Evan Brown summarizes and comments on Chasten v. Franklin, 2010 WL 4065606 (N.D.Cal. October 14, 2010): Plaintiff sued some corrections officers at the prison where her inmate son was killed. She learned in a deposition that one of the defendants had a Yahoo email account. So she sent a subpoena to Yahoo seeking all the email…
Category: Court
Appeals court stays ruling on gays in military
Peter Henderson reports: A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that the Pentagon may temporarily reinstate a ban on openly gay men and women in uniform while a lengthier stay in favor of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is considered. The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco added…
Simultaneously eroding privacy and protected speech, one lawsuit at a time
In her latest column, Kashmir Hill writes about a number of recent cases where people have used the courts to unmask anonymous speakers. Carla Franklin’s case has been described by some as fighting back against “cyberbullying” or “the case that could end cyberbullying.” But if you read the filing, you’ll see that it relied…
Federal judge sheds light on “fair use” in dismissing a Righthaven lawsuit
Steve Green reports the good news/bad news involving Righthaven in the courts: The Las Vegas Review-Journal online copyright infringement lawsuit campaign sustained a setback Tuesday when a judge granted a real estate agent’s motion for dismissal, ruling his posting of part of a Review-Journal story on his website amounted to fair use under copyright law….