Month: July 2015

  • Taylor Swift, Apple, and John Robert Demos Jr. as Pirates: A Day In The Life of Frivolous Lawsuits

    Taylor Swift, Apple, and John Robert Demos Jr. as Pirates: A Day In The Life of Frivolous Lawsuits

    Readers, each day I get an email listing all of the new cases filed in the US District Court here in Boston, with a brief description of what they are about. Recently, two of them caught my eye. I thought I would share them and then reflect a little on the frivolous lawsuit genre.

  • Case of the Day: Osei v. Standard Chartered Bank

    The case of the day is Osei v. Standard Chartered Bank (SDNY 2015). The plaintiff, Akwasi Boakye Osei, alleged that Standard Chartered Bank and Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Ltd. wrongfully dishonored several checks, causing him to suffer an injury. He sued in the High Court in Ghana, claiming breach of contract, conspiracy, and defamation and……

  • Case of the Day: Menon v. Water Splash

    The case of the day is Menon v. Water Splash, Inc. (Tex. Ct. App. 2015). Water Splash, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in New York, sued Tara Menon, a Canadian national residing in Quebec, in a Texas court. The claim was that Menon had been Water Splash’s regional sales representative and……

  • Looking Ahead to the Supreme Court’s October 2015 Term

    Readers, now that the Supreme Court’s October 2014 term is ended—what a term!—it’s time to look ahead to next year. I have not done a very good job of keeping my “International Judicial Assistance at the Supreme Court” page up to date, and maybe like Conley v. Gibson it has earned its retirement. Still, I……

  • Case of the Day: In re Application of Kazakhstan

    The case of the day is In re Application of Republic of Kazakhstan (S.D.N.Y. 2015). I love this case, because it raises one of my favorite issues under § 1782. In 2013, an arbitral tribunal in Sweden awarded Anatolie Stati and related parties $199 million against Kazakhstan on account of the illegal seizure of a……