Recently the High Court has had to decide when it was likely that a person might eat hot chips. Seriously. In Strong v Woolworths [2012] HCA 5, the unfortunate plaintiff slipped and fell on a hot chip which had been left on the ground outside Big W at Centro Taree Shopping Centre. She suffered serious [...]
February 21, 2012 – 1:37 pm
When we lecturers write exam questions involving hypothetical legal problems, we create a string of mishaps which happen to one poor hypothetical plaintiff. Occasionally students complain that these scenarios are not realistic. This morning in the Herald Sun, I read this story, and I think I’ll show it anyone who complains about unrealistic bad luck [...]
February 6, 2012 – 3:58 pm
Lowering the Bar has a post detailing a negligence claim against the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity and one of its drunken frat boy members. Shortly, the plaintiff was injured after the drunken ATO member attempted to fire a bottle rocket out of his backside, but it exploded instead, startling the plaintiff, who fell off an [...]
February 1, 2012 – 12:12 pm
In The Age today there’s an article about a couple with a severely disabled child suing an IVF practitioner in negligence: Debbie and Lawrence Waller love their 11-year-old son, Keeden, but they believe he should never have been born. Just days after Mrs Waller gave birth in August 2000 following IVF treatment, Keeden suffered a [...]
By Legal Eagle
|
Also posted in Children, Law, Motherhood, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Welfare
|
Tagged Cattanach v Melchior, disability, Harriton v Stephens, High Court of Australia, Keeden Waller, negligence, public policy, tort, Waller v James, welfare, welfare state, wrongful birth, wrongful life
|
January 29, 2012 – 11:50 pm
Various people wrote thoughtful responses to my piece on the distinction between principled and means-end limits to law in the context of the ongoing Melinda Tankard Reist v Jennifer Wilson dust-up. I was rather busy last week and so didn’t respond; I figured I ought to respond, so here are some comments and thoughts (still, [...]
By skepticlawyer
|
Also posted in Feminism, Free Speech, Law, Music, Personal liberty, Politics, Popular culture
|
Tagged #MTRsues, abortion, Anne Summers, Brendan O'Neill, Code Napoléon, Collective Shout, comorra, david cameron, demand inelasticity, Eva Cox, Jennifer Wilson, jurisprudence, Kanye West, Melinda Tankard Reist, nadine dorries, pornography, Prohibition, Ron Paul, Russell Blackford, war on drugs
|
January 17, 2012 – 8:01 am
In the light of the recent hoo-hah discussed by SL here involving Melinda Tankard-Reist suing blogger Jennifer Wilson for defamation I thought I might revisit the notion of the Streisand effect, because as Russell Blackford has commented, we may be seeing an instance of it unfolding before our eyes. The term Streisand effect was coined after [...]
By Legal Eagle
|
Also posted in Free Speech, Internet, Law, Media, Personal liberty, Politics, Privacy, Society, Technology
|
Tagged "Officer Bubbles", bruce grobbelaar, defamation, Glenn Beck, Jennifer Wilson, keysar trad, law of defamation, law of unexpected consequences, libel, liskula cohen, Melinda Tankard Reist, Privacy, streisand effect, tort
|
January 15, 2012 – 7:53 am
There’s nothing quite like getting up first thing in the morning to discover service documents sitting in your hallway (or, if you’re in Australia or the US, poking out of your mailbox). This is what has happened to Australian political and skeptical blogger Jennifer Wilson (her blog is ‘No Place for Sheep’) yesterday. I have [...]
By skepticlawyer
|
Also posted in Feminism, Law, Privacy, Public Policy, Science, Sexuality, Skeptics
|
Tagged Article 8 ECHR, Brian Harradine, Campbell v MGN Ltd, Christopher Hitchens, clive hamilton, Collective Shout, defamation, God's Police, Jennifer Wilson, Jonathan Haidt, Lenah Game Meats v ABC, Leslie Cannold, Melinda Tankard Reist, No Place for Sheep, Rachel Hills, Russell Blackford, Spinifex Press
|
October 8, 2011 – 9:34 am
In the Liskula Cohen “NYC skank” case, Cohen successfully sued Blogger to get them to disclose the identity of an anonymous blogger who had defamed her by calling her (inter alia) “skankiest in NYC”. Now we’ve apparently had a similar case in Australia. Self-help guru Jamie McIntyre launched the action in September this year after [...]
By Legal Eagle
|
Also posted in Blogging, Free Speech, Human/Civil rights, Internet, Law, Media, Society, Technology
|
Tagged anonymous bloggers, anonymous blogging, australia, Blogging, blogs, defamation, Google, Internet, Jamie McIntyre, liskula cohen, Queensland Supreme Court, tort
|
September 30, 2011 – 7:25 am
In the thread to Legal Eagle’s excellent casenote on Bromberg J’s ruling in the Andrew Bolt matter, I promised that I would point out why I think the plaintiffs (or, at least those with the strongest cases, and particularly Anita Heiss) should have brought their claims in defamation, not under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 [...]
By skepticlawyer
|
Also posted in Australia, Free Speech, Law, Racism
|
Tagged aboriginal, Andrew Bolt, Anita Heiss, Australian Aborigines, defamation, Federal Court, Herald Sun, insult, IPA, Jonathan Holmes, Justice Bromberg, multiculturalism, offence, Pat Eatock, Racial Discrimination Act, RPA, The Bolta
|
September 29, 2011 – 10:29 am
Background to the case The background to the case is that journalist Andrew Bolt wrote a series of newspaper articles and blog posts which were critical of the plaintiffs, who were all individuals who identified as Aboriginal, but who had pale skin and did not look like stereotypical Aboriginal people. He was critical of the [...]
By Legal Eagle
|
Also posted in Australia, Free Speech, Law, Media, Personal liberty, Society
|
Tagged aboriginal, aboriginality, aborigines, Andrew Bolt, civility, defamation, fair comment, freedom of speech, hate-speech, Herald and Weekly Times, Larissa Behrendt, Media, Mordechai Bromberg, Pat Eatock, racial discrimination, Racial Discrimination Act, racial identity, racial vilification, Racism, sarcasm, vindication
|
A more detailed analysis of the Bolt case
Background to the case The background to the case is that journalist Andrew Bolt wrote a series of newspaper articles and blog posts which were critical of the plaintiffs, who were all individuals who identified as Aboriginal, but who had pale skin and did not look like stereotypical Aboriginal people. He was critical of the [...]