Should there be a legal duty to notify people about whom a story is to be published, to give them an opportunity to go to court to stop the publication?

Max Mosley, former Formula 1 motor racing chief says so.

The News of the World, a UK tabloid, ran a story a few years ago revealing that Mosley had taken part in a sadomasochistic orgy with prostitutes. In 2008 Mosley won damages from the UK High Court of for breach of privacy.

Mosley claims that the UK is in breach of human rights laws because there is no remedy for . . . [more]

Back in May 2007, Simon Fodden mentioned the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims dealing with the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. Alex Manevich followed soon after with decisions denying the link between vaccines and autism, and an insightful discussion on policy aspects of statutory bars to claims not fully grounded in scientific evidence.

More recently, Michael Lines raised the retraction by The Lancet and findings of unethical behaviour by physicians in the U.K. who claimed a link between vaccines and autism.

But just when you think a debate of this . . . [more]

The High Court of England and Wales recently decided, in Southwark London Borough Council v IBM, [2011] EWHC 549 (TCC), that the provision of a licence of software was not a sale of goods, so the implied warranty of fitness for purposes contained in the Sale of Goods Act did not apply to the contract. (See paragraphs 94 – 98.)

The court went on, in obiter, to find that software could be a ‘good’ within the meaning of the Act, but in this case it was not sold (paragraphs 96 & 97). Providing the software on a . . . [more]

The long, slow slog towards equality for same-sex couples continues — with a victory, this time, in the European Court of Justice regarding status for employment benefits. The city-state of Hamburg declined to give a retired former employee supplementary retirement payments at the same tax rate as that due a married person. The plaintiff appealed the decision to the Labour Court of Hamburg, which referred a complex set of legal questions to the Court of Justice.

The Court [Jürgen Römer v Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg (URL imprecise) Case C‑147/08] made the following observation:

38
As a preliminary point, it

I, like many people no doubt, have one of those guilty pleasures that make little sense yet is so enthralling: reading up on the lives of the rich and famous. It is actually surprising how great a role law plays in the lives of celebrities, seeing how often the press reports on how they break, bend and use the law to their advantage , but one expression, new to me, has recently caught my eye: the super injunction.

Over the past few months, the British media have been reporting on these so-called super injunctions, which go beyond the prohibition of . . . [more]

This Quebec-born boy still has trouble fathoming why so many people are going gaga over the English Royal Wedding. Don’t we all have hockey playoffs to think about? And isn’t there that little thing to do with the federal elections and Jack’s unexpected Big Orange Wave?

Never mind.

To help us out, the Harvard Law School Library has published a post on Royal Wedding: Pomp, Circumstance, and Law to explain all the legalities about how people in the British royal family get hitched.

Apparently, it is a lot more complicated than simply showing up at city hall, calling a florist . . . [more]

Collaborative blogs, and inviting guest bloggers, is one of the most effective ways to maintain continuity for professional blogs. But who owns the intellectual property of the posts, especially if the site goes commercial with the intent to gain profit?

Jonathan Tasini started writing for the Huffington Post when the site was just 7 months old, writing 216 pieces, and stopped blogging on February 10, 2011, just 3 days after a purchase of the site by AOL was announced.

He’s launched a class-action lawsuit against AOL Inc., TheHuffintonPost.Com, Inc., Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer for damages and injunctive relief. The . . . [more]

The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal released its decision on Monday in FACEBOOK v. CONNECTU, INC., dismissing the claims of the Winklevoss twins, who wanted to renege on a cash and stock settlement deal with Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

The twins claim that Facebook hid information from them during settlement negotiations, estimated at $65 million. They are depicted in the 2010 Hollywood movie, The Social Network. . . . [more]

India, as an emerging knowledge worker superpower, is a country to look to for close ties to cross commonwealth legal issues, like intellectual property rights. I have been monitoring intellectual property news from around the web for some time, and I have enjoyed the well written posts from the Spicy IP blog.

I was very pleased, while checking out the LIIofIndia (announced here at Slaw), to see that a link to to the Spicy IP blog by navigating to Intellectual Property through the Subject pages at the Legal Information Institute of India. There is also a link to search Spicy . . . [more]

Over the last couple of decades as the rate of change in information technology has accelerated, it’s become fashionable for some to claim with pride and others to award with scorn the title of Luddite. As it happens, this March marks the bicentennial of the real Luddite uprising in the north of England. Richard Conniff has written a piece, “What the Luddites Really Fought Against,” that’s available on Smithsonian.com, correcting the misunderstandings that most of us have about who these followers of Ludd actually were and why they took to breaking machines.

Some facts surprised me: there was . . . [more]

Sienkiewicz v Greif (UK) Ltd [2011] UKSC 10

is necessary reading for all Canadian lawyers and jurists who have anything to do with anything that requires or may require a decision on whether X caused Y . . . [more]

Happy Seventy Fifth Birthday to Justice Antonin Scalia, whose recent peevish dissents are discussed in a recent blog post from the NYT.

Had he been north of the border, he would have been packing his bags, just after blowing out the candles.

(2) A Judge of a Superior Court, whether appointed before or after the coming into force of this section, shall cease to hold office upon attaining the age of seventy-five years, or upon the coming into force of this section if at that time he has already attained that age.