Free Republic

(Reuters) - Families and victims of a mass shooting in 2009 at the Fort Hood military base in Texas filed a wrongful death suit on Monday against the U.S. government, the accused gunman and the estate of an alleged al Qaeda leader.

A couple who squandered £1.7 million during a bitter divorce and custody battle were criticised by a judge driving their marriage "full tilt onto the rocks." Judge Clive Million slammed Anna-Marie Harvey Kavanagh, 47, and her ex-husband Giles Kavanagh, 52, who - despite both being practicing solicitors - have "spent almost all their assets in litigation". The couple were criticised for "wrecking the ship of their marriage, then turning their attention to the lifeboats." "The ship of marriage may founder, but this couple have driven theirs full tilt onto the rocks," he said. The couple who lived in a £3.2m...

The Dallas Cowboys are being put on the hot seat for literally having one. Jennelle Carrillo, who lives in Cleburne, is suing the Cowboys and team owner Jerry Jones for the third-degree burns she suffered on her buttocks after sitting on a black, marble bench at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium two years ago while waiting for the debut Blue & Silver scrimmage. Carrillo was hospitalized and had to have skin grafts on her derriere, according to a lawsuit filed in Tarrant County civil court late last week. "It was hot enough to produce third-degree burns through her clothing that day,"...

No, I don’t mean an economic depression. I mean an emotional depression. I fear that a funk could hit a significant portion of the population over the next five years. Tens of millions of lives will be affected. There will be substantial economic hardship. Fortunes will be lost. Media empires will be rattled. Some municipalities will face bankruptcy. Universities and colleges across the country will face new funding pressures. The changes that I see coming will reshape a cornerstone of the American way of life. What could possibly cause this? The answer is that American football is in very,...

Deltona (Florida) High School student Michael Rudi suffered a potentially life-threatening asthma attack while attending classes. Though an inhaler prescribed by Rudi’s doctor was available, the school nurse withheld it from him because the school could not locate a signed permission form from his parents. The school’s Director of Student Health Services, Cheryl Selesky, defended the nurse’s action saying that “it’s a matter of liability. If we allow him to medicate himself without having the proper papers filled out and he dies, the parents could sue us. If we follow our rules the blame for any ill consequences falls on...

LANSING, Mich. — Sparking outrage across the country’s rural heartland, the Obama administration is proposing rules to curb the ability of children on farms to engage in “corn sex” for pay. Farmers call it corn detasseling, a time-honored but physically demanding chore designed to promote cross-pollination in the field. For decades it has been a way for teens to earn extra spending money — and forge some good-natured field hand camaraderie — for a few weeks each summer. The Obama administration is considering revisions to federal agricultural work rules that effectively would bar teens younger than 16 from engaging in...

...Bodies were strewn everywhere. Those who were unharmed scrambled in panic as the public address announcer attempted to calm them. That’s when Apfelbaum’s natural instinct kicked in. As an E.R. doc, Apfelbaum has seen his share of carnage. He has been among the first responders to air disasters that left no survivors. However, the aftermath of the Reno crash was unlike anything he had ever seen. Knowing that the available EMS crews would be overwhelmed, he hugged Julia, leapt over a fence and hitched a ride on a cart to get to the scene faster...

The U.S. government spends who knows how many billions via its own lawyers suing everybody under the sun over its own insane gazillions of regulations. And it probably spends a similar huge amount defending challenges to its huge pile of regulations. I suggest aside from saving businesses a lot of wasted money and time, we could dramatically cut the cost of government by: 1)Eliminate most of the govt. depts. and their regulations 2)Eliminate most of the govt. lawyers who enforce them

A key provision of President Obama’s so-called “jobs bill” would establish the failure of any business to hire an unemployed person as a prima facie case of discrimination. Under the bill, any unemployed person who applies for a job that ultimately is filled by hiring someone else who is already employed could sue the employing firm. The firm would have to show that the suing plaintiff could not have done the job for which he wasn’t hired. Critics contend that this provision will encourage litigation and invite nuisance lawsuits. Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Tex) said that “passage of the bill would...

During a campaign stop in Memphis this week, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry adeptly played to the rhetoric of unrest reverberating around Tennessee and beyond as a result of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s raid on Gibson Guitars. Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, himself a critic of the Gibson raid and one of Tennessee’s highest profile Perry supporters, introduced the Texas governor during a lunchtime fundraiser at the Memphis Botanical Gardens. Before striding to the mic, Perry took a quick detour over to the guitar player in the corner of the room. “Let me come over here and make sure...

The practice of making duplicate claims from asbestos tort and trust systems was hammered by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) during a House subcommittee hearing Friday. Franks said that asbestos litigation has long been - and continues to be - rife with deception and exploitation, negatively effecting asbestos victims, the legal system and the employment of American workers. He noted that it has been five years since Congress provided oversight of asbestos litigation. At the time, widespread fraud in mass asbestos screenings was uncovered. "This massive fraud turned the worst occupational health disaster in U.S. history into one of the country's...

WASHINGTON (AP) — International business can be an ethical jungle, but it's rare to get details of bare-knuckle tactics on tape. According to a recording and sworn testimony provided to The Associated Press, a lawyer in Mexico for a leading U.S. drug manufacturer offered to pay an opposing expert in a lawsuit if he would leave the country on a key court date to undermine the case. *** Baxter said the lawyer was not authorized to make any offers, and it has severed all ties with him. The recording and its disclosure offer an unusual glimpse of fishy maneuvers in...

Michel Thibodeau’s attempt to order 7Up in French during a flight on Air Canada went awry and the flight attendant brought him a Sprite instead. Mr. Thibodeau sued and won an award of $12,000 for “pain and suffering.” The airline was also ordered to apologize. “Even though the airline, as well as most consumers, might find these two lemon-based soft drinks equivalent, that cannot excuse the humiliation and degradation inflicted upon Mr. Thibodeau,” the Federal Court of Canada wrote in its ruling. “Air Canada’s effort to pass this off as a ‘simple mistake’ does not absolve them of responsibility. Neither...

Seesaws: A Vanishing Part of America By Bob Dorigo Jones Can you remember the last time you saw a seesaw? I’m talking about an old fashioned teeter-totter – the kind without springs. If you are under the age of thirty, it’s very possible that you’ve never seen one. Although they were once a staple of playgrounds around the country, the lawsuit explosion in America prompted school officials and park superintendents to start removing them in the 1970s and 1980s. Philip Howard, a prominent attorney and the author of the bestselling book, The Death of Common Sense, wrote this about...

<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A traveling evangelist who has sometimes aligned with Westboro Baptist Church has been jailed in Tennessee on charges of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.</p> <p>Nashville police Sgt. Robert Haught told WSMV-TV in Nashville that 48-year-old Glynis Bethel, who is associated with Twenty-First Century House of God in Loxley, Ala., pepper sprayed him in the face as he tried to stop her from leaving a scene Saturday.</p>

Aaron Proctor, a Philadelphia-based libertarian writer, can count himself the latest victim of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that ironically claims to work for civil rights. ... Aaron Proctor has become yet another victim of the dangerous trend of CAIR stifling public discussion of Islamism. Who will be next?

Leave it to democrats to always push filling the coffers of their biggest contributors. It’s “full employment” antics for both of them. So they collude to find warm and fuzzy labels for draconian legislation. They may as well tell us, “Oh, Joey and Addie are just moving people around to create employment opportunities,” as we collectively recoil from the horrors of Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler. And, so, the “Sunshine in Litigation Act” has re-entered the legislative calendars of both the House (HR 592) and Senate (S 623).

Walmart is getting sued by 6 women for sex discrimination; this despite the fact that most of the employees are women. The ambulance-chasing shysters fomenting this case succeeded in getting “class” status for their few plaintiffs from the notorious 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. One of the primary tests for certifying a lawsuit as a “class” is for the court to determine whether the named plaintiffs are sufficiently representative of the class. Additionally, the court must determine if actual discrimination occurred and that this discrimination was likely to be widespread and effect a large class; in this case, a half...

Madison — A judge's hold on Gov. Scott Walker's union bargaining bill should be kept in place, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne argued Tuesday. In a filing with a state appeals court, the Democratic district attorney argued that the law, which sharply curtails collective bargaining by public workers, is effectively void because a committee violated the state open meetings law in passing it.Without the allegedly improper committee vote, the later passage of the law by the Senate and Assembly "could not and would not have happened," Ozanne argued.

Jim-Bob's Terrible Confession Edwin Leap MD Cast: Mama, 40; Daddy, 42, Chastity, 19; Jim Bob, 17. Setting: The family is sitting around the table in their subsidized housing discussing the future. Mama is microwaving dinner, as Daddy pops an Oxycontin, which Chastity eyes with interest. Her back has been hurting, too. Background: Jim Bob, ever the black sheep of the family, is on edge. He has news to tell the family, but he knows it won't go well. Chastity knows about it, and is being a typical big sister. A typical big sister, that is, who refuses to work, loves...