The LAW & LAWYERS Blog

Former CU Head Football Coach Gary Barnett Still Clueless

The University of Colorado recently settled a historic Title IX lawsuit in which two women had claimed that they had been raped at a party for football recruits and that the school had previously ignored a similar claim with the school’s football recruiting program.

In addition to these disturbing claims, the lawsuit spurred many other scandalous headlines, such as:

• CU football recruits being enticed with strippers, drugs and sex;

• evidence backing the woman’s claims that CU encouraged the policy of showing recruits a “good time”; and

• then-CU Head Football Coach Gary Barnett having very little sensitivity or tact on the matter.

Review the Colorado football recruiting scandal and read more about the 2.85 million settlement in the following article:

University of Colorado Reaches Settlement on Historic Title IX Lawsuit.

Former NYPD counterterrorism detective Anthony Chiofalo has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to get his job back after being fired.

Chiofalo was fired in August from the New York Police department after he failed a random drug screening. He denied using drugs and demanded a hearing and investigation.

During the investigation, Chiofalo’s wife was questioned. She confessed that she wanted for her husband to retire so badly, that in July 2005 she secretly put enough marijuana for about six cigarettes into meatballs that she fed her husband. She had hoped that he would fail a drug test and it would force him to retire.

Well, Chifalo, a 22-year veteran, isn’t ready to retire. He is asking the court to find that his firing was unreasonable and unconstitutional and he wants to be reinstated. He says that the hair sample that got him fired was improperly taken. His lawsuit also seeks back pay with interest, benefits and his seniority back.

According to court documents, Chifalo and his wife have both taken polygraph tests which concluded that they were telling the truth about the marijuana-spiked meatballs.

Chifalo says that his wife had used marijuana to relieve nausea caused by pain medication that she was taking.

Chifalo has support. An administrative judge has recommended that he be reinstated, however, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly rejected the recommendation and a department spokesman said “The officer’s excuse was not credible.”

A woman in Alaska slipped on ice in a parking lot.  You’d have to imagine this kind of thing happens a lot, right?  It’s cold in Alaska and a reasonable person might expect ice.  You either be careful, or you could fall.

Well, this woman sued.  And to my surprise, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that she can sue the federal government for failing to remove the snow and ice.  In Alaska.  Where she fell and sustained a personal injury.

Carol Bolt fell outside her U.S. Army apartment at Fort Wainwright, Alaska in April, 1999.  She broke her ankle in the fall and has been permanently disabled ever since.

Lawyers for the federal government have argued that they are not liable, because the U.S. Army base has the has the same status as all other Alaskan municipalities.  Towns and cities in Alaska can not be sued for failing to remove snow and ice that naturally accumulates because, you know, it’s Alaska.

The three judge appeals panel disagreed and ruled that the federal government is basically the landlord in Alaska and therefore they should be required to keep common areas free of the ice and snow there.   Therefore, Bolt’s lawsuit againt the federal government can go forward.

Six men who were on their way home after completing a Marines training exercise on Iraqi culture for the U.S. military at Camp Pendleton say that they were detained and humiliated by employees of American Airlines.

The men, who are of Iraqi descent, have sued American Airlines in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, Michigan, alleging racial discrimination.

In the lawsuit, the men claim that their flight from San Diego to Chicago on August 28 was grounded and they were detained as possible security risks after another passenger on the flight voiced concerns about them.

Some of the men are U.S. citizens, but after  a woman on the plane heard them speaking Arabic she alerted the airline that she was suspicious of them.

After the flight was grounded, the men were detained and they say they were treated like terrorists.

The men took a flight to Chicago on American Airlines the next day without incident.

Someone had better tell Nicolle O’Neill that no matter how original she thinks she looks, she can’t sue someone for stealing her “style.”

In a lawsuit that she filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on October 18, O’Neill claims that socialite and “Simple Life” television show star Paris Hilton “stole” her style. The suit alleges that Hilton’s fashion-related “patens” (sic) and “stiling” (sic) infractions on O’Neill’s style have caused “emotional distress.”

Among the specific infractions cited were Hilton’s theft of O’Neill’s look of exposing her “je-streeng underware (bikiny)” [sic] from under her pants, and as well as her idea of shopping in vintage stores for ’60s-style dresses.

Good luck with that one, Nicole….

A Chicago man believes that justice was served in his personal injury lawsuit against Chicago police.

Coprez Coffee, had alleged that three years ago, during a drug arrest, that a police officer had pushed a screwdriver into his rectum and another officer on the scene did nothing to prevent it or help him while it was happening.

The trial lasted for a week and jurors deliberated for three days before returning their verdict that the officer had in fact assaulted Coffee with the screwdriver.

Over the weekend, lawyers on both sides agreed that if the jury found in favor of Coffee, that the award for damages would be $4 million plus court costs and attorneys’ fees.

Micheal Lohan, the father of troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan, is said to have plans to launch a civil suit against a former bodyguard who worked for Lindsay.

Tony Almeida was Lindsay Lohan’s bodyguard for three years, from 2002 to 2005. Almeida has recently granted several tell-all interviews with magazines and celebrity tabloid television shows saying that Lohans parents were neglectful, abusive and used Lindsay as a source of income.

During the interviews, Almeida said that Lindsay’s parents are to blame for her current predicaments. He recalled incidents in which he says Michael and Dina Lohan allowed Lindsay to “run wild” at a very young age. He says he witnessed Lindsay’s underage drinking and says she was allowed to spend the night in her boyfriend’s hotel room when she was 15. Lindsay’s boyfriend at the time was Aaron Carter and Almeida says that Dina Lohan just seemed happy that Lindsay was with someone who could help her career, so she didn’t mind Lindsay sleeping in his hotel room.

The former bodyguard also recalled during the interview a fight that he says happened between Lindsay and Micheal Lohan on the Long Island Expressway. During this incident he says he had to pull Michael off of Lindsay after Lohan dragged his daughter out of the car, called her a slut and pushed her against the hood of the car.

According to Almeida’s account, he also had to hire 24 hour surveillance to keep Micheal Lohan away from Lindsay. He says that once Micheal even got into Lindsay’s house through the pool area and Lindsay was “terrified”.

Micheal Lohan says he is not going to let Almeida get away with selling his story, which he Lohan claims is all lies. He says Almeida is now broke and just hoping to cash in on these wild stories he is making up.

As of yet, no lawsuit has been filed.

It’s hard to believe that a book such as OJ Simpson’s “If I Did It” will actually go to print and be bought by anyone, but assuming that the public wants to read OJ’s side of the story, at least he won’t profit from it.

Today a federal bankruptcy court awarded the family of Ron Goldman 90 percent of the proceeds from the sale of the rights to the book, which is said to be a “confession” from OJ Simpson of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

The remaining 10 percent of the proceeds from the book will go to a trustee for the Simpson estate to pay OJ Simpson’s creditors, which include the Goldman family since he owes them 38 million dollars from the wrongful death suit they brought against him after he was acquitted of the murders in 1995.

The father of Ron Goldman tearfully thanked the court and agreed to drop the family’s 38 million dollar claim to the bottom of the creditor list so that Simpsons other creditors will be paid first.

Initially both the Goldmans and the Browns were adamant that that book should never be published.  Goldman has since changed his mind and has decided that the book should be published, as long as Simpson does not receive the profits, so that the public can “hear” him finally admit to the brutal murders.

The family of Nicole Brown Simpson still opposes the publication.

A Maryland man was sued for defamation by his former girlfriend and the jury has awarded her $52,000 in damages.

Charles W. Azain says he supposes he was suffering from temporary insanity when he wrote a 54 page book of lies about his ex-girlfriend and distributed it to her friends, family and co-workers at a middle school.  The book, titled “The Bonnie Chronicles”, falsely claimed that Bonnie Gifford has HIV and suffers from bi-polar disorder.

The jury took just 30 minutes to deliberate and decided that Azain was liable for defamation of character.  His ex-girlfriend, Bonnie Gifford, was awarded $50,000 in punitive damages and $2,000 in compensatory damages.

In Chicago a jury recently awarded a brokenhearted spouse the sum of $4,802.  That’s apparently what his wife’s love and affection that he lost was worth.

The man sued his husband’s lover under the alienation of affection law.  Never heard of it?  Many people never have, it’s only a law in 8 states.  The law basically allows a jilted spouse to sue the third party in the relationship for loss of love.

Here’s the thing though - the wife who stopped loving her husband says that it was her husband who encouraged her to have sex with other men and women to spice things up in their marriage.  It was never her idea.  He specifically asked her to have sex with the man he then sued.

The man who will be paying the $4,802 has never denied sleeping with the married woman.  He was just shocked to find out that he would have to pay for it!