Evening of Dancing Atop Bar at Coyote Ugly Leads to Loss of Smell, Lawsuit.
Ms. Brittany Barnes decided to enjoy a night out in Nashville. During the course of the evening, she found herself dancing on top of a bar at a bar called Coyote Ugly. Unfortunately at some point she fell and suffered injuries, including a “permanent loss of smell.” She claimed it was the bar’s fault for allowing the bar surface to be slippery and for not warning her of the slippery bar. The bar responded by saying that the bar surface was fine, and the fall was caused by Ms. Barnes’s state of inebriation. The bar also claimed Ms. Barnes’s loss of smell was caused by other factors, including a history of smoking, not the fall in the bar. Experts on issues ranging from bar safety to medical causation on loss of sense of smell were retained.
By Witness Testimony on Color and Other Matters Open to the Senses
Victoria Harris, the plaintiff in a recent Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, had been wearing the same ring for over 29 years. See Harris v. J.B. Robinson Jewelers., 2010 WL 4961722 (6th Cir. Dec. 8, 2010). She knew the ring like, well, the back of her hand. So when she picked it up from the jewelry store after a resizing, she immediately noticed that something was wrong. Her large, pink diamond had been replaced with a smaller, colorless one.
Forum Selection Clause Fails: Insufficient Evidence
In 2006, Johnny Ray Franklin bought a Gulf Stream motor home from a dealership located in Tennessee, where he lives. Gulf Stream is an Indiana corporation, and its dealer is a Florida corporation doing business in Tennessee. Gulf Stream filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit claiming that the Eastern District of Tennessee was an improper venue. Alternatively, Gulf Stream asked to have the lawsuit transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.
Admission by a Party Opponent Grounds Royalties from “I’ll Fly Away”
Few songs have transcended time and crossed musical genres as effortlessly as Albert E. Brumley Sr.’s depression-era composition “I’ll Fly Away.” Originally composed as a gospel tune in 1928, the song has since been performed by countless artists, including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson, Alison Krauss, Bob Dylan, and even Kanye West. With so many royalties at stake, it was only a matter of time before the song wound up at the center of a copyright dispute, and that is exactly what happened.