Everyone knows the McDonald’s coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts? Hot Coffee reveals what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s

In a highly important decision, the Tel Aviv District Court annulled this week a forum selection clause in a clickwrap contract, holding the user was not sufficiently aware of the choice of foreign forum nor of the fact he was contracting with a foreign company; and has not clearly consented to such choice.

In Civ. (Tel Aviv) 1963-05-11 Malka v. Ava Financial, .. the court (Judge Ruth Ronen) stated that … [i]n an online setting, a party’s intent to enter into a contract can be established by showing that such party was informed of (i.e., read) the terms of the agreement and actively expressed his consent to be bound by them.

The court held that clickwrap agreements better evidence a consumer’s consent than browsewrap agreements. If clicking on a link is required to view the terms of the contract, such link must be featured prominently for consumers to see.

Steve says this about his Private Law Theory blog:

It is mainly an updater and point of contact for those working in the area.

Private Law Theory is an emerging discipline in law schools and elsewhere. Private law itself is a core set of disciplines within law, and can roughly be divided between Property Law (whether land, personal property, intellectual property …) and the Law of Obligations (Contract, Tort, Restitution …). Each different jurisdiction has its own version of these disciplines. Private Law Theory looks for theoretical perspectives to describe, explain and unify these areas. In doing so, theorists typically draw on a number of the surrounding disciplines, such as Comparative Law, Jurisprudence, Philosophy, Economics, History and Sociology.

I think this is a great idea; I wish I’d thought of it myself. Well done, Steve. I’m really delighted at this initiative.

In the lead judgment in the full Federal Court, Chief Justice Patrick Keane said copyright as defined by Australia’s Copyright Act existed in literary work created by an individual or individuals. Given that, argument about whether or not the Yellow and White Pages directories were literary works – the product of individual intellectual effort – was overrun by the fact that Sensis had taken individuals out of the production process.

Sensis did tell the Federal Court that people contributed to the production process, by using software to extract telephone numbers, for example. The compilation of the listings was, however, overwhelmingly the work of Sensis’s Genesis computer system, Justice Keane said, and ”did not originate from an individual or group of individuals”.

Until Bingham spoke, “the rule of law” meant pretty much what Dicey had said it meant in 1885. Bingham’s definition of that much-used term is now entirely authoritative and will probably remain so for the next 120 years or more. In summary, it is “that all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly made, taking effect (generally) in the future and publicly administered in the courts.”

Why do it? At least 50% of people in the room are angry. They are angry at the cliché logos you have at the corner, at the bullet points, and at the enshrined spelling mistakes (aagghh)….Why not just talk to us/them, rather than fire the bullet points (and all the simplistic stuff that goes with them)?

Three recent judgments in the Court of Human Rights illustrate the increasing importance of the concept of “journalistic responsibility” in defamation cases considered from the perspective of the right to freedom of expression.  Where a publication deals with a matter of proper public concern a court must to consider these issues of responsibility and there will be a breach of Article 10 if it fails to do so.  On the other hand, even if a journalistic takes proper steps to investigate the truth of a story, damages for defamation may still be appropriate if the publisher misrepresents the facts which have been established.