Benchmarks: Keyword ‘piracy’ doesn’t violate ethics rules, experts say 
By:
Pat Murphy
Published: March 4, 2013
Tags: attorney advertising, invasion of privacy, keyword ads
A couple of Wisconsin personal injury lawyers had the chutzpah to use the last names of rival attorneys for keyword advertising on the Internet.
A court decided last month that the enterprising lawyers didn’t violate state privacy law, and experts now say that such a marketing scheme probably doesn’t violate
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Lawyers’ search terms didn’t violate competitors’ privacy
Published: February 26, 2013
Tags: Bing, Google, invasion of privacy, Yahoo!
State privacy law did not prohibit lawyers from bidding on the last names of rival attorneys as keywords for Internet search engines, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals has ruled in affirming judgment.
Benchmarks: Lawyers permitted to pirate rivals’ names to grab web traffic
By:
Pat Murphy
Published: February 22, 2013
Tags: attorney advertising, invasion of privacy
A couple of enterprising Wisconsin lawyers set it up so that a link to their firm’s website would appear whenever a prospective client entered their competitors’ last names in Internet search engines.
Thursday, a state court decided that the clever scheme didn’t violate Wisconsin privacy law.
Benchmarks: Joan Rivers gets last laugh in fan’s lawsuit
By:
Pat Murphy
Published: January 18, 2013
Tags: invasion of privacy, misappropriation of image
A Wisconsin woman claims Joan Rivers should pay her for her 16-second cameo in a documentary about the iconic comedienne.
Yesterday, the 7th Circuit decided that the woman’s claims for invasion of privacy and misappropriation of image didn’t have a leg to stand on.
HIPAA doesn’t protect hospital for wrongful disclosure
Published: November 26, 2012
Tags: breach of confidentiality, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA, invasion of privacy, medical privacy, negligence
Federal medical privacy law does not preempt a lawsuit against a hospital that wrongfully disclosed a patient’s mental health records to his estranged wife, West Virginia’s highest court has ruled in reversing a dismissal.
Benchmarks: HIPAA doesn’t preempt wrongful disclosure suit
By:
Pat Murphy
Published: November 20, 2012
Tags: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA, invasion of privacy, preemption, privacy
A West Virginia man can sue for the wrongful disclosure of his mental health records to his estranged wife and her divorce attorney as a result of last week’s decision by the state’s highest court that HIPAA does not preempt such claims.
Data-breach payouts top $1 million for ex-cop
Published: November 5, 2012
Tags: data breach, invasion of privacy, Minnesota, police officer
A former cop who sued a number of Minnesota cities after their employees snooped into her driver’s license data has collected more than $1 million in settlements, following Minneapolis’ approval of a $392,500 payout Friday.
False arrest, beating claims settled for $500,000
By:
Steve Lash
Published: September 18, 2012
Tags: battery, civil rights, false arrest, false imprisonment, grandparent, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, kidnapping, loss of consortium, Maryland, police, prison
A Baltimore, Md. grandfather who was beaten while in jail with his wife on allegedly trumped-up charges of kidnapping their grandchild will receive $500,000 from the city under a recently approved out-of-court settlement.
Federal defamation trial results in $4.5 million verdict
By:
Douglas J Levy
Published: August 29, 2012
Tags: defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy
On one side, Christopher Armstrong, an openly gay former University of Michigan student body president, claimed that a series of blog attacks and stalking incidents from a then-assistant attorney general was defamatory, and constituted invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
On the other side, defendant Andrew Shirvell, who represented himself, maintained he was within his First Amendment rights to say what he did about Armstrong’s supposed “radical homosexual agenda.”
A federal court jury found that Shirvell was wrong and his actions were enough to merit $4.5 million in damages.
Law firm can’t be sued over search of party’s home
Published: July 30, 2012
Tags: abuse of process, conversion, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, judicial proceedings privilege, misappropriation of trade secrets, trespass
A law firm and its attorneys were immune from tort claims arising from the search of a home pursuant to discovery orders issued in a client’s civil case, the Utah Supreme Court has ruled in affirming a dismissal.
