Nota Bene

FindLaw reports:

The trust that manages the estate of J.R.R. Tolkein’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and intellectual property sued New Line Cinema, the Hollywood studio that obtained the rights to produce films based upon his works. The trust slams New Line, alleging that it’s been “engag[ing] in the infamous practice of ‘Hollywood accounting’ by using various ‘bookkeeping’ devices to delay paying Tolkien’s trust.

The suit claims that:

“The three hugely successful films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved “Lord of the Rings” trilogy have grossed nearly $6 billion. Despite these record-setting revenues amounts derived ultimately from Professor Tolkien’s classic fantasy novels….[New Line] has paid nothing to Tolkien’s successors with respect to their contractually-mandated participation in the gross revenues of the films.

…[I]n spite of the Film’s unprecedented financial success, platiniffs have not received a single penny of their contracted share of the gross receipts earned from the Films.” emphases in original

The NY Times reports:

New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush has faced continual accusations since April 2006 that he and his family took as much as $300,000 in cash and goods while he attended the University of Southern California.

Reggie Bush left college early and was drafted by the Saints. He and his family have refused to cooperate in the investigation.

If he is found to have broken rules, the former Southern California star Reggie Bush could lose the Heisman Trophy he won in 2005.

Since then, Bush and his family have refused to cooperate with investigators for the N.C.A.A. and the Pacific-10 Conference, who are looking into whether he or university officials violated rules governing student-athletes. Bush has said little beyond denying any wrongdoing.

This month, however, Bush may be forced to break his silence. A lawyer for his chief accuser, Lloyd Lake, said he issued a subpoena to compel Bush to give a deposition Feb. 25 in a lawsuit filed in San Diego last October. Lake contends that the Bush family accepted cash, a car, rent-free housing and other goods from him, and he is seeking repayment.

The Sacramento Bee reports:

Former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona was caught on a wiretap plotting with a former top assistant to lie to a grand jury investigating him for public corruption, according to transcripts filed Friday by federal prosecutors.

Portions of an Aug. 13, 2007 conversation between Carona and former assistant sheriff Don Haidl show the two men discussing cash and gifts Carona received from Haidl and what they would do if other witnesses testified against them.

At the time, Haidl had already pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in the probe and was secretly cooperating with the government.

Prosecutors said the transcript shows Carona “admitted to receiving cash and gifts from Haidl and made statements to further an ongoing plan to obstruct justice, specifically the then-pending grand jury investigations.”

Carona’s attorney, Dean Steward, did not immediately return phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment.

Carona, 52, is accused of pocketing nearly $700,000 in bribes and kickbacks during his nine years at the helm of the nation’s fifth-largest sheriff’s department. He has pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy, three counts of mail fraud and two counts of witness tampering.

The Ninth Circuit has issued this notice

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will begin implementation of the appellate version of a new case management system, CM/ECF case management/electronic case files on March 3, 2008. In CM/ECF, participants in a case can provide the clerk with an e-mail address and agree to receive an electronic “Notice of Docket Activity” NDA when the court takes an action in a case. If counsel or parties have not provided the clerk with such an agreement and correct e-mail address, their copies of the court’s orders, calendars, opinions or other notices will be mailed to their physical address through the U.S. Postal Service. Users may specify multiple e-mail addresses for their notices.

You can access the entire notice and find out more information here. (Hat tip: Blog of Appeal and Criminal Appeal).

PC World reports:

Two civil liberties groups have filed a lawsuit in a federal court in California in response to complaints from travelers of excessive screenings at border-entry points, including inspections of the data on laptops, cell phones and other electronic devices.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

In the legal filing, the two groups ask the court to order the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division to release records relating to its policies and procedures on the “questioning, search and inspection” of travelers entering or returning to the U.S. at various ports of entry.

The ALC and the EFF, which are both based in San Francisco, said in a joint statement that they filed the suit under the Freedom of Information Act after the DHS didn’t respond to a FOIA request the two groups submitted last October. They added that they had requested the information from the DHS in response to increasing allegations of “excessive or repeated” screenings by CBP agents.

For instance, the ALC received more than 20 complaints over the past year from individuals who said they had been “grilled about their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs, or associations” when returning to the U.S. from trips overseas, according to the statement.

Some of the people also claimed that CBP staffers inspected and sometimes copied the contents of their laptop files and cell phone directories without providing any reason for doing so, the ALC and the EFF said. The groups are seeking the information about the screening policies so they can assess whether they should take any legal or legislative actions to try to force the CBP to change its procedures.

DHS officials referred an inquiry seeking comment about the lawsuit and the earlier FOIA request to the CBP’s press office, which didn’t immediately return a phone call placed late in the afternoon Eastern time.

From ExpertClick.com

A new antitrust class action lawsuit against West Publishing Corporation, dba BAR/BRI, and Kaplan, Inc. was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, Case No. CV 08-810 RSW(Ex). The lawsuit accuses the two companies of illegally dividing their highly lucrative LSAT and bar exam test preparation businesses. According to the complaint, executives of BAR/BRI and Kaplan secretly agreed to a per se illegal market division, which, in part, involved BAR/BRI annually paying to Kaplan substantial sums to keep it out of its bar review course market. The Complaint further alleges that BAR/BRI has engaged for decades in an overall scheme to monopolize the relevant market, by committing a litany of antitrust violations. According to the Complaint, BAR/BRI interfered with and prevented competitors’ entry or expansion in the relevant market by buying them out, threatening them, spreading false rumors about them, and even breaking into their offics to steal competitively significant records. The Complaint also states that BAR/BRI has engaged in the continuing practice of tearing down, otherwise removing, or preventing the posting of, the signs, placards and related promotional materials of local bar review course competitors at various law schools.

The LA Times reports:

A day after their stinging defeat before the California Coastal Commission, Orange County toll road officials announced they will appeal the decision. After 12 hours of public testimony and debate Wednesday, commissioners decided by an 8-2 vote that extending the Foothill South tollway through San Onofre State Beach would violate environmental laws designed to regulate development along 1,100 miles of California coastline.

Officials with the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which has spent years and tens of millions of dollars planning the Foothill South, say they are also considering a new route for the six-lane highway.

The First Amendment Center reports:

A federal judge in Missouri has rejected the First Amendment claims of a man removed from Kirkwood City Council meetings for “repetitive, personal, virulent attacks” against council members.

Charles Lee Thornton had sued the city of Kirkwood after he was arrested twice and later convicted for disorderly conduct at two council meetings in 2006.

In May 2006, Thornton had the opportunity to speak during the public-comment portion of a council meeting that addressed the expansion of two businesses — a funeral home and a senior living facility. During the time reserved to discuss the funeral home, Thornton rose to speak about what he alleged was personal harassment of him by city officials, not the expansion of the business. He displayed a large poster with a picture of a donkey and made intemperate remarks about the mayor. Thornton then warned the funeral home owner that the city had a “plantation-mentality” and “jackass-like qualities.”

AP News reports:

The National Association of Manufacturers is suing the government over the new federal lobbying and ethics law, contending it jeopardizes its members’ First Amendment rights.

The trade group, which filed the suit on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is also seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of a provision in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007.

“This pernicious law should be seen as a potentially lethal threat to trade associations,” the trade group’s president John Engler, a former Michigan governor, said in a press release.

The law requires trade associations to release the names of members, who contribute more than $5,000 in a quarterly period for lobbying activities, which the group said violates their members’ privacy. Congress tightened the lobbying-disclosure requirements to target “stealth coalitions” or groups that use nondescript names to lobby for industries. The Coalition of Fair Lumber and International Interactive Alliance are among examples the Center for Responsive Politics names as under-the-radar groups.

You can access the complaint here.

Reuters reports:

A California appeals court on Wednesday said an anonymous Internet poster does not have to reveal his identity after being sued for making “scathing verbal attacks” against executives at a Florida company on a Yahoo! Inc message board.

The Sixth Appellate District in Santa Clara County reversed a trial court ruling that would have allowed a former executive at SFBC International Inc to subpoena Yahoo! for the names of her critics.

You can read the entire opinion in Krinsky v. Doe 6 (Feb. 6, 2008 H030767) here.