damages

Alabama blogger Roger Shuler has been ordered to pay $3.5 million in damages in a defamation lawsuit, Alabama Media Group's Kent Faulk reports. The lawsuit was brought by a former campaign manager for Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange over Shuler's posts about an alleged affair between Strange and the campaign manager. He also alleged that Strange was the father of the campaign manager's son.

Shuler  already spent five months in jail before agreeing to remove his posts about the son of a former governor.

A California ballot initiative to raise the cap on medical malpractice damages for pain and suffering was defeated, the Associated Press' Michael R. Blood reports. The battle over the initiative resulted in $60 million in donations and was the most expensive campaign in the state. If enacted, it would have raised the cap from $250,000 to $1.1 million.

The initiative also attracted national attention because it would have imposed random substance abuse tests on doctors.

The National Law Journal's Amanda Bronstad provides an overview of ballot initiatives affecting the courts that voters will be deciding to accept or reject:

In California, voters will decide if the $250,000 statutory cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases should be annually adjusted for inflation. If approved, the cap would be raised to $1.1 million.

In Tennessee and Florida, there are initiatives to change those states' constitutions regarding the selection of judges. In Florida, the governor would be allowed to prospectively fill some judicial vacancies. In Tennessee, the governor would be able to select nominees for the appellate courts.

In Louisiana, there is an initiative that would end the requirement that judges retire at the age of 70.

In Nevada, there is an initiative to establish an intermediate court of appeals.

Jeff John Roberts, writing in Gigaom, reports on data that shows that patent trolls, less frequently called "non-practicing entities," have gotten three times the damages in court than "real companies." The reasons for the higher damages awards for patent trolls? Lawyer Michael Strapp told Roberts that includes the "the economic model of patent trolling, which in many cases entails the troll building up a legal war chest by squeezing settlements from dozens of smaller companies, and then suing a big fish." Another reason is suing in favorable venues like East Texas and Delaware.

The Gigaom piece has some great charts, so I highly recommend checking it out.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard oral argument this week on the constitutionality of a $500,000 damages cap for plaintiffs injured by municipal defendants, The Legal Intelligencer's Max Mitchell reports. Plaintiffs attorney Tom Kline urged the justices to overturn prior precedent that allowed a statutory cap on damages against political subdivisions.

The Recorder reports that student athletes have been certified as a class to challenge the National Collegiate Athletic Association's rules that require collegiate athletes to sign away their rights of publicity.  That would include the right to license their names and likenesses for use in videogames and on television. However, the presiding California federal judge did not certify the athletes who were seeking to recover money damages.