The Daily Mail ran leaked a March 2015 audio recording' of medics looking for Johnny Depp's severed fingertip. In a 2018 deposition Depp says his wife at the time, Amber Heard, threw a vodka bottle at him and it shattered, cutting off his finger.

From Vanity Fair:

Heard’s story, which she told in her own deposition at the time, differs dramatically. She said that the fight was sparked over her former co-star Billy Bob Thornton. While she alleged that Depp hit her with one hand, he was “slamming a hard plastic phone against a wall with his other until it was smashed into smithereens. While he was smashing the phone, Johnny severely injured his finger, cutting off the tip of it.” At some point later that night, Depp had written on the walls with a mixture of paint and the bloody finger, “Billy Bob” and “Easy Amber.” (Depp reportedly denies all of her account, except for the writing on the wall).

Image: By gdcgraphics, CC BY 2.0, Link Read the rest

A father and son who paid almost $300,000 for a white Lamborghini Huracan Spyder are suing the dealer after the paint job took on a yellow tinge, reports CTV News. Calogero Caruso took a second mortgage on his home to buy the Italian sports car for his son, because it was his child's “dream to own such a luxury vehicle... instead, it has been a total nightmare.” From CTV News:

The plaintiffs claim the problem developed just days after they took possession of the luxury car when they noticed it had started to turn yellow.

The Carusos say the dealership's boss, John Scotti, told them the car was indeed white but can look a little yellow in the sun.

The plaintiffs say they gave the dealer the benefit of the doubt and parked the car indoors but still noticed that it was turning yellow.

Caruso and son no longer want the  car. They want a refund plus damages, but the dealer won't give it to them. Caruso returned the car to the dealership, but he is still making mortgage and insurance payments.

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A 24-year-old New Jersey woman booked a camel ride in Morocco through TripAdvisor's Viator tour booking site. The camel she ended up riding was pregnant and it threw her off and she broke her arm, reports the Boston Globe. The woman said doctors in Morocco had to perform surgery on her arm to prevent permanent nerve damage. Now she's suing TripAdvisor for negligence and breach of contract.

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Does cooking a Impossible Burger on the same surface used to cook normal burgers "contaminate" them with meat by-products? Is Burger King doing this? A vegan diner makes these claims in a lawsuit filed Monday against the fast-food chain. Reuters:

The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court seeks damages for all U.S. purchasers of the Impossible Whopper, and an injunction requiring Burger King to “plainly disclose” that Impossible Whoppers and regular burgers are cooked on the same grills. [Burger King] describes the Impossible Burger as “100% Whopper, 0% Beef,” and adds that “for guests looking for a meat-free option, a non-broiler method of preparation is available upon request.”

“Half our customers are drunk and vaping like mo-fos, who the fuck is going to notice the quality of our pods?” Juul's then-CEO Kevin Burns allegedly said when a senior vice president told him Juul should include an expiration date on the packaging of the nicotine pods it makes. The quote is in a lawsuit filed against the company by an aggrieved former employee.

From Buzzfeed:

A former Juul executive is alleging in a lawsuit that the fast-growing startup shipped out 1 million contaminated e-cigarette pods earlier this year — but did not tell customers or issue a recall.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by Siddharth Breja, a former senior vice president of global finance who worked at the San Francisco–based company from May 2018 to March 2019. In the lawsuit — filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California on the same day that Juul confirmed its plans to lay off about 500 people — Breja claims he was retaliated against for raising concerns about the contaminated shipment.

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The owners of the copyright for the theme song to the “Charlie Brown Christmas” TV special are suing Dolly Parton's 'Dollywood' in federal court for copyright infringement. Read the rest

Attorney and disgraced anti-Trump media gadfly Michael Avenatti has been sued again, this time over allegations he siphoned off a paraplegic client's $4 million settlement. Read the rest

LuLaRoe, a multi-billion dollar maker of garishly patterned garments, has been hit with multiple lawsuits for being a pyramid scheme. Vice has a 30-minute documentary about the company. Read the rest

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, an unidentified man, age 40 is suing his parents for $87,000 for dumping his porn collection. Apparently he had been living with his folks following a divorce but recently moved into his own home. When his folks delivered his stuff to the new digs, his 12 boxes of porn magazines and films were nowhere to be found. He called the cops but the Ottawa County prosecutor would not pursue charges.

In an email filed as evidence in the suit, the man's father wrote: "I did you a big favor by getting rid of all this stuff."

According to the Associated Press, the porn has an estimated value of $29,000 but "the man is seeking triple financial damages."

(image: Frank Carroll/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Read the rest

The city attorney for Los Angeles is suing the company behind The Weather Channel and its mobile app, and says the app covertly mined user data. Read the rest

Stephen Keys, an actor who has appeared in many movies, including Soul Plane, was on a flight from Reno to Los Angeles last week. When he raised his armrest so he could get his seatbelt, his pinky got stuck in a hole under the armrest. According to a lawsuit he filed against American Airlines and SkyWest Airlines, "The spring mechanism embedded inside of this hole in the armrest applied intense pressure to plaintiff's finger, immediately inflicting injury, swelling and pain."

"By this time, dozens of passengers became aware of Mr. Keys' perilous condition, causing his dire situation to become a humiliating public spectacle," the suit alleges. "By the end of it all, he remained entrapped in this nightmarish condition, suffering for nearly an hour."

From NBC:

Flight personnel and members of a fire department rescue team were unable to free Keys' finger, which was finally accomplished with the help of an airline mechanic who disassembled the armrest, the suit says.

The injury to his finger left Keys unable to perform such previously routine tasks as driving and playing with his children, according to his complaint, which says he experienced weeks of intense pain and severe emotional distress. Read the rest

My name is Kelsey Juliana and I’m suing the United States government for causing and accelerating the climate change crisis. I’m 22 years old and I’ve been a climate advocate for more than half of my life. Read the rest

Just when you thought things couldn't get stupider, they do. Former Donald Trump senior campaign aide Jason Miller is suing Will Menaker, co-host of the politi-comedy podcast 'Chapo Trap House,' over a tweet in which Miller is described as a "rat face baby killer."

Okay. Read the rest

Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as an overbearing Israeli antiterrorism expert, scanned Republican politician Roy Moore with a "pedophile detector" during a comical interview shot for his series Who Is America? Moore, who was accused of molesting teenage girls and was once reportedly banned from an Alabama mall for doing so in public, is now suing the British comedian over the fake gadget, which beeped loudly in proximity to the disgraced judge.

His lawyers say the satirist falsely accused their client of being a sex offender. They are seeking $95m (£73m) in damages from Baron Cohen and from the Showtime and CBS networks. Representatives for Baron Cohen have not responded to the lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington. A spokeswoman for Showtime said it did not comment on pending litigation.

The clip is embedded above. Jump 3m in for the relevant portion. Read the rest

Boston Symphony Orchestra principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe is suing her employers for $200,000 in damages. The reason: her closest counterpart in the orchestra, a man, is making a shitload more money for doing almost the same damn job as she does. Rowe’s lawsuit was filed one day after the state of Massachusetts brought its equal pay law into effect. Before slamming the Boston Symphony Orchestra with her suit, Rowe attempted, on a number of occasions, to sort the issue of the pay gap out amiably and out of court. Since the Orchestra wouldn’t own up and do the right thing, I suspect they will now be skinned alive under the state’s wicked harsh new pay equality laws.

From NPR:

Rowe was hired for the Boston Symphony's top flutist job in 2004 — a high-profile and extremely competitive position at one of the world's foremost orchestras. According to her suit, she has been profiled as a soloist with the orchestra 27 times in the years since she was hired — more than any other BSO principal musician — and that the orchestra has repeatedly highlighted her in its marketing, publicity and social media materials.

Rowe says that she is currently the top-paid female principal player in the BSO, while the BSO's principal oboist, John Ferrillo, is the symphony's top-paid male principal musician. According to the BSO's 2016 IRS Form 990, Ferrillo was paid $286,621, the largest salary paid to any BSO principal musician. (Violinist Malcolm Lowe — the orchestra's concertmaster, who serves as something of a liaison between the symphony's musicians and its conductor — earned $415,402 in 2016.)

Sesame Street lawyers are not happy that Jim Henson's son Brian has a raunchy puppet film coming out called Happytime Murders. After they filed a suit against the film, Henson retained a crack puppet lawyer named Fred (above) to defend them. Read the rest

Dr. Joon Song, a gynecologist in New York, has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Michelle Levine for leaving bad reviews on Yelp and other review sites.

From CBS:

“After I got a bill for an ultrasound and a new patient visit, whatever that means, and it was not billed as an annual I wrote a review about it,” she told CBS2’s Lisa Rozner.

She says she complained to the doctor’s office, but nothing happened. The lengthy critical review, among other things, complained of “very poor and crooked” business practices and was posted on sites like Yelp, Zocdoc, and Healthgrades.

“And I gave them one star on Facebook, which they also put in their complaint,” Levine said.

After getting sued, Levine says she took down all her reviews but Dr. Song still wants her to pay around $1 million in damages plus legal fees.

Levine has so far spent $20,000 defending herself against the lawsuit. Dr. Song's attorney told CBS: "While everyone is entitled to their opinion, outright lies masquerading as reviews can inflict serious damage to a medical practice or small business."

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