Washington Examiner: “It’s a classic David and Goliath story: A white-shoe law firm staffed with hundreds of D.C.’s most-powerful lawyers has moved to shutter a hamburger eatery on the grounds that the lawyers didn’t like the aroma of cooking meat wafting into their offices. So far, Goliath is winning.”
The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog: “a 17 year old baseball pitcher, received a $52,703 verdict for the right arm fracture he suffered while throwing a pitch in a baseball game.” He claimed the pitcher’s mound was too high and deep. It only took the idiots on the jury one hour to find the company that built the mound liable.
The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the big three credit card companies, American Express, MasterCard and Visa, for allegedly violating federal anti-competition laws. Visa and Mastercard have already proposed settlements of the lawsuit.
See “Breaking down the MasterCard, Visa settlements.”
USA Today: “A 15-year-old boy who broke into a home in Grand Rapids, Mich., and killed a family’s dog with a hammer has been sentenced to spend up to 20 years in prison.”
Frank McCourt, who bought the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team in 2004 for $355 million and his soon to be ex-wife Jamie McCourt signed a post nuptial agreement that is now the subject of litigation in their acrimonious divorce. According to a story in Forbes on April 7, 2010, the Dodges are worth $727 million. When the McCourts signed their post nuptial agreement in which they agreed on how to divide their property in a divorce, the document said that the Dodgers was community property owned equally by each spouse.
After the parties signed the document Los Angeles Times reports that “[Attorney Larry] Silverstein changed the word ‘exclusive’ to ‘inclusive’ to indicate the Dodgers were Frank’s sole property and not subject to California community property law.” The lawyer admitted in court testimony that he changed the word without the prior knowledge or consent of either party. Can you spell M A L P R A C T I C E!
The court must decide if the post nuptial agreement should contain the word “inclusive” or the word “exclusive.” The answer is worth $364 million or $182 million for the two letters “in” vs. “ex.”
See “Dodgers Owner McCourt’s Wife Didn’t Want to Co-Own Team, Lawyer Testifies” and “Mediation scheduled in McCourt divorce case.”