Civil Trials

City Used Memo Leak to Drag Stop-and-Frisk Judge Through the Mud, Lawyers Say

In an act of desperation, the city of New York has used the media to launch a "despicable" attack on the federal judge presiding over a landmark stop and frisk trial, attorneys for the plaintiffs say. Early Wednesday morning, the New York Daily News published a story describing an internal report c ... More >>

Faced With A Lawsuit, J.P. Morgan Chase Claims Plaza is Private

A year and a half after the fences first went up around Chase Manhattan Plaza, new court filings show the fight over public access to the space is still heated. We've written extensively about the fight over the fences, which were first erected the day before Occupy Wall Street protesters first gat ... More >>

Bloomberg's Sneaky Fix For All Those Stop-and-Frisk Lawsuits

Lance Armstrong Tapes Reported Mea Culpa with Celebrity Confessor Oprah Winfrey, But It May Not Be Enough

The final act in the Shakespearean drama of cycling great Lance Armstrong is about to begin, with the airing this week of his admission to who else but Oprah Winfrey--the celebrity confessor--that he indeed took performance enhancing drugs during his professional career. This is news only in that ... More >>

Settlment Reached in Poly Prep Sex Abuse Scandal

Prestigious Brooklyn private school Poly Prep has reached a settlement with plaintiffs from a 2009 lawsuit that alleges decades of sexual abuse by former football coach Phil Foglietta, according to the Daily News. The News has closely followed the lawsuit--which highlights a situation eerily simil ... More >>

NDAA Suit Argued In Federal Court Yesterday

The question being argued in federal court in Lower Manhattan yesterday boiled down to this: Is a law authorizing the indefinite military detention of American citizens with only the barest recourse to civil courts constitutional? The lawsuit against the Obama administration was filed in January by ... More >>

More Pepper-Sprayed Protesters Sue NYPD

Three Occupy Wall Street protesters announced today that they are suing the New York Police Department in federal court over officers' use of pepper spray on marchers last September 24. Two of the plaintiffs, Damien Crisp and Julie Lawler, were sprayed by Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, whose act ... More >>

Judge Allows Class Action In Last Fall's Brooklyn Bridge Mass Arrests To Go Forward

A federal judge ruled today that a class action suit against the NYPD over the mass arrest of more than 700 people on the Brooklyn Bridge October 1 can go forward. The march over the vehicular roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge was one of the most visually dramatic events of the young Occupy Wall Stree ... More >>

City Jails Slapped With Major Class Action Lawsuit, Alleging Pattern of Staff Brutality

The city Correction Department has been hit with a new very toughly worded class action lawsuit alleging a program of excessive violence by correction staff on inmates throughout the jail system. Eleven inmates allege that they were severely beaten by correction staff, including Mark Nunez who clai ... More >>

IP Address Does Not Even ID a State, Judge Decides in Landmark BitTorrent Lawsuit

Just a few weeks after a New York judge decided that an internet protocol address is not enough evidence for lawsuits against accused illegal file-sharers, a California judge has ruled that an IP address can't even pinpoint one's state. As detailed by CNET, the judge tossed out lawsuits against 15 ... More >>

Black and Hispanic Students Targeted Unfairly by School Cops, NYCLU Claims (UPDATE)

​The NYPD took over school safety in 1998, and the New York Civil Liberties Union claims that cops have since abused their position, using their role to stop-and-frisk students. Today, the NYCLU released what's said to be the first study chronicling student arrest and summons data, and resul ... More >>

Jazz Hayden and the Fight Against Stop-and-Frisk

An unlikely activist's battle with the NYPD's frisky business

The Food Network Countersues Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives' (Alleged) A-hole Producer

There's really no way any of this should be legal.​The Food Network is finally doing what we've long dreamed of doing ourselves: it's suing Guy Fieri.

The Innocence Project's Poster Child with a Past

They hailed Alan Newton's exoneration—without mentioning his other case of attempted rape

Vanessa Hicks, Former NYPD Officer, Sues Over Ticket Quota

​A former police officer is suing the NYPD for firing her for not writing enough summonses and not stopping and frisking enough people, the New York Daily News is reporting. Vanessa Hicks' lawsuit follows last year's class action lawsuit filed on behalf of about 25 New Yorkers who allege the ... More >>

Dov Charney Sued Over Naked Pictures by the Same Women Who Sued Him Last Time

​Beleaguered, but always mouthy American Apparel CEO Dov Charney has been sued again by the same women alleging he sexually harassed them. Irene Morales, Tesa Lubans-Dehaven and Alyssa Ferguson filed harassment lawsuits against Charney, as did two others, back in March but the trio have now fo ... More >>

NYPD Quotas: Brooklyn Jury Says 'Yes, Virginia, They do Exist'

​A Brooklyn jury yesterday ruled that ticketing and arrest quotas, long denied by the NYPD, do exist, and left a woman in cuffs after trying to stop her son's arrest. In a lawsuit filed by Bedford-Stuyvesant resident Carolyn Bryant, the jury found that the NYPD had a "custom and policy" on a ... More >>

NYPD Sodomy Story: Angry Ass-Rapist Cops Strike Yet Again

​Ralph Johnson, a "Wall Street financier," has filed a lawsuit against the NYPD, the AP reports. And if you've been paying attention, Johnson's claims might sound a bit familiar: He says that he, too, was sodomized by NYPD officers using a police baton when they responded to a domestic compla ... More >>

9/11 Workers' Settlement Suit Is Finally Almost Over

​The New York Times is reporting that the 9/11 workers who sued the city over health damages they suffered during Ground Zero rescue and recovery efforts have finally agreed to accept a $625 million settlement from the city after years of negotiations and delays.

Google Will Pay $8.5M to Settle Class-Action Buzz Lawsuit, Just Not to You

​If you use Gmail, you probably received a strange and unexpected e-mail from Google yesterday about Google Buzz and some kind of $8.5 million class-action lawsuit settlement that you really didn't bother to read about because, yeah, Google Buzz was a disaster, but you never signed up to be pa ... More >>

Mario Batali Hit With Yet Another Lawsuit

Forked?​Del Posto may have been spurned by the Michelin Guide, but the slight was nothing compared to the debt that 27 of the restaurant's current and former workers say they're owed in wages and tips.

The (Roger) Stone Around Carl Paladino's Neck

The Times reports that Roger Stone associates have collected a million dollars in fees so far from Carl Paladino's campaign, adding a couple of companies to the list we published last week. It's an astonishing total, and a measure of Stone's shaping influence on the Paladino campaign, reaffirmed in ... More >>

Brother Jimmy's Sued by Former Workers

​Four former workers are accusing Brother Jimmy's of being one mean mother, filing a class action lawsuit against the owners of the barbecue chain over allegations of unfair labor practices.

Ray 'Stop-and-Frisk' Kelly for Mayor?

When will New Yorkers see past Kelly's personal charm and notice his thuggish methods?

Susan Spicer, New Orleans Chef, Sticks It to British Petroleum

​Famed New Orleans chef and cook book author Susan Spicer has filed a class action lawsuit against British Petroleum, Halliburton, and Transocean, Ltd. Entered in New Orleans Federal Court, the suit asks for both compensatory and punitive damages - as yet unspecified -- for the harm that has r ... More >>

NYPD Quotas leading to Civil Rights Violations, New Lawsuit Says

​The city is facing a new class action lawsuit filed by nine New Yorkers over the NYPD's use of quotas to get officers to issues summonses and stop-and-frisk people, court records show. The lawsuit, filed late last month in federal court in Manhattan, cites some of the quotations which appear ... More >>

Patsy's Dishwasher Sues Restaurant Over Dickensian Work Conditions

Trees on the outside, drudgery on the inside.​A former dishwasher at the Patsy's on East 60th Street is suing the restaurant after working there for three years in conditions that his class-action lawsuit claims "can only be described as indentured servitude."

Mike Bloomberg's Deposition In FDNY Discrimination Case: Highlights of Obfuscation

​The two places that men reveal their inner selves, the adage goes, are behind a steering wheel and on a basketball court. All that contained aggressiveness grandstands to the surface. For Mayor Mike, though, who neither duels with taxis nor elbows under a hoop, it is apparently depositions ... More >>

Court: city, not God, responsible for Staten Island sewage flood

Lucyann Sciacca of Staten Island, representing herself in Small Claims Court, won $5k in her suit against the city for damage done when raw sewage flooded her basement during a 2007 storm which left Staten Island a Federal Disaster Area. The city has defended itself against $1.3 million in previous ... More >>

Scientology's Crushing Defeat

A previously unpublished saga of an $8 million check

Lawsuit: Columbia Expansion Poses 'Biohazard' Risk

Adventures in Google's Contextual Advertising

Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Fight Back in Court

Fork Off

In addition to food fights between the ROC-NY activists and restaurants, some of the activists are throwing rocks at each other

New York's Most Obnoxious Lawyer

Do we have to pick just one? Kenny Heller won't admit it, but he could make a case for the title if he hadn't been disbarred—for obnoxious behavior.

Suit Seeks Halt in Wash. Square Revamp

Her Right to Be Obnoxious

Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned

Truth Out

Sick of being lied to by the EPA, 9-11 plaintiffs use the courts to force the answers they seek

In Search of a Right

The 13-year struggle of targets in a racial dragnet reveals the elusive nature of justice

Defendant Rumsfeld

Secretary of Defense sued for torture while media cover Michael Jackson trial

The Boss Will See You Now

Lawsuit alleges politically connected ambulance mogul demanded sex for raises

The Judge in the Purple Plastic Gloves

Clarence Norman's Latest Pick for Supreme Court

The Pusillanimous 'Post'

Reporter Sues News Corp. for $10 Million

Sudan: Our Terrorist Comrade

Big Oil and Big Slavery

Trouble on the Tracks

Discharged Transit Workers Sue the TA, Charging Racial and Sexual Harassment

Sue the Messenger, Part One

Rash of Lawsuits Shows No One Trusts the Media

Alien Toxins

Area 51's Sci-Fi Folklore Masks a Truly Spooky Reality

Taking Care of Business

Senate Fails to Close Loopholes Protecting Insurers

Blowing TAPs

Grand Jury Probes Brooklyn State Supreme Court

Under the Gun

Tales of anguish fill a Brooklyn courtroom as the kin of shooting victims battle the firearms industry