr. Tam’s lawyers, Ron Coleman and Joel MacMull,
Gag Clause Act Passes Senate
The U.S. Senate recently passed their version of the “Consumer Review Freedom Act” (CRFA), which would bar companies from trying to enforce “gag clauses” in contracts with consumers. It’s a good law that is long overdue, since clauses like these have been showing up much more often lately and serving as the basis of breach of contract claims bundled with
Bernie Sanders v. DNC
Bernie Sanders sues the Democratic National Committee and the complaint is here. The legal issues are less exciting than Bernie’s hair style. What is more exciting is that Bernie Sanders isn’t taking this shit from the DNC. The DNC is playing the part of Roger Goodell in the 2016 election cycle. See Former NFL VP Of Officiating: “Looks Like The
Circuit Split Over Cybersquatting Act – 11th Circuit Rejects GoPets in Jysk v. Roy
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), provides: “A person shall be liable . . . by the owner of a mark . . . if . . . that person . . . has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark . . .; and . . . registers, traffics in, or uses a
Bernie Sanders v. DNC
Bernie Sanders sues the Democratic National Committee and the complaint is here. The legal issues are less exciting than Bernie’s hair style. What is more exciting is that Bernie Sanders isn’t taking this shit from the DNC. The DNC is playing the part of Roger Goodell in the 2016 election cycle. See Former NFL VP Of Officiating: “Looks Like The
Circuit Split Over Cybersquatting Act – 11th Circuit Rejects GoPets in Jysk v. Roy
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), provides: “A person shall be liable . . . by the owner of a mark . . . if . . . that person . . . has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark . . .; and . . . registers, traffics in, or uses a
The First Amendment is not a free pass to harass
A charter school in Washington DC is suing abortion protesters. (source) Why? Because Planned Parenthood is opening next to the school, so the abortion protesters have decided to focus their protests on the children, parents, and employees of the school. Nobody ever said that abortion protesters were required to use logic. Although one might say it is logical. The protesters
The First Amendment is not a free pass to harass
A charter school in Washington DC is suing abortion protesters. (source) Why? Because Planned Parenthood is opening next to the school, so the abortion protesters have decided to focus their protests on the children, parents, and employees of the school. Nobody ever said that abortion protesters were required to use logic. Although one might say it is logical. The protesters
Good First Amendment Case – Biro v. Conde Nast
Peter Biro was the subject of a 2010 article in The New Yorker. Biro sued the publisher and other defendants who allegedly republished statements from the original article. Since Biro was deemed to be a limited purpose public figure, the court dismissed the claims against him because he did not allege sufficient facts to plausibly support an eventual finding of
Revisiting Prostitution
by Jay Marshall Wolman My recent post on the Ninth Amendment got me thinking about Griswold v. Connecticut, and its progeny, including Lawrence v. Texas. Although the latter explicitly stated it wasn’t ruling on prostitution, it didn’t say it wasn’t protected. Assuming a logical thread from Griswold, the case law is that, basically, whatever two consenting adults choose to do in private is private
Happy 5/6 Bill of Rights Day
by Jay Marshall Wolman We here at the Legal Satyricon are big fans of the Bill of Rights. Over at the Runt Piglet Squeals, the official blog of the Third Amendment Lawyers Association, I have a post discussing the less commonly understood history of the proposal and ratification of the Bill of Rights. The tl;dr version: it was originally 12 articles and
Good First Amendment Case – Biro v. Conde Nast
Peter Biro was the subject of a 2010 article in The New Yorker. Biro sued the publisher and other defendants who allegedly republished statements from the original article. Since Biro was deemed to be a limited purpose public figure, the court dismissed the claims against him because he did not allege sufficient facts to plausibly support an eventual finding of
She’s/He’s Got The Jack, Do You Got a Case?
A guy went on Tinder, picked up a woman, and got herpes from her. Yeah? Why is that news? Well, the guy sued her for giving her the as-of-today incurable disease. (source) The woman knew that she had herpes, but she lied to the guy about her condition. She claims that she only thought it would be contagious during an
She’s/He’s Got The Jack, Do You Got a Case?
A guy went on Tinder, picked up a woman, and got herpes from her. Yeah? Why is that news? Well, the guy sued her for giving her the as-of-today incurable disease. (source) The woman knew that she had herpes, but she lied to the guy about her condition. She claims that she only thought it would be contagious during an
