Day on Torts

Dayontorts.com knows no bounds to bring you what’s goin’ down in tort law.

Apparently my man Eminem (is it still cool to say “my man”?)(come to think about it, is is still cool to say “cool”?) wrote a “song” called Brain Damage, and told Rolling Stone that the song lyrics that discussed his childhood experiences with the plaintiff DeAngelo Bailey were true. Plaintiff decided to sue Eminem, thankfully deciding that it was a better course than cappin’ the dude. The suit alleged false-light invasion of privacy and negligence.

The Michigan Court of Appeals held that a claim of false-light invasion of privacy was not made out because the song contains several clues that the lyrics should not be taken literally and, given plaintiff’s admission that he picked on Eminem and did “bully type things” to him, the “substantial truth” test was met.
The negligence claim was dismissed because the plaintiff did not properly raise that issue on appeal.

The Supreme Court Of Mississippi has affirmed a trial court’s denial of motions to dismiss claims brought against a Mississippi bishop and Diocese arising out of priest pedophilia. The Church asserted First Amendment and other claims in an effort to avoid the suit.

A discovery dispute was also resolved by the Court.

Read the opinion here. To those who don’t have time to read the 80+ page opinion (including concuring and dissenting opinions) here is a newspaper article reporting on the case.

Last year former Supreme Court Justice Penny White, former Court of Appeals Judge Joe Riley and I started “Justice Programs.” The company produces seminars for Tennessee lawyers.

Last year was a great success. We had hundreds of people from across the state attend. This year we have expanded our efforts to offer 15 CLE hours in one program, including 3 hours of ethics credit, so that Tennessee lawyers can meet their annual CLE requirement in one program.

For more information see our website

The Maine Supreme Court has ruled that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland cannot assert the First Amendment as a defense to a claim of negligently supervising a pedophile priest.

The Court reviewed the First Amendment law on point and noted that “[t]he Diocese has not asserted that it actually holds to ecclesiastical doctrines concerning sin, penance, forgiveness and redemption that would have prevented or restricted the Bishop from intervening after learning that Melville might be sexually abusing boys, or from otherwise reporting this information to the police or the members of the parish.”

The Cour had this to say about the assertion of the Diocese that “‘the intrinsic logic of any judicial declaration and administration of a standard of care for church oversight of clergy necessarily will involve the [c]ourt deeply in matters of theology and governance:’ We do not accept this logic. It is not self-evident in this case that the application of a duty of due care will cause the Superior Court ‘to probe deeply . . . into the allocation of power within a [hierarchical] church so as to decide . . . religious law [governing church polity]’ in violation of either the First Amendment or Article I, section 3 of the Maine Constitution.” (citations omitted). Read the opinion here.