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Brown v. City of Huntsville, No. 09-12965, involved an action bringing federal and state claims for false arrest and excessive force by the police. The court of appeals affirmed in part the district court’s grant of summary judgment to defendants on the basis of qualified immunity and state-law immunity, holding that: 1) plaintiff’s actions in playing loud music, stopping her car, and rolling her window down could have indicated to an objectively reasonable officer at the scene that plaintiff was making unreasonable noise with intent to create public annoyance; and 2) the district court did not err in granting qualified immunity to certain defendants because they did not participate in plaintiff’s arrest and were not defendant-officer’s supervisors....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Once upon a time, I was known as Inspector Gadget. Why? Because I wore on my belt three different devices — a mobile phone, an iPod, and a Palm Pilot. The phone was only good for calls, the iPod could only play music, and the non-wireless Palm Pilot was simply a calendaring assistant....

A divided federal appeals court has upheld Berkeley’s law requiring cell phone retailers to display warnings about radio frequency radiation in the devices. In CTIA v. City of Berkeley, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave a win to the city, which passed the law to tell people about the danger of putting cell phones in their pant pockets or bras. But it is a loss for wireless retailers – and a puzzle for free speech advocates – because the law compels a disclosure that they claim is not true....

Meza v. Livingston, No. 09-50367, involved a civil rights action for violations of plaintiff’s right to due process after defendants attached sex offender conditions to plaintiff’s mandatory supervision. The court of appeals affirmed judgment for plaintiff in part, holding that 1) the Texas procedure for providing parolees with their Coleman notice did not meet the constitutional requirements for procedural due process; and 2) on the spectrum of due process rights afforded by the Supreme Court in analogous cases, requiring a parolee who has not been convicted of a sex offense to register as a sex offender or participate in sex offender therapy required more process than was provided to the inmate in Wolff, but less process than was provided in Vitek....

Torturing cows was bad enough, but then Idaho tortured the First Amendment. That’s a short reading of Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Wasden. Animal rights activists sued to invalidate a law against surreptitious recording enacted after videos exposed mistreatment of the animals at a dairy farm. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a divided opinion, said the statute was “staggeringly overbroad.” But that was nothing compared to the shock from the videos....

If you run a law practice, or are jointly responsible for running one, the end of year could signal the end of the fiscal year too. Sole proprietors have a matching tax and fiscal year end of December 31, by default. Law firms can simplify their own accounting by overlapping their fiscal and tax year calendars too. Many lawyers and firms will choose to have the tax year and fiscal year overlap simply because the end of the year seems to be the slowest time for legal practices....

In plaintiff’s ERISA action against defendants for terminating her disability benefits, summary judgment in favor of defendants is affirmed where: 1) defendant’s decision was not improperly influenced by its structural conflict of interest; 2) defendant’s ultimate conclusion was not an abuse of discretion as it was supported by the totality of the evidence; and 3) defendant’s counterclaim is an equitable claim and is allowed under 29 U.S.C. section 1132(a)(3). Read Cusson v....

Yes, lawyers drink. It’s a truism for a reason. Drinking is highly correlated with drunk driving. It should be no surprise then, that occasionally, a lawyer, or more specifically, a prosecutor, will be charged with driving under the influence. The only real question is, can that person, in good conscience, continue to prosecute DUI offenders while facing DUI charges? Her license to practice law will also be suspended 180 days, according to the Statesman....

In Jones v. Sec’y., Dept. of Corrs., No. 10-11497, a capital habeas matter, the court of appeals affirmed the denial of petitioner’s application for a certificate of appealability, holding that 1) the record supported the finding that petitioner’s attorneys made the tactical decision described by the Florida Supreme Court, and it was not debatable that the ruling of that court was a reasonable application of clearly established federal law; 2) the record supports the description of the evidence by the Florida Supreme Court; 3) petitioner did not explain how the introduction of this evidence violated his constitutional rights; and 4) petitioner’s attorneys investigated his mental health, and they presented expert testimony regarding his mental functioning and drug addiction....

In the wake of the FBI’s takedown of Megaupload, FileSonic, a popular cyberlocker site, has disabled its “sharing” feature. FileSonic users are now only able to download files they personally uploaded. And it seems that other sites may soon follow. Another cyberlocker site, FileServe, has also recently taken down its sharing services, as Ars Technica reports. Yet the recent crackdown on Megaupload has some critics wondering about the future of file sharing....

Attorneys in conservative Arizona have elected their first openly gay state bar president. Amelia Craig Cramer was named president of the State Bar of Arizona on June 22. “This is an important development,” the lead attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in Los Angeles told the Washington Blade. “Arizona remains a conservative state. It’s a sign of progress.” Arizona Bar President Amelia Craig Cramer was born in California and grew up in Arizona, according to the Blade....

The Ninth Circuit has ruled that lending companies operated by Native American tribes are subject to investigation by federal lending authorities. According to the circuit’s ruling, the companies, operated by various tribes, must comply with civil investigative demands from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The court rejected the tribes’ argument that they were sovereign and that the bureau had no authority over them. The judges said that general laws apply to tribes, unless Congress excludes them....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. It may be hard to believe, but we already have closed the books on 2014, and we now have started making our legal way into 2015. The year 2015 at first blush sounds futuristic, and in many ways we really are living in the legal tech future we could have barely imagined not that many years ago....

When Lan Cai was unhappy with her lawyers, the 20-year-old nursing student did what many Millennials do: she took to the internet. Specifically, Cai went on Facebook and Yelp to give the law firm a negative review. The firm, the Law Offices of Tuan A. Khuu in Houston, Texas, wasn’t pleased with Cai’s online complaint. They sued. They didn’t win that suit. Last week, a judge in Texas tossed the firm’s lawsuit and ordered them to pay $27,000 to cover Cai’s attorney’s fees....

New York Times reporter James Risen is getting support from fellow journalists in his reporter’s privilege claim to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. This week, First Amendment lawyers Lee Levine and Jeanette Bead filed an amicus brief supporting Risen, reports Politico. Risen was subpoenaed last year to testify about sources for his 2006 book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. The government believes that former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling leaked information to Risen, according to The New York Times....

The recent verdict in the big Monsanto Roundup trial is certainly causing a stir. The chemical company has been ordered to pay nearly $300 million in damages, with the bulk of the damages being punitive. Unfortunately, the plaintiff, who is terminally ill, will likely have to wait for appeals to wind down before he collects. Throughout the trial, expert witnesses testified and explained to the jury their respective opinions on an active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate....

Yesterday, on our Greedy Associates blog, we sang the praises of hypothetical open source casebooks as an alternative to publishers’ ridiculous $200 tomes, especially when publishers are considering adopting a leasing model to kill the used book market. Well, it turns out that open source casebooks aren’t so hypothetical after all. We stumbled on one, then another, then another yesterday afternoon. Here they are, from most feature-packed and promising to “good efforts....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Tax reform can and does happen at the ballot box. Indeed, startup companies in San Francisco should soon feel the benefit of the recent passage of the city’s Proposition E. Proposition E implements a tax on gross receipts, phasing out San Francisco’s prior payroll tax. This will be very beneficial for startup companies that have paid staff but have yet to earn much revenue....

Before you hit Ctrl + P, pause for a moment. First, paper costs. Then, printer maintenance costs. Lastly, and most importantly, ink costs. Remarkably, changing the default font of your office e-mail system can end up saving you and your law firm some serious change. The University of Wisconsin, Green Bay is doing just that. The school has decided to make the switch from using Arial as its default e-mail font to Century Gothic....

Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling is one of the most hated men in Houston. He’s not getting much love from the Supreme Court either. Monday, the Supreme Court denied Skilling’s petition for review of judge’s “harmless” error in Skilling’s trial. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals previously rejected Skilling’s appeal, finding that the jury was presented with “overwhelming evidence that Skilling conspired to commit securities fraud,” The New York Times reports....