Question Presented
William Banning, the plaintiff’s attorney for the pending Faalele et al. v. Pacific Princess Partnership LTD claim, wrote a letter to Holmes Weddle & Barcott threatening to bring a Qui Tam claim against Pacific Princess Partnership (PPP) unless PPP withdrew their pending motion to stay on grounds of Forum Non-Conveniens, as well as stipulate San Diego Superior Court as the proper court for the trial of Plaintiff’s wrongful death and survival action against defendants. Does Banning’s action constitute extortion?
Brief Answer
Probably yes. Extortion is the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right. Every person who, with intent to extort any money or other property from another, sends or delivers to any person any letter or other writing, whether expressing or implying, or adapted to imply, any such threat such as specified in Section 519, is punishable in the same manner as if such money or property were actually obtained by means of such threat. When construing “property” in regards to extortion statutes, a broad interpretation is permitted. Under California law, threats of criminal or civil prosecution and to business or property interests were sufficient to state a claim for civil extortion, even though plaintiffs did not pay on the demands. William Banning sent a letter with the intent to induce Holmes Weddle & Barcott’s client, through fear of bringing about a Qui Tam action, to withdraw their pending motion to stay on grounds of Forum Non-Conveniens (FNC) and to stipulate San Diego Superior Court as the proper court for the trial of Plaintiff’s...
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...fendants. Banning may argue that as employers, there is a logical relation to look through and ensure that your business is conducting proper business practices; however it looks more like an abusive tactic rather than a logical relation. Therefore, the litigation privilege will likely not apply.
Conclusion
In Conclusion, while there is no bright line rule to distinguish between legitimate negotiation and actionable extortion the facts presented here lean towards extortion. Failure to limite demand letters to the prospective litigation at hand, plus his use of threat to compel consent, subjects Banning to State Bar discipline, along with possible criminal prosecution, and civil liability. Banning committed extortion when he threatened legal action through fear to place himself and his client in a more favourable position regarding the other civil action.
This incident involved Victim Athena Marie Herbert being a victim of an attempt rape at Suspect Gayk Chuldzhyan’s residence.
Summary of the Case On August 1987, Donald Butler opened a store in Winnipeg, Manitoba, called the “Avenue Boutique”. In this store, Butler sold and rented pornographic publications that were considered “hard core” and sexual paraphernalia. A couple weeks later, the City of Winnipeg Police searched and seized Butler’s sexually explicit materials lawfully. From this, Butler was charged with 173 counts under s. 163 of the Criminal Code. These charges included s. 163(1)(a) which criminalizes the distribution and the possession for distribution of obscene materials, as wells s. 163(2)(a) for selling and exposing obscene material to the public.
Washington Law Review, Vol. 86, Issue 4 (December 2011), pp. 841-874 Barnum, Jeffrey C. 86 Wash. L. Rev. 841 (2011)
This case deals with the Defendant's possession of a firearm while under a restraining order, and the charges incurred by the Defendant for such firearm possession. Under Texas law, the possession of a firearm by Mr. Emerson creates a perceivable threat to members of his family, thus creating a violation of the restraining order against him. Apparently common practice in Texas, the restraining order was filed by Mr. Emerson's wife in conjunction with the papers filed for divorce. The restraining order sought to enjoin Emerson from "engaging in various financial transactions to maintain the financial status quo and from making threatening communications or actual attacks upon his wife during the pendency of the divorce proceedings" (United 1). Under Texas law, unbeknownst to Mr. Emerson, the possession of a firearm during the time period of the restraining order constituted a direct violation of the restraining order, and Mr. Emerson was indicted on charges of such violation.
Despite the efforts of lawyers and judges to eliminate racial discrimination in the courts, does racial bias play a part in today’s jury selection? Positive steps have been taken in past court cases to ensure fair and unbiased juries. Unfortunately, a popular strategy among lawyers is to incorporate racial bias without directing attention to their actions. They are taught to look for the unseen and to notice the unnoticed. The Supreme Court in its precedent setting decision on the case of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), is the first step to limiting racial discrimination in the court room. The process of selecting jurors begins with prospective jurors being brought into the courtroom, then separating them into smaller groups to be seated in the jury box. The judge and or attorneys ask questions with intent to determine if any juror is biased or cannot deal with the issues fairly. The question process is referred to as voir dire, a French word meaning, “to see to speak”. During voir dire, attorneys have the right to excuse a juror in peremptory challenges. Peremptory challenges are based on the potential juror admitting bias, acquaintanceship with one of the parties, personal knowledge of the facts, or the attorney believing he/she might not be impartial. In the case of Batson v. Kentucky, James Batson, a black man, was indicted for second-degree burglary and receipt of stolen goods. During the selection of the jury the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to strike out all of the four black potential jurors, leaving an all white jury. Batson’s attorney moved to discharge the venire, the list from which jurors may be selected, on the grounds that the prosecutor’s peremptory challenges violated his client’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to have a jury derived from a “cross-section of the community”(People v. Wheeler, 583 P.3d 748 [Calif. 1978]). The circuit court ruled in favor of the prosecutor and convicted Batson on both counts. This case went through the courts and finalized in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Facts of the Case: “The defendant Anthony Faretta was accused of grand theft in Los Angeles, CA. Prior to the trial, the defendant requested permission to represent himself” (Gardner, 2000). Mr. Faretta stated that he had once represented himself in a criminal case and that he believed that his court order attorney could not efficiently advise him due to other priorities.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this case is about the defendant, Dana Martin who is strict liability for drug induced death or the possession of controlled dangerous substances or the possession of controlled dangerous substance with the intent to distribute. On the night of June 25th, witness Robin Simon found his son unconscious on his sofa non- responsive, in Robin’s mind he was probably sleeping. But, the touch of his cold skin alerted Robin, begging for him to wake. Later that night, Robin’s son, Zachary Simon was declared dead at Metro Hospital from overdosing on fentanyl. Zach will now be 21 years old forever in time. Zach was always a good student, he was a shy kid, did what he was told,and was an only child, he lost his mother
The case of Rodriguez v. BC is one that recently has been revisited and become more relevant today. The fight to legalize assisted suicide began with Sue Rodriguez when she tried to gain the right to end her life via physician assisted suicide in 1993. This case brought to light not only subsection 241(b) of the Criminal Code, which prohibits assisted suicide. This is also to do with the principle of fundamental justice based on the idea that assisted suicide is wrong on both moral and legal planes and if legalized, could potentially lead to wrongdoings . The reason this case is worth analyzing would be its current prevalence today. For the past 21 years, assisted suicide has been illegal, but recently, it has been decided that a new law will be passed stating that it is legal for Canadians to participate in physician assisted suicide. For this reason, it would be interesting to reexamine exactly why the court reached the decision it did for Sue Rodriguez when 21 years later the decision would have ruled in her favour.
(1) The defendant declared that the version of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2261(2) A is objectively unconstitutional due to its prohibition of freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. He also argued that the indictment filed in this case shall be dismissed because it does not state an offense and that the emails he sent to V.B were not directed to her, so the emails shouldn’t be taken in the case as evidence. According to him, he solely sent the emails to her co-workers and there was also no evidence of
He explains that when a conflict arises, we are less capable to take on the situation and are more likely to hand it off to authorities. He then comes to the conclusion of how they are overlooked, in terms of importance, and that individuals own their conflicts as one would own property. Furthermore, he justifies that these properties are stolen by law, therefore, no longer owned by individuals. Christie urges the need to eliminate ‘professionals’ from the sphere of conflict resolution in order to prevent the theft of conflicts. He explains his perspective of “conflict as property” as not relating to material compensation but rather to the ownership of conflict itself. He then recognizes the effects of victim losing the “property” originally, and puts forth a fix for this process. He introduces a way to remodel the justice system for dealing with conflicts in which the court is victim
The first thing to look at in this paper are the facts about the court’s decision, which deal with John Doe, a “financial advisor” and Pedro Urdemales, a cohort of John Doe, and the investor Secundino Piedra. The original investment was done in the 1990’s and involved Piedra investing $75,000 with John Doe and Urdemales, which resulted in no return. However, in early 2000 John Doe called Piedra and convinced him to send a check for $10,000, which was to be made out to Urdemales. This money was to be used for travel expenses, in order to work towards getting a return for Piedra on the original investment (SNHU BB, 2009, p. 370). Piedra sent an additional check for $5,700 and it was unclear who that was made out to, or what the use would be. Both checks were cashed at a Stuart Any Kind store by a woman named Michael and Joanne Kochakian (SNHU BB, 2009, p. 371).
The litigation of R. v. Buhay is a case where the Charter of rights and freedoms was violated by the policing parties but maintained and performed by the Supreme Court of Canada. This litigation began after two individuals; of which one was Mervyn Buhay, rented a locker at the Winnipeg bus depot. Buhay began to distract the security guards while his friend placed a duffel bag in the locker they had rented. After they left, the security guards were so engrossed by the smell coming from the locker that they unlocked it to find a sleeping bag full of marijuana in the duffel bag. Buhay was arrested the day after the bag was taken into possession even though no warrant was received to search the locker in the first place. During the first trial, due to the violation of the Charter by the police officers, Buhay was acquitted. The Crown, however, appealed this ruling and the case was taken to the Supreme Court of Canada where once again Buhay was acquitted in a 9-0 ruling. Although Buhay committed a crime by possessing marijuana, the police violated the Charter by searching Buhay`s locker without a warrant or his consent, making the Supreme court of Canada`s decision to acquit Buhay reasonable. The Supreme Court of Canada`s decision to acquit Buhay was reasonable due to the fact that the police violated the Charter of rights, no warrant was received to unlock the locker let alone seize the duffel bag, and lastly because the bus depots terms for the locker were not efficiently provided to the customers making them aware of any reasonable search conduct.
Burdeau request, it stated that Burdeau and his partners expected to present to the jury of the Western District of Pennsylvania a charge against candidate of a claimed infringement of § 215 of the Criminal Code of the United States for the deceitful utilization of the sends; that it was the aim of Burdeau and his partners, including certain mail station controllers participating with him, to present to the terrific jury certain private books, papers, memoranda, and so forth, which were the private property of the applicant. Farmers’ Bank owned the legal documents of the papers and had restrictive control of the solicitor It is affirmed that, amid the spring and summer of 1920, these papers were unlawfully seized and stolen from candidate by specific people partaking in and promoting the proposed examination so to be made by the excellent jury, under the bearing and control of Burdeau as uncommon aide to the Attorney General, and that such books, papers, memoranda, and so forth (Burdeau v. McDowell, pg 256 U. S.
Smith&Hopen. (n.d.). The mechanics of ethical and effective cease and desist letters. Retrieved November 19, 2013, from http://www.smithhopen.com/litigation_cease_and_desist_letter_strategies.aspx
...sfied with the outcome and resolution from the mediation session, the parties are given liberties to engage with a court procedure.