Nancy Grace is abrasive, confrontational and arrogant.  There is no one better in the tabloid legal arena of taking content worth 15 minutes of coverage and stretching it into a interminable Law and Order style interrogation.  Nancy has been known to rattle even the most seasoned attorney. Nancy can be tiring.   When a case has been beaten to death so badly even vultures have stopped circling we can count on Nancy to find a crime scene stalker, expert witness wannabe or friend of a friend of the maid’s sister’s friend to interview.  Her coverage of the Natalee Holloway disappearance was agonizingly redundant. No horse was spared.  For better or worse this is Nancy’s style.  It has made her the queen of tabloid legal.  She understands that the first rule of tabloid television is to create content when there is little or nothing left to talk about.  This is done by creating, prolonging or exaggerating controversy.  Without the ability to consistently create content in this manner tabloid shows would consist of 20 minutes of Youtube video.   Content must be created daily. It must draw the audience in and then drive them to  the next episode.  Nancy is an expert at this.  Many a witness, person of interest and experienced attorney has walked into her studio with confidence hoping to tell a story.  Many have left with a grimace and a sign that says “You Are The Story Sucker!”  stuck on their back.  Nancy  does not back down.  She has been accused of going too far with her guests. The family of Melinda Duckett think so.  They have sued Nancy and CNN to make the point.

Melinda Duckett was a troubled single mother.  There was  a contentious divorce from Joshua Duckett, the father of her son Trenton.  There was an on-going custody battle.  By all reports she lived a chaotic life. This included alleged involvement in an online amateur porn business including some disturbing images of her allegedly posing nude on her son Trenton’s crib.

On August 27, 2006 Melinda contacted the police and  reported Trenton missing.  She claimed someone had entered her residence and kidnapped him.  An Amber Alert style search for Trenton ensued. The focus of the investigation eventually turned to Melinda. The initial theory being that she had handed the child off to someone she knew.  Melinda was eventually narrowed down to the sole person of interest.  This is nothing new in these types of scenarios.  Statistics overwhelmingly point to a primary care giver or other family member.   A kidnapping by a stranger is a statistical rarity.   Melinda adamantly denied any involvement.  The case became the focus of intense national media scrutiny.  As would be expected the entire tabloid machine quickly revved into jet motion looking for any angle to create content and keep the drama alive until resolution for better or worse.

Melinda was approached by representatives of The Nancy Grace show.  Melinda and Josh Duckett agreed to do the show.  On September 8th Melinda and Josh Duckett appeared on the show.   A review of the show transcript reveals a fairly even keel interview until Nancy begins to  hammer Melinda about her refusal to take a polygraph exam.   Josh Duckett had already taken two and passed.  Nancy’s legal guests chime in.  They all but accuse Melinda of lying about Trenton’s disappearance.  Melinda begins to fluster and stammer.  You can read the transcript here.

Melinda Duckett walked into the interview with Nancy Grace hoping to tell her story.  Melinda left the interview considered the prime suspect by both law enforcement and the tabloid public.  Was Melinda naive, stupid or calculating in what she hoped to achieve?   In a battle of wits the war was lost to Nancy before Melinda ever did the interview.  It was no contest.   We will never know what Melinda’s true motives were.  A day after the taping Melinda Duckett committed suicide.

The Duckett family has brought a wrongful death suit against CNN and Nancy Grace.  They allege that Nancy lured an unsuspecting and emotionally unstable Melinda in the interview under false pretenses. They allege that it was Nancy’s plan all along to ambush Melinda, painting her as the prime suspect in her son’s disappearance.  It was the  emotional distress brought on by her aggressive questioning that caused of Melinda to kill herself.

Did Nancy Grace do anything wrong?   As  rhetorical as the question seems, there is precedent for an extremely “gracious” verdict.   In 1999 The Jenny Jones Show was ordered to pay 25 millions dollars to the family of Scott Amedure.  Jonathan Schmitz killed Scott three days after Amedure revealed his secret crush on Schmitz during a taping of a “same-sex, secret crush” episode of the show.  The Ducketts should not be getting too excited over similar prospects.   The Amedures had the benefit of an extremely friendly jury instruction.  It stated that the negligence of the Jenny Jones show only had to be “a cause” of the circumstances leading up to the killing of Scott Amerdure.   The Amedures  never collected on the verdict.  It was thrown out by an appeals court.  The court stated that Jenny Jones show owed no duty to protect Scott Amdedure.

In 2002 The Jerry Springer Show was sued by the son of a guest who was murdered just hours after the segment was broadcast.  Nancy Campbell-Panitz was murdered by her ex-husband after they appeared on a May 2000 episode in which he revealed that he had secretly remarried.  The lawsuit alleges that the Springer Show created a “mood that led to murder”.

Did Nancy Grace have a duty to protect Melinda Duckett from herself or at least warn her of the show’s agenda?   Did she “create a mood” that led to suicide?   Melinda Duckett had a troubled life long before she met Nancy Grace.  Linda Duckett knew she was a person of interest in the disappearance of her son before she agreed to do the show.  Linda Duckett  voluntarily did the interview. She could have stopped it at any time.  Melinda was outgunned and over-matched.  It is unclear how that translates into a duty to warn her of anything.  Nancy should not be to cocky about victory.  A federal judge recently denied a motion to dismiss the case.  It looks like Nancy is going to get pleasure of being grilled by an attorney who will probably be abrasive, confrontational and arrogant.  They will have a lot in common.

Nancy Grace is guilty. She is guilty of being Nancy Grace.   While that might be a death sentence to some watching her show it has worked for well for her over the years.  Neither her nor CNN owed any duty to warn Melinda Duckett that Nancy would be tough on her.   It is difficult to imagine a realistic scenario in which they would affirmatively create such a duty unless Melinda told them she was going to harm herself if Nancy were too hard on her.  The Ducketts will probably not be getting that same “Jenny Jones jury love”. Trenton Ducket is still missing…..

In what appears to be a unique case, a Federal Court in Tampa Florida has ordered a company to use ‘negative keywords’ to avoid being associated with another firm’s trade mark.

In the case of Orion Bankcorp Inc. v. Orion Residential Financial, the court ruled that Orion Residential was basically devaluing the trademark and intellectual property value of the keywords people use in search engine searches that would take them to Orion Bankcorp. The court ordered Orion Residential to insert “negative keywords” into their website.

Without going into to all the legal shmegal, the court basically stated that Orion Residential was infringing Orion Bancorps trademark by inserting keywords that Orion Bancorp has trademark protection for in their name as used in keywords and such. The court entered an order:

“barring defendant from purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or “adwords” in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff’s Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term “ORION” as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.”

This frankly is not unusual in terms of trademark cases. Please are always getting sued for trademark infringement in trying to siphon off business using someone else’s established good will.

Search engines often get sued for devaluing trademarks in this way. Google has been sued several times for selling key words in its’ Google AdWords program that a company may feel are protected trademark. Until the American Airlines suit however they have been primarily obscure companies not making big news . It is however the first time I have seen a court order a company to insert safeguard in their web site to protect the trademark of another company. If anyone has seen other cases like this I would would love to hear about them.

This is very similar to the issue in the much more prominent and publicized case of American Airlines v. Google. Without going into all the intricacies of the case American Airlines sued Google for allowing other companies to have their banners come up when Google searches for American Airlines and related words were done. The basic argument is that these banners devalue the intellectual property and infringe on the trademark of American Airlines. In layman’s terms? American Airlines was sick and tired of companies getting a free ride on the back of trademark value they worked so hard to establish while Google made a killing.

This case is still pending. Google is fighting back hard. They make a killing selling these keywords to companies. A win by American Airlines will have financial ramification for Google and set the standard for future suits of this nature.

We all know that keyword abuse in the business world is rampant. How many company specific keywords do you have on your business site in the hopes that people looking for the more established company will be decided to check out your web site instead when it appears in the search rankings. There is no getting around the fact that this practice tends to run afoul of U.S. trademark law.

I believe that these keyword suits will become much more common and high profile over the next decade as the internet becomes more and more integrated in the the everyday shopping experience. The American Airlines Suit is just the first high profile salvo.

I had better go take my Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse key words out of my web site for Mickey’s House of Hookers…..

So you think that Blu Ray has won the one and only battle it will fight with the victory against HD DVD? Think again…. Round 2 has not yet been fought. There will not be as much at stake as the the battle just fought but it will be fought just the same.  How do I know this battle to be fought? It will be fought because there are more law students than lawyers in this country.

 The next battle will be the class action litigation against HD DVD player manufacturers. The first cannon shot has already been fired by Toshiba with their statement that there will be no refunds offered to those who have purchased soon to be obsolete HD DVD players. No rebates towards purchase of other products, zippo, zilch, nada…… Just a caveat emptor right in the kiester! I can not think of a quicker way to get sued than telling your customers with legitimate complaints to F***k off…… 

Nothing new here though. Without short sighted companies like Toshiba there would be no need for McDonalds coffee case taking Democrat plaintiff’s attorneys. The whole legal system would collapse……So let it be written…. So let it be done……