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South Carolina’s castle doctrine provides civil immunity
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that a grocery employee, who was granted immunity from prosecution after he fatally shot a customer in self-defense, is also immune from civil action related to the incident. Lawmakers intended for the state’s castle doctrine to protect citizens from both prosecution and lawsuits when they act in self-defense.
Murder conviction reversed for Harmony Montgomery’s father
CONCORD, N.H. — The father of Harmony Montgomery, convicted after beating his 5-year-old daughter to death in a car, had his second-degree murder conviction reversed by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, though his convictions for assault, falsifying evidence, witness tampering and abuse of a corpse still stand. Overwhelming evidence exists for these counts, but only his wife’s testimony “directly implicated the defendant in the victim’s death,” and evidence that he hated his daughter and that “that he ‘f**ked up’ are far from overwhelming evidence that he killed the victim.”
Heavy metal claims
WILMINGTON, Del. — A health and wellness app published false and misleading statements about LMNT, the electrolyte brand claims in a federal lawsuit in Delaware. LMNT says Oasis published false statements its brand contained seven times the legal limit of lead and kept the false posts up for 15 months after retraction demands.
Convictions over sexual gesture reversed
RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Court of Appeals overturned two convictions for obscene sexual display. “To constitute an ‘explicitly simulated’ act of masturbation, the conduct must, as perceived by a reasonable observer, unambiguously imitate the physical act of masturbation,” and the conduct in this case, “a brief, clothed grab-and-shake directed at a known adversary in a context of longstanding hostile confrontation,” did not qualify.
Settlement over misleading Google ads
DENVER — Two of Colorado’s leading personal injury law firms reached a settlement in a dispute over spoofed websites. Franklin D. Azar & Associates accused Bachus & Schanker of stealing the former’s customers by placing ads on Google searches that bore Azar’s name but redirected to the website for Bachus & Schanker. According to a status report, Bachus & Schanker has not yet paid the settlement amount, but assures its competitor that the money is on its way.
Opted out, but the cookies kept collecting
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal court denied, in part, a motion to toss class consumer privacy claims against Inspire Brands and several of its owned restaurant chains, such as Arby’s and Jimmy John’s, from consumers who say the chains’ websites installed cookies and tracking tools on their devices after they had already opted out of cookies. Some of the claims are time-barred, but the unjust enrichment and pen register claims may continue on the basis that the websites were actively collecting IP address and communication information from customers and potentially profiting off the data without permission.
Judge sub during bench trial violated double jeopardy
HONOLULU — The Supreme Court of Hawaii vacated the conviction of a driver charged with operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant after a judge was replaced mid-trial. The state’s high court found that substituting a new judge during a bench trial after evidence had already been heard violated the driver’s constitutional protection against double jeopardy.
‘Sacred duty of the lawyer’
ABERDEEN, Miss. — A federal court in Mississippi sanctioned four attorneys, two on each side of a city contract dispute, for improper use of artificial intelligence. All four lawyers are kicked off the case. Fines range from $1,000 and $3,500, and the two out-of-state attorneys are barred from practicing in the Northern District of Mississippi for two years. The court quotes that technology “can produce words” but it “cannot attach sincerity, truth, or responsibility to what it writes. That remains the sacred duty of the lawyer.”