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eldavojohn writes "You may recall from last week the news item concerning FunnyJunk's extortion ... er ... threat of defamation lawsuit against The Oatmeal highlighting a fairly pervasive problem of rehosting content — in this case web comics. Instead of expediting a payment of $20,000 to FunnyJunk, Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal decided to crowd source the money (with 8 days left he has only garnered 900% of his goal) and donate it to charity after sending a picture of it to FunnyJunk. Charles Carreon (the man who has FunnyJunk) has made statements of Inman saying 'I really did not expect that he would marshal an army of people who would besiege my website and send me a string of obscene emails.' In an interview Carreon says 'So someone takes one of my letters and takes it apart. That doesn't mean you can just declare netwar, that doesn't mean you can encourage people to hack my website, to brute force my WordPress installation so I have to change my password. You can't encourage people to violate my trademark and violate my twitter name and associate me with incompetence with stupidity, and douchebaggery. And if that's where the world is going I will fight with every ounce of force in this 5'11 180 pound frame against it. I've got the energy, and I've got the time.' Well it appears that Carreon has filed suit over these matters alleging 'trademark infringement and incitement to cyber-vandalism.' Speaking of douchebaggery, Charles Carreon curiously fails to mention that he first incited all of his users to harass The Oatmeal anyway they can which they dutifully did. One last juicy detail is that Carreon is also suing the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society to which Inman's crowd sourced money is going. Luckily, Inman's lawyer appears to be fully competent and able to address Carreon's complaints."

A new government law has created an unusually precise list of injury codes for billing purposes. Currently there are 18,000 standard billing codes; the new law would expand that list to around 140,000. If you've been injured at the Opera, walked into a lamppost, pulled something while playing a trumpet, or have been attacked by a turtle, there's now a code for that. From the article: "The federal agencies that developed the system—generally known as ICD-10, for International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision—say the codes will provide a more exact and up-to-date accounting of diagnoses and hospital inpatient procedures, which could improve payment strategies and care guidelines. "It's for accuracy of data and quality of care," says Pat Brooks, senior technical adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."

The Seventh Circuit Court has ruled that Beverly Stayart can't sue Yahoo! because she did not like what she saw on the results page after searching for her name. Stayart claimed that her "internet presence" was damaged by Yahoo! because results for a search of her name showed listings which included pharmaceuticals and adult oriented websites. The court disagreed. From the article: "Stayart had sued under Section 43(a) of the federal Lanham Act, which prohibits false advertising, false implications of endorsement, and so on. Her problem was that a Lanham Act claim requires a showing that the plaintiff has a 'commercial interest' to protect, and Stayart did not have a commercial interest in her own name."

Nutrition guru Gary Null may be best known as an advocate for alternative medicines, or for his stance that HIV does not cause AIDS, but his recent lawsuit may raise more eyebrows. Gary is suing the maker of his pre-packaged "Power Meals," claiming that they will make you sick. From the article: "In a lawsuit filed in New York on April 26, Gary Null alleges that he became severely ill after eating a dietary supplement that caused him to develop a number of painful symptoms. In fact, Gary Null alleges, 'Gary Null's Ultimate Power Meal' almost killed Gary Null."

The Islington Council issued a parking ticket to itself, then decided to pursue itself at the Parking Adjudicator and asked for costs against itself. From the article: "In 2007, an Islington officer ticketed an Islington vehicle, but the department that got the ticket appealed. Because the department is not a different entity, in legal terms the council was appealing a ticket it got from the council, and under the rules above, the council was hearing its own appeal. After the council rejected its appeal, it then appealed again to the Parking Adjudicator. But having appealed, it then presented no evidence, and the Adjudicator voided the ticket. Feeling its appeal had been an outrageous waste of time, the council asked for costs, thus accusing itself of having acted frivolously, vexatiously and/or wholly unreasonably toward itself. The Adjudicator declined to award costs, pointing out that '[t]he legal status of the two parties in this appeal amounted to one and the same.'"

Tour company Ride the Ducks is suing rival tour company Bay Quackers, alleging that it holds trademark rights to the sound made by tourists using duck call devices, while on amphibious vehicle tours. San Francisco-based Ride the Ducks holds a 'sound mark' on the noise. Very few companies hold sound marks, but some of the more famous include: the NBC chimes and the MGM lion. The company holds US Trademark No. 2,484,276, which protects a mark consisting of 'a quacking noise made by tour guides and tour participants by use of duck call devices throughout various portions of [guided amphibious vehicle] tours.' Reading this makes my think that there is a room full of litigious monks somewhere, just waiting for someone to try clapping with one hand.

H. Beatty Chadwick has been in a staring match with the judicial system for the past 14 years, and the system just blinked. Chadwick was ordered to pay his ex-wife $2.5 million after their divorce. He refused to pay saying that he couldn't because he lost the money in a series of "bad investments." The judge in the case didn't believe him and sent him to jail for contempt. That was 14 years ago. Last week another judge let Chadwick go saying that "continued imprisonment would be legal only if there was some likelihood that ultimately he would comply with the order; otherwise, the confinement would be merely punitive instead of coercive." Chadwick, now 73, is believed to have served the longest contempt sentence in US history.

Janine Sugawara was so shocked and dismayed when she learned that "Crunchberries" were not actual fruit that she sued, on behalf of herself and all other painfully ignorant people who thought Captain Crunch ran some sort of brightly colored berry farm. I can't imagine what she thought a Butterfinger was composed of. Common sense won in this instance when a judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District of California dismissed the lawsuit, saying "In this case ... while the challenged packaging contains the word 'berries' it does so only in conjunction with the descriptive term 'crunch.' This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a 'crunchberry.' Furthermore, the 'Crunchberries' depicted on the [box] are round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls, and the [box] clearly states both that the Product contains 'sweetened corn & oat cereal' and that the cereal is 'enlarged to show texture.' Thus, a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. ... So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world."