News roundup

Time once again for a quick update on recently filed lawsuits you may have missed.

Cat fight. How different must your cat be and does context matter?

It turns out that there are a lot of mid-century modern cats out there. Google it — you’ll see it’s true. (Aside: This is an illustration of why one should read lawsuits. You learn so much.)

An artist has filed a copyright infringement suit in federal court in New York over the use of a stylized cat in pieces of art. Here’s the first piece of evidence from the complaint:

I’ve spent a fair amount of time staring at these cats. I think I may have been hypnotized. You might want to try staring at them as a meditation technique — it works.

When I snapped out of it, though, the legal questions abounded. Sure, the cats are similar, but why does the copy cat have two butts? Do the pupils in the eyes of the copy cat make a difference? Does it matter where the cats are sitting? What about all the other mod cats on the Internet?

Astonishingly — at least to me — there were also these examples of alleged infringement:

Which brings us to the central question: How huge is the market for these cats? Is it worth fighting for?

I don’t know. There may be a lot of people cat meditating out there.

The downside of honesty. The following is the opening sentence of a complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court: “Plaintiff brings this whistleblower retaliation complaint against the defendant for illegal employment practices in violation of the California Labor Code.”

Normally, you’d think the whistleblowing would be about some safety violation or accounting shenanigan or bad employment practices. This one was different — the whistleblowing was the plaintiff “threatening a small claims court action” to get back about $835 he found on the job at a bar.

Threatening to sue your boss may seem like a poor career move, but this plaintiff might have thought $835 was worth more than a regular salary. Math skills aren’t what they used to be.

According to the suit, the plaintiff turned the money over to management. After nobody claimed the cash, the plaintiff said it belonged to him. Finders keepers (unless they hand it over to someone else).

Management wouldn’t give it back — and then fired the plaintiff after he threatened his lawsuit.

Do you think the lawyer filing this took the case on contingency?

Math skills aren’t what they used to be.

Not in front of the kids! A man has sued his ex-wife for slander and infliction of emotional distress in Los Angeles Superior because she said he “damaged the Yamaha piano.” She also sent a text calling the man a “liar and cheat.”

The audience for this slander was a group of four people referred to as the plaintiff’s “adult children.”

Imagine how much these children will enjoy discovery and testimony.

Hate and hip hop: One of the many pleasures of reading lawsuits is finding aspects of culture you may not be familiar with.

I am now aware of “Love & Hip Hop Miami,” a BET series that doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with love. I haven’t watched much of it, so I may have missed the love parts, but fans of people yelling at each other need to see this.

Favorite YouTube comment that I’ve seen so far: “There’s no Love & no damn Hip Hop in Sight.” This is followed shortly thereafter by “Why is the music so loud?”

I know about this because of a lawsuit filed in Miami on behalf of two women hired as extras for a scene in the show. Yes, reality requires extras. Your philosophical concept of reality will have to deal with this.

The plaintiffs claim they were injured when one of the show’s stars got into a brawl with another cast member. Collateral damage ensued.

“Despite a history of such conduct on the show,” the suit said, “Plaintiffs were not warned that there was a danger of physical violence involved with appearing as an extra.”

The only way the plaintiffs can win this is if they’ve never seen the show.