Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with lawsuits

Litigation's a drag

oinopaponton — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:33:50 -0800

Can I ask my professor to recommend me to a university that she tried to sue (without destroying my chances at acceptance)? I’m going to be applying to PhD programs this fall. I’m really excited to start the application process, and have some great professors lined up to write recommendations. One of these professors-- Professor X, if you will-- is probably going to be a strong point of my applications. She oversaw me writing the term paper I’m going to use as a writing sample, is seen as a leader in her field (i.e., the one I hope to enter), and is a MacArthur fellow. I’m really lucky to have her in my corner, but (there’s always a but) she was involved in a legal case with one of the schools I’m considering.

Without going into specifics, Professor X used to teach at top-tier School A. Over a decade ago, she was denied tenure for a reason she interpreted as discrimination, and she sued the school. Her case was dismissed before it reached trial, and she left School A to teach at equally green pastures. Her academic reputation doesn’t seem to have been hurt by this, so I’m not worried about recommendations I’ll be sending to schools B through Z.

Should I even approach her about writing a recommendation to School A? It’s not my top choice at the moment, but it’s up there and it's a good enough school that I shouldn't discount it. She’s never discussed this lawsuit with me, but it’s pretty well documented—should I even mention it? I could find someone else to recommend me for this particular application, but nobody with the same clout.

On the other hand, would School A see a recommendation from Professor X as a count against me? Is a lawsuit like this enough to make an institution see a former employee as a persona non grata, even if she is a respected scholar?

Apologies for all vagueness, but I’d really appreciate any advice on how to proceed without making everyone uncomfortable (and sabotaging an application).

David vs. capitalist greed and corruption

brandnew — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:10:55 -0800

I would like to sue Citibank. What would be the most effective way to go about doing this? I'm interested in suing Citibank, and given the David vs. Goliath nature of this affair, I want to make sure I do it right.

Three separate CSRs at Citibank had verbally promised me an offer on three separate occasions. They also included a date by which the offer would expire. Based on this information I had made a number of business deals. Then, I went to execute on the Citibank offer, and Citibank changed their offer, which basically made me lose a lot of money.

I also suspect that Citibank is doing something crooked, here. And, given the current political climate and the bailing out of Citibank by us, the American tax payers, I would also like to take action with my congressperson as well.

Anyway, without getting into the details, how would I best go about this? Should I try to contact an attorney in New York? At this point, cost is irrelevant - I want to recoop my losses and opportunty costs and other damages. But, I also want to sue based on the principal.

I know there are a lot of attorneys on metafilter. I know you are not my attorney, but I want to make sure I go about this the most effective way. How would I best go about this? And how would I best take action with my representatives?

what do we ask a contractor and how do we ask it?

amfea — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:53:02 -0800

What kind of things do you need to ask a home remodeling contractor, like about liability insurance, bonding and all that? How do you approach this with them? Do you take their word for it or demand proof? My roommate is planning to have some remodeling done on the house (which she owns). Until now, her dad has been able to do all the fixin' up here, but this is a total bathroom replacement and more than he'd be able to do. So we need to find a contractor.

I don't think we'll have any problems finding people through referrals (most of our friends have had work done on their houses and most have been happy with it). But what sort of questions do we need to ask to make sure things will go smoothly, and most importantly, to make sure she's (or we?) is/are covered against damages and lawsuits?

Any advice about

RIAA lawsuit in plain english

BlackRose — Thu, 10 May 2007 16:20:43 -0800

Is there a place to get the RIAA lawsuit summaries in plain english? I've been extremely interested in the legal path that the RIAA is following. I know of The Recording Industry vs the People, Ars Technica and P2PNet, however, I often find them referencing ongoing or old cases. Often the links go to the actual legal documents, which are confusing for me as a lay person. I'm looking for a place that has the issues, facts and stories laid out neatly and without the legalese.

Is a lawsuit invalid if they get your name wrong?

tristeza — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:12:04 -0800

Lawsuits - if you're being sued, but they have your name or title wrong, does it matter? I KNOW you're not my lawyer and I KNOW you're not giving me legal advice. I won't sue you, promise.

Hypothetical situation: I am, say, the Treasurer of my homeowners association. I am served papers that indicate that one of the other condo owners is suing me, by name, in my capacity as President of the HOA. Every single time my name is mentioned in the suit, it identifes me as President. Over and over again.

Does the fact that I'm not the President and never have been make any difference in the validity of the suit at all? It seems like, technically, they're suing someone who doesn't exist, right? If they had my name wrong, say, wouldn't that be the case also?

Legal advice for an encounter with an unstable dog owner?

adamp88 — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 13:12:38 -0800

At the dog park yesterday, one of the regular dogs (let's call her Fido) attempted to start play with a dog new to the park by herding (complete with nipping). The new dog completely freaked out, screaming like crazy (and in the process attracting all the other dogs to come find out what the hell was going on). New dog's owner (an attorney, as has surfaced today) also completely freaked out, and is now threatening to file a lawsuit against Fido's owner, claiming Fido viciously attacked his dog. There is something off about this guy (let's call him Clark). Immediately after the attack happened, he got his dog, did little more than glance over her, and then immediately started pulling out his cell phone and demanding contact info from Fido's owner (who had already asked if his dog was ok and if there was anything she could do), claiming her "wolf" as he called it (she has a german shepherd) had attacked her dog. Clark refused to let anyone look at his dog, and myself and another guy in the park who asked him separately if we could look at his dog to see the injury were met with a "no and if you don't stop asking me questions I will call the police for harassment." A little odd, no? Several people (including myself) spent a lot of time right by his dog anyway and noticed no hint of injury. No bleeding, no limping, no wimpering. 5 minutes after the incident the dog seemed to be in a perfectly happy mood, actually. After staying on the phone for a while, Clark came back to Fido's owner, demanded her last name, which she gave, and then her address, which she refused. She then asked for Clark's name and contact info, which he refused to give her. She tried to reason with him, and he told her that if she didn't stop asking him questions he'd call the police for harassment. Ooookay.

I decided to leave at the same time Clark did, and as fate would have it (heh), I ended up taking the same route home for most of the trip. He got on the freeway heading towards San Francisco/Hayward (more on this later).

This morning Fido's owner had a message on her phone when she woke up, explaining that Clark had gone to the Berkeley Cat & Dog Hospital and had a bill to the tune of $546 (a call to the hospital confirmed the bill), and that she has 24 hours to respond and 2 days to send payment or he will sue her. He then later sent her an email (she didn't give him her address and it was a private address) repeating the same, and also stating that she could only reply once to either the phone message or the email, and that two replies would be deemed harassment. He also stated that he would only send her an itemized bill of the hospital visit once she gave him her address.

I don't trust this guy for a second. He showed not a whit of concern for his dog but a whole lot of zeal to make someone's life hell and get some money out of it. I don't understand why he decided to go home (I assume since the onramp to the 580 is a few miles in the opposite direction of the Berkeley Dog & Cat Hospital)before going to the dog hospital. If my dog were just attacked my first stop would be the vet. His odd behavior was more worrisome though (he stuck around the park for well over an hour after the incident, alternating between talking on his cell or standing there reading the dog park sign), and Fido's owner obviously does not want to give him her address because of this, but she would also like to see the bill. I talked with her for quite a while today (all eyewitnesses gave her their contact info in case he did decide to take action), and she is obviously feeling extremely threatened by his actions. My feeling is that it is his responsibility to provide prrof that his dog was attacked, and an itemized bill from the vet should be the first thing she sees before she agrees to do anything for this wacko. The only injury that dog could have possibly sustained in this "attack" was a small nip on the hind quarters. At the absolute worst, maybe, just maybe, the dog required a couple stitches and subsequent shots (which should not add up to $546, right?), though I am 99.5% positive that was not necesary.

Does this guy actually have a case? Even if he has a bill from the vet that details stitches and shots (that somehow add up to $546), does he have a case since there are 8 eyewitnesses who all saw run of the mill herding behavior and absolutely no "attack" of any kind? Anyone familiar with the law in this type of case? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as she's freaking out a little at this point and doesn't have much time left to answer this guy.

Class action risks

rolypolyman — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 09:58:46 -0800

Might a business blacklist customers for participating in a class-action settlement? I suppose that "legally" they can't, but I know many megacorps don't play by the rules or they wouldn't be in trouble in the first place. Lately I seem to get a settlement announcement almost monthly regarding one company or another. I wouldn't have any bones with participating if it was GM or a toy company, because they don't keep track of customers and will just sell you more of their product. But what if it's a business you have a close relationship with?

For example, the latest settlement came against my merchant bank. I'd get $80, but I rely on them to process a lot of my income. Merchant banks currently operate in a free-wheeling fashion like Visa and Mastercard did in the 1960s and 1970s -- they have considerable license to shaft customers with things like MATCH (formerly TMF). To me, this is more risk than I can swallow. But what happens if I participate against my credit card issuer, my regular bank, my insurance company, and so forth? I can't help wondering if I'd be put in their "high risk" tiers, kind of like what TXU was trying to do with credit scores.

disability case law

sophie — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 16:38:03 -0800

Does anyone know of some good free resources/articles on the web about recent case law, lawsuits, etc. involving people with disabilities vs federal agencies, state social service agencies and federally funded non-profits and faith based initiatives? I'm particularly interested in lawsuits concerning an agency's failure to provide reasonable accommodations for access to social services. I'm also interested in cases where agencies are sued for noncompliance with federal regulations and/or civil rights laws (when the noncompliance results in a failure to provide services to a person with disabilities.)

What is a life worth?

googly — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 10:38:46 -0800

Some years back, I recall hearing an interview with someone regarding the relative value of the awards given out to survivors in wrongful death suits. Might have been on "This American Life." Help me find it... I don't remember who the interview was with - perhaps an academic or a lawyer. The jist of the interview was that the determination of the "value" of a person's life depends on how much their present and future earnings might be, what sort of a family life they had, and so forth.

I'm fairly certain it was on TAL, but might have been elsewhere. Googling hasn't helped, nor has combing through the TAL archives. Bonus points for locating an audio file.

Also, any additional info on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Info on class action lawsuits?

ThePinkSuperhero — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 14:02:10 -0800

What's a reliable, trustworthy source for information about class action lawsuits? I believe there's a class action lawsuit going on that my company could very well benefit from, but I can't seem to find any reliable information about being involved on the web, just websites advertising lawyers. What's the best way to go about finding information?

Dell Customer Disservice

oflinkey — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 17:54:16 -0800

Please help my sister out with a huge customer service problem with Dell [MI]. My sister's CD burner was not working. The computer itself would not recognize the drive. So she called Dell. They told her on the phone to reinstall XP. She kept getting an error message- some corrupt file, so it would not reinstall XP. Now she was instructed to reformat and reinstal. The tech on the phone, who walked her through the whole process, neglected to tell her that this would completely wipe her HD (she did not know it would). When she tried to reinstall after the reformatting, it still did not work. The tech then told her that he would send out a tech for a service call to replace her HD, and that they would call Monday. No one called Monday. Tuesday she calls again was told she did NOT need a new HD but they would still send a tech out. No tech Tuesday. NEXT day, today, they told her she DID need a new HD, and that for her trouble she would get more memory and $100 etc. etc. along with a new HD, we are so sorry, blah blah blah. They admitted that they screwed up in having her reformat and try to reinstall. Three hours later they called and said that her contract had expired and now they were not going to do anything at all. She asked to have a tech come out and restore her computer to its prior state, broken CD burner and all, and they refused. She asked them pointedly if before they accepted full culpability for having her reformat her computer over the phone with athe assistence of a tech and essentially broke her computer, but now that they realized her contract was up, they were not going to accept ANY culpablity and were not going to fix what they had broken. The phone tech said yes. She asked for his last name, he refused to give it. She asked how much a new HD and a tech would be, he said he did not know. He would not give her any information, a supervisor, anything. Her only recourse, he said, was to HANDWRITE A LETTER TO MICHAEL DELL. She is in the midst of a job search that requires a computer. What can she do, any ideas?

How can you tell which computer is uploading p2p on a shared broadband connection?

ascullion — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 11:37:27 -0800

I've been thinking about the music industry lawsuits. They're based on the IP addresses of the 'uploaders', correct me if I'm wrong. If I live in a shared flat, and we share broadband via a router - how can anyone tell which PC is the evil lawbreaker? And related... if I run an open wi-fi hotspot, can I be held responsible for what people might upload/download through it?

(This is all hypothetical..)