I’ve heard of lawyers out for blood, but I had never heard of a lawyer named Blood.
Meet Timothy Blood who exacted a $4 million false advertising settlement out of The Kellogg Co.
The Battle Creek, Mich.-cereal giant claimed that eating Frosted Mini-Wheat cereals improved attention spans. It agreed to settle allegations that this advertising was false, setting up a fund to pay consumers, but not admitting the allegations.
Click here for a form if you would like to participate in the settlement. You’ll get $5 for every box you bought during the class period, up to three boxes.
Mr. Blood, a San Diego lawyer who has successfully brought a lot of class action lawsuits against brand-name companies, says he gets a lot of comments about his name.
Ever go to work feeling like someone stuck a “kick me” sign on your back?
Probably not like this guy: Henry Palacio, a 50-year-old Intel Corp. employee in Rio Rancho, N.M., who says his co-workers really did stick a “kick-me” sign on his back and then proceeded to kick him.
A Paris bar owner who has enshrined the late rock ‘n roll legend Jim Morrison received a letter from a lawyer representing the intellectual property rights of The Doors.
It read: “The Doors do not want to be seen as having approved of your establishment and also the consumption of alcohol.” Click here to read more on that from The Associated Press.
People are strange when you’re a stranger, and they’re even stranger when they are lawyers.
How many of the enduring “intellectual property rights” of The Doors include lyrics about alcohol and just being chemically driven out of your mind? Here are just a few:
“Well, show me, the way to the next whiskey bar. Oh, don’t ask why.”
“Going to the roadhouse, gonna have a real good time.”
“And the only time that he’s satisfied, is when he’s out on a drunk.”
“Out here we is stoned. Immaculate.”
Please post your favorite lines and Doors memories in the comments section.
Posted by Al Lewison February 05, 2011 Litigation Nation /
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I can’t imagine anyone goes to Taco Bell for the meat.
Sure, the meat is an essential part of the overall taco experience, but if it’s mixed right, it doesn’t have to be very good meat to make up a decent taco.
Taco Bell may be battling a lawsuit challenging the true content of its tacos, but it’s restaurants have been doing quite well. I suspect they’ll continue to do well no matter what’s in the mystery meat.
Is America’s obesity epidemic making it more difficult for Hooters to hire thin waitresses?
I ask because the last time I went to Hooters the waitress who served me didn’t quite fit in her tight orange shorts, if you know what I mean. Have you had this experience?
But then I hear about this lawsuit in Michigan: Two former Hooters girls are suing the company, alleging they were placed on “weight probation.” Michigan has a law that prohibits companies from discriminating on the basis of weight. But the funny thing is, these women don’t have a weight problem. By most definitions, particularly by today’s standards, they are thin.
Hooters spokesman Mike McNeil says the case has no merit. He also apologized for my experience, saying Hooters aims for perfection, but doesn’t always achieve it. Not a big deal, really. I was just wondering. Two thirds of Americans are overweight, you know, and maybe the one-third that isn’t, doesn’t want to work at Hooters. But McNeil said Hooters has an image to uphold.
Meantime, it’s absolutely bizarre how marketers keep selling us fat- and sugar-laden foods and the image of sleek, beautiful bodies at the same time. Hooters is right at the heart of that phenomena, peddling chicken wings, pulled pork sandwiches and tall glass of beer with girls they put in calendars.
Click here to read my column on Hooters in The Sunday Wall Street Journal.
The North Face is part of a $7 billion corporation that couldn’t handle a gag by a teenager who looks just like Alfred E. Neuman. Click here to read column. I also talked about it on Fox Business News with David Asman.
I ran into Eliot Spitzer last week at New York University. He struck me as a man doing everything possible to redeem himself, but that’s not going to be easy to do given America’s obsession with infidelity and, of course, the hypocrisy of a lawman frequenting a prostitute.
I hadn’t seen Spitzer since since 2005. He was at the top of his game as the Sheriff of Wall Street, and he was gracious enough to grant me an interview in his office in lower Manhattan, as you can see by the photo above.
At the time, I was a business columnist for The Denver Post, and not part of the New York media, but as New York’s Attorney General, Spitzer was going after our hometown mutual fund company, Janus, for improper trading, and decided to give me about 30 minutes.
I liked Spitzer because he was doing what the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators refused to do: Go after white collar fraudsters. I came back to Denver and wrote a piece lauding him, noting that yes, he may be using legal extortion, as his critics contended, but it was difficult to feel sorry for many of the people he was extorting. Spitzer then went on to become governor of New York and then Client No. 9 of a pricey prostitution service – and the rest is history.
Nobody in the small audience at NYU seemed the least bit interested in this history, though. How many times does a guy have to apologize? Spitzer is a brilliant and gutsy man with deep flaws. Will he ever deserve the redepmtion he seeks?
Identity theives from Romania hack their way into your bank account. Then the bank sues you.
This actually happened to a small manufacturing firm in Plano, Texas, called Hillary Machinery Inc. It’s banker, PlainsCapital Bank of Lubbock, Texas, filed the federal lawsuit as a pre-emptive strike. The bank refuses to make good on the looted funds and filed the lawsuit because it expected one from Hillary.
It’s not only asking for a declarative judgment from the court approving of its practices, but it wants Hillary to pay the legal costs and other consideration.
Commercial bank accounts do not have the same protections as consumer bank accounts. If identity theives get into them, it’s often the customer’s loss, not the bank’s.
Click here to read column. I also talked about this case with Fox Business anchor David Asman.
