October 10, 2007

“You MUST Pay the Rent!”

How’s this for a business decision? A landlord decides to yank a Section 8 subsidy from a tenant without telling her and then commences an eviction action seeking possession and about $2,000.00 in unpaid rent. The tenant counterclaims and obtains a judgment for $10,000.00 in emotional distress damages plus more than $7,000.00 in attorneys’ fees. Add to that the fees that the landlord had to pay its own lawyer, and, there you go. This case is sure to scare landlords, who now need to worry about getting nailed for emotional distress when they raise a residential tenant’s rent and then try to evict them.

October 9, 2007

Charge!

Late last week we learned that filing an EEOC “charge questionnaire” was the same thing, apparently, as filing an EEOC “charge of discrimination.” Even though the petitioner in this case had filed both. This was another instance of a person making a very simple mistake that, when presented to a jury, will make that person appear to be not so credible. Here, it was identifying the date of the relevant event as April 6, 2004 and April 2004 where the event actually occurred on July 6, 2004. Simple and fruitful cross examination possibilities abound.

October 5, 2007

Petitioning’s Outer Limits

In Massachusetts you can’t sue someone for petitioning the government unless your hypothetical adversary’s petition doesn’t have a factual basis. Things spin wildly out of control, though, since “petitioning” encompasses a rather large body of activities, including filing a lawsuit and talking to the press about a lawsuit you’ve filed. Today, the Appeals Court held that talking smack about a private company to a charitable foundation connected to the convention center in South Boston isn’t petitioning, even though the foundation was created by the legislature. This is probably right, though suing someone for talking smack (unless the smack is false) is a bit questionable.

October 4, 2007

Absence of Restraint

Two things that we thought we knew: (1) deceased people, even heroes, have no legal right to privacy and can’t be defamed; and (2) a court can’t prevent a news organization from reporting something before the fact unless there’s a *very* urgent national security interest at stake. It turns out we may have been wrong. WHDH is trying to get to the bottom of it.

The question of whether it was indecorous to report this story, by the way, is separate and distinct from the constitutional question involved.

October 3, 2007

Not Thinking Outside the Box

An interesting Appeals Court decision today. Something I didn’t know is that automobile companies have started putting “black box” recorders – a la commercial and other aircraft – that record things like vehicle speed in the moments before an airbag opens. Well, the Appeals Court held that these event data recorders produced evidence that a prosecutor can use when trying someone for negligent homicide. That’s a pretty notable holding and pretty big deal for lawyers that do motor vehicle cases, whether on the civil or criminal side.

So you’d think that the lawyer for the defendant would retain an expert witness to rebut the Commonwealth’s highly qualified expert who explained how these recorders work and how accurate they are. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? Because you’ve got to fight fire with fire and all that. Well, you’d be wrong.