Every now and then, a product hits the market that appears to have been taken straight out of Saturday Night Live‘s infamous “Bag O’Glass” skit.  You know the type.  A product that, while useful (or entertaining), seems to be begging for disaster if misused.  Recently, we here at Abnormal Use discovered one such product while perusing Amazon.com.

Meet the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk by Wheelmate.  That’s right.  A laptop desk for your car’s steering wheel!

According to the Amazon product description, the product:

Attaches to your steering wheel for easy access to a writing and drink storage surface. The Go Office Wheel Mate Steering Wheel Desk is flat for writing and perfect for lunch or a snack. This Go Office Wheel Mate Steering Wheel Desk stores neatly in your car when used with the larger Auto Exec Laptop Car Desk. For safety reasons, never use this product while driving.

Sounds useful.  We have all tried to jot down notes or browse our iPads in the car, wishing we had a flat surface to do so.  Now, this product solves those problems.  Like the Post-It Note, we all just wish we had thought of it first. Unfortunately, the laptop steering wheel desk presents a slight possibility of misuse.  We assume the product is intended to be used only when the car is parked.  After all, it has a warning label and a stock image showing the product in use while the steering wheel is upside down.  Not all products are always used as intended, however.  Just check out a few of these user comments:

“OMG! I am using it right now to post thi…”

“Watching movies is so much easier while I drive!  Thank you wheel desk!”

Behold! The cover of Criminals on the Run #4, published way, way back in 1948! This cover is only tangentially related to the law, but it does depict felons in flight. However, since last night saw the television premiere of Sharknado, we had to find a comic book cover with a shark on the cover.  We just had to.

Whoa, yesterday’s post was our 950th in our blog’s history. That’s a lot of posts. Just saying.

We have news from friend of the blog Alberto Bernabe. Here is the relevant excerpt from a missive we received on his behalf:

For those of you who follow Alberto Bernabe’s Professional Responsibility blog, Alberto asked us to let you know that if you want to continue to get the updates by e-mail you will need to subscribe again.  Last night the “feed” that automatically generates the e-mail updates stopped sending e-mails to registered users.  Please take a moment to visit his blog and sign up again for the e-mail update.   If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to e-mail Alberto directly at abernabe@jmls.edu.

And you know what? If you’re not familiar with Professor Bernabe or his blog, check them out!

With respect to this news, all we can say is ouch.

As a Justice of the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia (or, more pointedly, his opinions) are a polarizing force.  Although gruff and cantankerous from the bench, he’s apparently not such a bad guy outside the courtroom.  After all, we’ve heard reports of hunting trips with Justice Kagan, and it’s been reported that he has eaten New Year’s Eve dinner with Justice Ginsburg since 1982.  Apparently, he’s the funniest Justice, too, eliciting more laughter with his comments than any other, according to Boston University law Prof. Jay Wexler.

Justices Scalia and Ginsburg also share a love of opera, as reported by U.S. News & World Report in a 2007 piece:

An opera aficionado, Scalia, along with fellow Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appeared as an extra in a 1994 production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. Scalia appeared onstage for about an hour and a half during the second act in a costume first worn by Plácido Domingo during the world première of Goya in 1986.

Well, apparently, the opera connection doesn’t end there.  According to NPR’s Nina Totenberg, and reported on NPR, a new opera about these two legal heavyweights has been completed.  The composer, Derrick Wang, is a new graduate of the University of Maryland’s Carey School of Law, who heard music in the opinions and dissents:

I realized this is the most dramatic thing I’ve ever read in law school … and I started to hear music — a rage aria about the Constitution,” Wang said. “And then, in the midst of this roiling rhetoric, counterpoint, as Justice Ginsburg’s words appeared to me — a beacon of lyricism with a steely strength and a fervent conviction all their own. And I said to myself, ‘This is an opera.’

Well, the opera is finished, and Justices Scalia and Ginsburg got a preview last month at the Supreme Court, the day after the Court’s term ended.  No news yet on whether it will be performed elsewhere, but in our opinion, the highest court isn’t exactly community theater.

The ABA Journal is once again preparing its annual list of the 100 best legal blogs.  At present, the publication is soliciting nominations from its readers for blawgs to add to this year’s list.  Accordingly, we humbly request that you nominate us for the honor.

Note: The deadline to do so is August 9, 2013.

The ABA Journal is not just looking for the name of your favorite blog. They’d like you to offer a few lines about why that particular blog is your favorite.  What has the blog done in the past calendar year to earn your favor?  Why is it that you enjoy reading that blog?  Is it, say, a regular feature, its editorial tone of voice, a particularly impressive series of posts, or just the subject matter itself which intrigues you?

Allow us to do a bit of electioneering.  Throughout the year, we have continued to bring you news on the latest product liability litigation and jurisprudence, each business day, as we have since January 2010.

So, if you like us, please feel free to nominate us for the ABA Journal’s list.

There are many great legal blogs out there, and we hope that even if we are not your favorite that you will still participate in this process and nominate your favorite blog.  We here at Abnormal Use – who are prohibited by the rules from nominating ourselves – would probably be too bashful to vote for our own site, anyway. Whatever the case, some of us here have already nominated a few of our favorite blogs for inclusion onto the list (including some blogs which we read and enjoy but with which we disagree regularly).

You can complete the very brief nomination form here.  It will only take you a few moments.

Two things we here at Abnormal Use detest: MTV’s Jersey Shore and retail clothing giant Abercrombie & Fitch. We understand that Jersey Shore and A&F appeal to some people, but we legal nerds have no place for spray tans and over-priced clothing – unless they cross paths in a courtroom. Much to our chagrin, after A&F released a t-shirt bearing the phrase, “The Fitchuation,” Jersey Shore‘s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino filed a $4 million lawsuit against the retail chain, alleging trademark violations, deceptive advertising and misappropriation of his publicity rights.

A suit where there can be no winners, to be sure. According to the Hollywood Reporter, U.S. District Judge John O’Sullivan has now granted A&F’s motion for summary judgment. In a decision sure to make law school case books, Judge O’Sullivan notes:

Although the word ‘situation’ is not a word that was coined or made up by the plaintiffs, or a word that is obsolete, totally unknown in the language or out of common usage, the Court can discern no relationship between the word ‘situation’ and the apparel or entertainment services that the plaintiffs provide.

Moreover, Judge O’Sullivan found little in common between Sorrentino’s self-appointed nickname and A&F’s t-shirt.

The T-shirt expresses ‘The Fitchuation’ visually and phonetically different than ‘The Situation.’ There is no evidence of A&F ‘palming off’ its T-shirt as that of the plaintiffs where, as here, the T-shirt has the A&F inside label and prominently uses A&F’s own famous trademark ‘Fitch’ as part of the parody.

The highlight of the opinion, however, is Judge O’Sullivan’s response to a pre-suit press release put forth by A&F offering Sorrentino $10,000 to cease wearing its clothing.

A&F used only so much of the plaintiff’s name as was reasonably necessary to respond to his wearing A&F’s brand on The Jersey Shore, and did not do anything that would suggest Sorrentino’s sponsorship or endorsement. A&F’s press release expressly disassociated Sorrentino from A&F, and the plaintiffs have conceded that no third party has expressed any confusion that the press release rejecting Sorrentino’s image somehow suggested sponsorship or endorsement by Sorrentino.

Maybe The Situation should have taken that money. It is not $4 million, but it would be $10,000 closer to buying another 15 minutes of fame.

The dog days of summer are here, and the school year is over.  Kids love this time of year; for parents, it’s a mixed blessing – no more responsibility for getting the kids to school at the crack of dawn, but also, they must face the long, hot days and fill them with activities, camps, and play dates. The end of the academic year is marked in most schools by end-of-year recitals, plays, and fundraisers of all types.  Perhaps you can go and bid in a silent auction on Precious Boy or Girl’s priceless works of “art” – colorful swirls done with fantastically dirty fingers.

Or, perhaps you are out of town, so you proxy bid.  If this is your method of bidding, perhaps you should set a ceiling on those bids.

Enter Jon and Michelle Heinemann, who send their Precious Boy (who is 5 years old) to Cathedral School of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.  Out of town for the silent auction, they gave their proxy to make sure they would be the highest bidder on a painting done by Precious Boy and his classmates.

The price tag at the end of the day?  $50,000.00.  For a finger painting.

Furious, they have sued the school, saying that one of the teachers kept increasing the bids artificially so that the Heinemanns would have to pay some big bucks for Precious Boy’s creation.  They are suing not only to recover the price they paid for the painting, but for costs to send their children to another school, and a chauffeur to get them there.

Right.

There are several things we love about this story, which we found on Gawker here.  First, it’s that a couple of people who think they’re really smart may just have been outsmarted, and they are too fancy to admit it.  Second, it’s this line, as reported by Gawker:

Because the Heinemann’s were out of town, and had given instructions to a proxy to be the highest bid, they believed the largest possible damage for a finger painting (which are priceless) would fall around $3,000.

Because $3,000.00 would have been reasonable for a finger painting.

Finally, we love that the Heinemanns are also claiming that Precious Boy has been treated unfairly by the school since the auction went sour, claiming that he has had to do such things as hold the door for other students. Maybe I’m just a public school kid who didn’t know any better, but when I was five, it was cool to do such menial tasks as hold doors and erase blackboards for teachers.

A few other fun facts:  Jon Heinemann appears to be in finance in New York, running investment money management funds.  Here’s a website for The Heinemann Fund.  Michelle Heinemann was featured in something called “Black Tie Magazine” [pdf], which called her a “modern day Renaissance woman” and informed readers that she maintains several homes.  The Google has much more on this couple, if you’re curious.  Finally, according to its website, tuition  at Cathedral School of St. John the Divine in Manhattan for the upcoming school year rounds out at $38,425.  At least it includes lunch.

Above, you’ll find the cover of Police Comics #7, published way, way back in the 1940’s. You may recognize Plastic Man prominently depicted on its cover. However, we bring this issue to your attention due to the presence of one of the heroes showcased on the comics left sidebar: #711. Get this: By day, #711 was a lawyer, and a district attorney to boot! Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about him:

Daniel Dyce was a District Attorney who was almost an exact twin of his friend, Jacob Horn. Jacob was in prison, but wanted to see his wife give birth, so Daniel agreed to become a prisoner while Jacob was with his wife. However, Jacob is killed in a car crash on the way to the hospital, so Daniel was stuck in jail. Daniel was able to tunnel himself free, but instead of escaping, he decided to return to his cell. Each night he uses his tunnel to go outside and fight crime, then returns before the morning. Dyce adopts the name #711, a reference to his prisoner number. After two years of adventures Daniel Dyce was killed by the mobster Oscar Jones. The hero Destiny sees this take place, and starts his crime fighting career when #711 died, replacing his feature in Police Comics.

How about that?

Oh, my goodness! There’s a Third Amendment claim being made in litigation!

The folks at Reddit are now discussing the infamous Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case. We’ve talked about that case a time or two, we think. Haven’t we?

FYI: The new clerk of court for the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina is Robin L. Blume.

And the award for worst copyright lawsuit of the years is already decided, apparently.

The founder of the rock band Boston must pay his opponent’s costs in his unsuccessful defamation lawsuit. “More Than A Feeling,” indeed.

Above, you’ll find the cover of the trade paperback of the comic book adaptation of the 1996 film, Independence Day, which many of us will watch over this extended holiday weekend.  Even after all of these years, we’re still suckers for that movie, and we’re pleased to know a sequel is in the works. In the meantime, we here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. wish you and yours a safe and eventful Fourth of July. Let’s celebrate our nation’s birthday today (and, if time permits, have a beer or two, as well). If you’d like to see our past Fourth of July posts, please see here, here, and here.

Another week, another new case on Facebook friendships.  This time, it’s Clore v. Clore, No. 2110967 (Ala. Civ. App June 28, 2013), a divorce case in which the wife appealed certain rulings relating to alimony and property-division and challenged the trial court’s denial of a request for a new trial and recusal based on the trial judge’s apparent Facebook friendship with the parties’ adult daughter.

Needless to say, we’re interested in the latter component of this decision by the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals.

Apparently, at a hearing on the wife’ motion for new trial, her lawyer introduced some exhibits printed from Facebook establishing that the trial court judge maintained a Facebook friendship with the adult daughter of the parties. (We wonder how it occurred to them to investigate social media connections in this matter.).  According to the opinion, the issue had never previously been raised by either of the parties, and the court does not offer many details about the nature of the Facebook friendship (i.e. how long the two had been Facebook friends, how many friends the judge and the daughter had on Facebook, et cetera).

In its opinion, the appellate court quote the trial court’s justification for denying the motion for new trial:

“This [Facebook] is a social networking site where the word ‘friend’ is used [in a way] that doesn’t have anything to do with the way before this Facebook.com ever existed—the way we used the word ‘friend.’

“So just because a person is connected to me on here in this manner doesn’t have anything to do with a personal relationship. I don’t have a personal relationship with this friend. We all live in a small town. I have heard both of you all’s names. I’ve heard [the daughter’s] name before we came in here today.

“And in fact, in the course of living here, we have all run into each other before. It—and I can say the same for [the daughter]. I can’t remember a specific time when that happened.

“But the establishment of an electronic friend over Facebook has absolutely no impact on what I have done and what I’m going to do.”

Reviewing the record below, the appellate court declined to reverse the rulings below based upon these issues:

The parties, in their appellate briefs, devote considerable argument to various secondary authorities assessing the abstract propriety of a “Facebook friendship” between, for example, a trial judge and a practicing attorney. However, the husband points out that at the new-trial-motion hearing the wife “offered nothing beyond the bare status of the parties’ daughter as a ‘friend’ of the judge.” Notably, the record reveals that the wife did not make any sort of showing with respect to the second of the two elements necessary to warrant the granting of a new trial based upon newly discovered evidence of a trial judge’s potential bias: that the pertinent evidence indicating bias that was discovered after trial “could not have been discovered before trial by the exercise of due diligence.”

For all that appears in the record in this case, the existence of the electronic connection between the parties’ daughter and the trial judge—whether indicative of a mere acquaintanceship as the trial judge noted on the record or something more private and sinister as insinuated by the wife—was discoverable by the wife’s counsel well before trial and does not amount to a basis for retroactively undoing the work of the trial court, especially given that under the law of Alabama “[p]rejudice on the part of a judge should not be presumed.”

(Citations omitted).

The husband has a point: all that the wife did in this matter was to disclose the existence of the friendship itself.  How long had the two been friends? Who sent the initial friendship request? Had they exchanged private messages? Had they posted on each others’ walls?  What information might the judge have had access to on the daughter’s Facebook wall that might have related to her family situation? None of those issues were explored, and as the court noted, presumably, all of this information could have been discovered before the trial.

A dissent by Presiding Judge Thompson did not discuss the social media issue.

Here we go again. It’s another hot coffee case.

According to NorthJersey.Com, there’s a brand new McDonald’s hot coffee case brewing. (Apologies for that pun). Here’s the info:

A 54-year-old Florida man is seeking damages from McDonald’s Corporation in a lawsuit filed in Hackensack, claiming that he suffered serious burns from a spilled cup of hot coffee while dining at a McDonald’s in River Edge.

This is not the first time McDonald’s coffee inspired a lawsuit.

Francisco Rafael Borbolla said in the lawsuit that restaurant workers gave him a cup of coffee without properly securing the lid when he ordered breakfast at the Main Street eatery in August 2011.

Borbolla’s attorney, Rosemarie Arnold, said the coffee spilled all over Borbolla’s lap as he sat down at a table, causing him “horrendous” second-degree burns that required a trip to the emergency room at the Hackensack University Medical Center.

…

Arnold insisted on Monday that Borbolla’s lawsuit is not frivolous.

“This is a serious case involving lack of due care on the part of McDonald’s,” she said. “If the naysayers saw the burns on my client’s genitals, they would be speechless.”

Again, let’s not confuse the issue of severe burns with liability. Simply because the coffee in question may have caused injuries, it does not mean that McDonald’s is liable.  That is a mistake that many have made in discussing the infamous Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case. We’ve not yet  read the complaint, but if the news report is accurate, then the Plaintiff, Mr. Borbolla, took the cup of coffee from a McDonald’s employee, presumably from the front counter of the restaurant, made his way to his seat, and then spilled the hot beverage on himself as he proceeded to sit down at a table. The liability case will focus extensively on that brief journey.

We’ll keep you posted on this one. Our favorite part of the article is the following sentence, which also serves as the tagline to the AP file photograph of a McDonald’s logo: “This is not the first time McDonald’s coffee inspired a lawsuit.”