Legal Humour Corner

Max Mosley, the 68 year old multimillionaire president of the International Automobile Association, is in court in London, England suing News of the World newsgroup for taping and publishing his sadomasochistic adventures with several women, in a fancy Chelsea apartment. The party cost about $5,000.00 and involved a bit of a Nazi motif as some of the women shouted commands in guttural German and wore army boots and Luftwaffe jackets. Mosley notes that he is proud of his sadomasochistic tendencies but is really pissed that exposure of same came to the attention of his wife who until then was oblivious...

A U.S. District Court ordered Google to turn over zillions of bits of data detailing the personal video habits of YouTube watchers, to Viacom Inc. Viacom is suing Google for allegedly unlawfully posting copyrighted material such as South Park clips, on YouTube and it plans to use this data against Google in its billion dollar claim. Needless to say, privacy advocates everywhere have their knickers in a knot as supposedly Viacom can conceivably glean previously unknown information from this data and use it to the detriment of YouTube users, myself included.Though not a frequent YouTube visitor, I have surfed the...

British immigration authorities have denied design and culinary guru Martha Stewart entry into England for a business trip. The reason cited for their decision is her American criminal record, wherein she was convicted a couple of years ago for some stock related activities and sentence to jail for 6 months. A UK Border Agency spokesperson commented, "We continue to oppose the entry to the UK of individuals where we believe their presence in the United Kingdom is not conducive to the public good or where they have been found guilty of serious criminal offences abroad."Now how in the world is...

Tim Hortons was in the news recently when a story surfaced about an employee getting fired for giving a toddler a freebie Timbit. Another story followed about a week plus long trial wherein an employee was suing for wrongful dismissal for allegedly stealing a toonie.  And now here comes the big one.  Franchisees are staring a class action for 1.95 billion dollars claiming that a couple of years ago, Tim Hortons made them switch from freshly oven baked donuts to frozen donuts which the franchisees heat up in expensive microwaves they were forced to buy. They claim their profit margins...

New York lawyer Richard Roth is suing Delta Air Lines for $1 million for damages for his family’s ruined vacation last Christmas. Due to delays in leaving New York, they missed the connecting flight in Atlanta to Buenos Aires and Delta would not readily put them on another flight. Roth had to wait three days in Atlanta before rebooking with another airline to Argentina. On top of that his luggage got delayed for five days and he lost about $21k for unused hotel bookings.  Bravo Richard Roth. No doubt we all are finding airlines’ service and attitude getting increasingly atrocious....

The Supreme Court of Canada recently tossed out Martin Mustapha’s fly in the Culligan water tank case. Mr. M, an Ottawa hairdresser, used to order Culligan spring water for his home use. One day in 2001 he noticed a dead fly floating around aimlessly in his water cooler. He apparently freaked out and suffered major psychological trauma including depression. He developed an aversion to water, avoiding drinking and showering. Mustapha sued Culligan and was successful. The trial judge awarded him over $300,000 in damages. Culligan appealed and the Ontario Court of Appeal said, “uh uh”, (not an uncommon legal maxim)....

Gokhan Mutlu has little love for Jet Blue Airways. He is suing them. It seems he had a complimentary ticket on a flight from San Diego to New York. Due to a seat shortage, an hour and a half into the flight, the pilot demanded that Gokhan Mutlu relinquish his seat to a stewardess. Both had been flying complementary but the stewardess had been sitting on a swing seat reserved for fight attendants which seat she did not like. As seats were in such short supply, the pilot asked Gokhan to sit out the flight on the toilet. This seating...

Tim Hortons in London, Ontario, fired a three-year employee for cause. The reason? She gave a free Timbit to a baby sitting in a stroller. Give me a break. Timbits sell for about 16 cents (plus 5% GST). The employee Nicole Lilliman saw the toddler pointing to those tiny donut balls and she decided to give the kid one. Suddenly all hell broke loose and the outlet’s manager, no doubt following company rule # 432, ie., "causing the team to compromise its profit", promptly fired Nicole. The good news is that after an uproar in the media, 27 year old...

High profile criminal lawyer Edward Greenspan is about to start a complex trial defending former Livent chief Garth Drabinsky on fraud related charges. As well he is also representing former Mexican, now Canadian, prisoner Brenda Martin, in her endeavours to secure parole.  And not long ago he was in Chicago for several months fighting to prove the innocence of Conrad Black. The question is, does Eddie Greenspan ever handle low profile and more minor cases?  Well here is the latest.  Edward Greenspan’s next case is about a gentleman who got a $35.00 parking ticket after his meter ran out.  Mr...

This was a good week for wrongly accused Robert Baltovich whom the Crown let go after the man spent eight years in prison, getting convicted without the help of Dr. Charles Smith. But is was a bad week for Brenda Martin. The Mexican justice system found her guilty of fraud related charges and gave her five years. Guinness clocked her trial at 3 minutes and 58 seconds. And who said there is no such thing as a four-minute trial? I think Martin probably had a legal aid lawyer and the lawyer’s money pipeline to the legal aid plan dried up....