From Shelley’s Case:
This might be helpful for the 1L’s, thought most of you probably knew this already.
Jane Doe v. John Doe
(Plaintiff versus Defendant)
This is the classic case name in civil suits.
In re Doe
These are judicial proceedings where there is no adversarial parties. Usually used for bankruptcy, contempt, disbarment, guardianship, and probate proceedings.
Ex parte Doe
These are special proceedings in which a court communicates with a particular party.
State ex rel. Jane Doe v. John Doe
These are cases relating to extraordinary legal remedies.
Jane Doe v. Alfred Gonzales
The 11th Amendment provides that citizens may not sue states in federal courts. Thus, instead of naming a state, you have to name the head of the state or agency you are suing in a civil case.
The Commonwealth of Virginia v. Jane Doe
This is a criminal case in which a state brings suit against an individual, Jane Doe.
From May It Please the Court:
Practicing law makes it difficult to remember holidays, especially nice ones like Valentine’s Day and the end-of-the-year “Winter Holiday,” as my staff now lists December 25 on our Firm Holiday Calendar. It’s tough because we’re always fighting and arguing with opposing counsel, filing motions with the court and litigating cases.
But try as I may, I had a difficult time finding a feel-good post to write about for the holiday, and the best I could do comes from a post on How Appealing. It was this sentence from this Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that grabbed my attention: “This case comes to us for the third time, arising from a constitutional challenge to a provision of the Alabama Code prohibiting the commercial distribution of devices “primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”
Plus it was filed on February 14. Intentional? Of course, especially with that dry, but nonetheless scintillating come-on from the court.
You don’t have to be a lawyer to see the humor in that introduction to the case. Rather than prolong your curiosity, let’s cut to the quick here. The Alabama legislature’s statute barring sex toys withstood the constitutional challenge brought by the ACLU on behalf of those who want to sell sex toys in Alabama and those who want to buy them. The court upheld the statute on the basis that the Alabama legislature can legitimately regulate public morality.
And I thought you used them in the bedroom. Silly me.
From Viacom Press Release:
Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA andVIA.B) today announced that it has sued YouTube and Google in U.S. DistrictCourt for the Southern District of New York for massive intentional copyright infringement of Viacom’s entertainment properties. The suit seeks more than $1 billion in damages, as well as an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement. The complaint contends that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom’s programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed morethan 1.5 billion times. In connection with the filing, Viacom released the following statement:
“YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google. Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws. In fact, YouTube’s strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden - and high cost - of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement.
This behavior stands in stark contrast to the actions of other significant distributors, who have recognized the fair value of entertainment content and have concluded agreements to make content legally available to their customers around the world.
There is no question that YouTube and Google are continuing to take the fruit of our efforts without permission and destroying enormous value in the process. This is value that rightfully belongs to the writers, directors and talent who create it and companies like Viacom that haveinvested to make possible this innovation and creativity.
After a great deal of unproductive negotiation, and remedial efforts by ourselves and other copyright holders, YouTube continues in its unlawful business model. Therefore, we must turn to the courts to prevent Google and YouTube from continuing to steal value from artists and to obtain compensation for the significant damage they have caused.”
