Universal Hub - Lawsuits

They like their lawsuits in JP: Residents opposed to Casey Overpass replacement ponder suing

adamg — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:46:37 +0000

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports residents who want to see the Casey Overpass replaced with another overpass instead of surface roads are considering suing to stop the work:

"No one prefers to go that route if there's a reasonable solution,” he told the Gazette this week. "But all our arrows are in our quiver."

At particular issue: The proposed new location of the exit from the Forest Hills busway near Asticou Road.

Woman sues Cambridge for right to advertise movie series through leaflets on car windshields

adamg — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:02:15 +0000

Paula Soto, who shows documentaries in the community room of her apartment building, yesterday filed suit against the city of Cambridge, which she says is infringing her First Amendment rights by threatening to fine her for the leaflets she used to put on hundreds of car windshields each month.

In her suit, filed in US District Court in Boston, Soto charges Cambridge is the only city in the entire state to interpret a state law prohibiting "defacement" of "natural scenery" as applying to flyers for a non-profit group, such as her Up and Out:

Taxi lawsuit: Uber a crime syndicate that hates poor people and cancer patients and puts public safety at risk

adamg — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:18:54 +0000

A lawsuit by key members of the local taxi industry against upstart Uber is now a federal matter - San Franisco-based Uber yesterday had the suit transferred from state court to US District Court in Boston.

In the suit, Boston Cab Dispatch and EJT Management charge Uber, which lets customers use a smart-phone app to arrange a ride, violates state law, which requires taxis in Boston to carry medallions.

The companies charge Uber lets drivers refuse rides to certain neighborhoods. As East Boston residents know, city law prohibits medallion drivers from refusing rides there.

BU charges Samsung light-bulb parts not such a bright idea

adamg — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:06:30 +0000

Boston University yesterday sued Samsung for patent infringement, alleging it holds the rights to the way Samsung is making LEDs and similar electronic components.

In its lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, the university charges that Samsung's charmingly named SPHWWTHDD805WHT0GD violates a patent for creating "highly insulating monocrystalline gallium nitride thin films."

Court: No First Amendment right to audio recordings of court proceedings when there's a printed transcript

adamg — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:58:11 +0000

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today a filmmaker making a documentary about a Somerville cop convicted of child rape has no right to a stenographer's audio recording of the trial because he was able to buy a copy of the official transcript she produced.

Court: Father can't use domestic-abuse law to keep teen daughter from seeing adult paramour

adamg — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:06:38 +0000

The Supreme Judicial Court today vacated an order that had prevented a British man from seeing the then 16-year-old Massachusetts girl with whom he had had a dalliance while she and her family were on a European vacation.

After the family returned to the US, the two continued exchanging romantic messages via e-mail and Skype - even after the girl admitted she was only 16 and not 18 - and Gregory James Compton, then 24, eventually booked a flight to Boston in October, 2011, to spend more time with his stateside sweetie.

But when the Essex County girl's father found out about that, he went to court and obtained a "prevention order" under the state's law on domestic abuse that barred the swain from going anywhere near the girl - an order served on him not long after he landed at Logan.

The judge who issued the order shouldn't have, the state's highest court ruled today.

Court hip checks company over libel suit against Harvard doctor

adamg — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:31:22 +0000

The Supreme Judicial Court today ruled against a Canton company that makes padded hip protectors, saying a Harvard Medical School researcher did not libel it in a medical-journal article that said the devices did not seem to do much to protect the elderly from broken hips.

The state's highest court said HipSaver of Canton failed to prove that Dr. Douglas Kiel and his co-authors had written anything false in their 2007 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Kiel, a specialist in hip fractures among the elderly, was the lead reasearcher in an $8.4-million federally funded study, in which residents of nursing homes wore a hip protector on one hip but not the other. In their article, the researchers wrote it became so obvious the pads were failing to stop broken hips that they called off the study early.

The study did not include any HipSaver products, which the court said also doomed its claim, because Massachusetts defamation law requires proof a statement was aimed at the plaintiff:

Suits just keep on coming in case of closed Framingham pharmacy

adamg — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:35:23 +0000

Just yesterday, 11 new lawsuits were filed in US District Court in Boston against the New England Compounding Pharmacy in Framingham over its fungus-laced anti-pain medicines.

Cab company to Uber: See you in court

adamg — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 02:00:55 +0000

The Boston Business Journal reports.

Court: Massachusetts stores can't make you provide your Zip code to complete a credit-card transaction

adamg — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 15:33:00 +0000

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that a chain of arts and craft stores violated a state consumer-privacy law when it used a woman's Zip code on her credit-card transaction to figure out where she lived and start bombarding her with circulars.

The opinion, however, does not mean Melissa Tyler gets anything, because her suit against Michaels is in federal court and the state's highest court was merely providing answers about state consumer-laws to a federal judge hearing her case - where the ultimate decision will come.