Balough
December 14, 2013
A city violated a police officer’s privacy rights when it retrieved and reviewed text messages on a city-issued pager in spite of a written policy that the messages were public. The police officer, as well as the recipients and senders of other text messages on the officer’s account, sued the City of Ontario, Calif., after […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A trial court erred when, prior to trial, it restrained a former wife from posting on the internet allegedly defamatory statements about her former husband. The California appeals court found that to obtain an injunction before trial, “a proponent has a heavy burden to show the countervailing interest is compelling, the prior restraint is […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A law firm that believes it was defamed has the right in discovery to find out if the defendants have any knowledge about the internet posting. The Seventh Circuit found that the district court erred in not ruling on a request to compel the defendants to disclose if they had any information in their possession […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
In a narrowly written opinion, the Seventh Circuit has granted permission to a Naperville high school student to wear a T-shirt with the slogan “Be Happy, Not Gay” as part of a “Day of Truth” at the school. The ruling reverses the granting of a preliminary injunction by the trial court that upheld the Neuqua […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A roommate-matching website that uses drop down menus and requires users to identify the user’s sex, sexual orientation and whether he would bring children to a household is not entitled to immunity for its actions, the Ninth Circuit ruled. Under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), an internet service provider is immune against liability […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
The three-count conviction of spammer Jeremy Jaynes has been upheld by a 4-3 vote of the Virginia Supreme Court. Jaynes was convicted for forging the header information on thousands of unsolicited commercial electronic messages that he sent out from his Raleigh, N.C. home. The Virginia statute criminalizes forging headers and makes it a felony to […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
The Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE) has tapped Richard C. Balough to author one of the chapters in the 2008 revision of its book on Intellectual Property Law. This marks the second time that Mr. Balough has written a chapter on copyrights for the IICLE publication. He was the author of the chapter […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A panel discussing the recent Supreme Court case on the Second Amendment at Chicago Kent Law School will be moderated by Richard C. Balough. Chicago-Kent Distinguished Professor of Law Sheldon Nahmod and Stephen Halbrook, who represented more than 300 members of Congress in the case, will discuss what happens next in the controversy of the […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
The Army Times has quoted Richard C. Balough as an expert on privacy issues surrounding the Army’s decision to give recruiters the option of recording conversations with potential recruits. Mr. Balough said there is no legal restriction on the recording as long as the potential recruit is made aware that he or she is being […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
A Texas statute that prohibits the advertising or sale of sexual devices was declared a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment by a federal appeals court. The decision reversed the trial court’s finding that the plaintiffs, who marketed and sold sexual devices, had failed to state a cause of action. The Texas statute criminalized the selling, […]
