A Stitch in Haste

A litany of litigation.

ITEM: Blockbuster settles “no late fees” suit --

Blockbuster Inc., the top U.S. video rental chain, will pay $630,000 to settle 47 states' claims that its "No Late Fees" policy deceived customers, the company said on Tuesday.

Blockbuster will also refund customers who claim they were misled and charged restocking fees or the full price of rented movies if they were returned a week after the due date, according to a statement from Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.

The agreement, which also includes the District of Columbia, would also dramatically alter the way Blockbuster advertises its "No Late Fees" policy in the future.

MY TAKE: Company provides the best service and makes money. Company stops providing the best service and stops making money. Company tries shenanigans and gets a smackdown. Remind me again why we need antitrust laws?

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ITEM: It’s hard to deliver a baby in handcuffs --

A police officer who stopped a doctor for speeding on his way to deliver a baby, and then took him to the maternity ward in handcuffs, has agreed to an unpaid suspension for lack of judgment.

Dr. Anthony Chidiac was driving his motorcycle 10 miles above the 25 mph speed limit last March when he was stopped by 15-year veteran Officer William Lilliston.

According to records released Monday from an internal police investigation, when the doctor explained he was going to a delivery, the officer allegedly asked if he was delivering a pizza and later said, "If you're a doctor, I'm Mickey Mouse or Joe Blow."

Lilliston called the hospital to confirm Chidiac's story, and drove him to the hospital as the baby's head was showing. The officer then asked to see the doctor's driver's license before letting Chidiac change into scrubs.

MY TAKE: Well, at least he didn’t handcuff the baby. (See also this related post.)

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ITEM: It’s okay to beat your wife, just not for too long --

[F]our models say their images have taken a beating since posing as woman-batterers for a city ad campaign.

"Employee of the month. Soccer coach. Wife beater," reads one of the ads featuring the four men, which was supposed to run for all of four weeks back in 2002.

But in a $4 million Manhattan Supreme Court suit, Christopher Dorm, Triple Edwards, Daniel Royer and Javier Velarde say the ads are still up in some places, and are taking a toll on their careers and friendships.
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All four initially said no, but relented thanks to the booking agency's "assurances and promises" the ads would only run for one month and only in the transit system, the suit says. …They later discovered the city had given out 20,000 posters "to any organizations, people or entities that wished to take them," including station houses, doctor's offices and various charities.

MY TAKE: I remember in the early days of the AIDS crisis, subway posters for HIV drugs, or public health ads to promote safe sex, often had fine print that read “Models do not have HIV.” That’s how intense the stigma was. Now models trip over themselves to appear in Valtrex ads. On the other hand, who thinks Anthony Hopkins really goes around eating people? Still, a contract is a contract, but good luck proving damages.

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ITEM: Hack politician wants to RFID ex-cons with surgical implants --

A Butler County commissioner has suggested that computer microchips be implanted in ex-convicts on probation so they can be tracked and located at any time.

"People have these GPS chips put in their pets and, in some cases, in their children, in the event they are lost or kidnapped," Michael Fox, a Republican, said on Monday. "I don't see why the same can't be done with probationers."

MY TAKE: Despite my support of denying felons the right to vote, I see no reason to demean probationers with a “yellow ticket of leave” like this. We chip our dogs because we love them, we would be chipping ex-cons because we hate them. Slight difference. (See also this related post.)

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ITEM: Guess who’s coming to dinner ... and not leaving?

A Queens live-in health aide has been fired for allegedly neglecting an Alzheimer's patient — but she's refusing to move out of his house.

"It's insane that this stranger — a worker I fired — is just able to take over the house," said Adam Fisher, 45, whose dad, David, 86, had been under the aide's care. "Whenever I asked her to leave, she said, 'This is my home. I'm a resident [sic] here.' "

The aide, Katherine Rowe, is taking advantage of a law that prohibits landlords from summarily evicting people who've lived in a residence for more than 30 days.
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But Fisher fears that Rowe ... will ignore a letter from his lawyers demanding that she leave, forcing him to take her to court to enforce an eviction. "She knows the system. She has no intention of leaving. She's banking on a payout," a cop told Fisher yesterday after Rowe called police to complain of being approached by a reporter.

MY TAKE: My property professor was the worst teacher I had in law school, but I was still able to learn that only tenants should be protected from unlawful eviction, not trespassers. Guess New York politicians had even worse Property professors (perhaps they went to CUNY law school). Related story here. UPDATE: She got the hint. Money quote from the homeowner: “The system didn’t work but The New York Post did.”

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ITEM: Good thing Michael Schiavo doesn’t live in North Carolina --

A Pender County dispatcher forced to quit her job last year after the sheriff discovered she had a live-in boyfriend is suing to overturn a N.C. law that makes living together a crime.

Sheriff Carson Smith told Debora Lynn Hobbs, 40, that she would have to marry, move or leave her job, said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina.

Living together as an unmarried couple is a misdemeanor punishable by as many as 60 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

In North Carolina, one of about half a dozen states with such a law, 33 people have been charged with the crime and 25 people have been convicted since 1997, according to the ACLU. There are 118,781 unmarried people of opposite sexes living in the same households in the state, according to the latest Census figures.

MY TAKE: Maybe the grounds for the lawsuit should be that the law unfarily discriminates against heterosexuals.

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ITEM: “My what big buns you have...”

A TV advert for fast food chain KFC has been banned for misleading people about the size of a burger.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld five complaints that the chicken fillet was larger in the TV commercial than in real-life. It found the advertised bun was thicker than those it bought in a London outlet and that there was "more filling and the lettuce was a different type".

KFC said the advert burgers were within the "standard range of dimensions". It suggested the women in the advert may have had small hands - thus making the burger appear bigger - and that the name of the burger indicated it was smaller than other burgers.

MY TAKE: Next they’ll be suing Abercrombie & Fitch for misleading customers (“Oh, definitely, that’ll make you look as sexy as the model, for sure...”)