Quiz: Test your knowledge of March's top legal news stories
Test your knowledge of the past months most importantand weirdestlegal news
March 28, 2013 at 01:38 PM
13 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Law.com
As March comes to a close, it's that time again: Time to look back at the biggest–and strangest–legal stories of the past month. Read through the following 10 questions, and then click through to the next page to see how well you remember your large sugary drinks, Supreme Court arguments and more.
1. Which notorious inside trader's family member was also charged with insider trading this month?
a. Rajat Gupta's son
b. Raj Rajaratnam's younger brother
c. Disbarred attorney Matthew Kluger's wife
2. True or false: A New York Supreme Court justice struck down New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's sugary drink ban because it had too many loopholes
3. This week, DLA Piper addressed several emails—written by a few of its former lawyers—which surfaced as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the firm, calling them “an unfortunate attempt at humor.” To what did those emails refer?
a. Sexual harassment
b. Overbilling
c. Bribery
d. Embezzlement
4. A federal judge recently awarded a California man $8,000 after he suffered which of the following calamities on a trip to Disneyland?
a. Getting stuck on the “It's a Small World Ride” for 30 minutes
b. Being assaulted by a drunken employee dressed as Mickey Mouse
c. Having his credit card mistakenly charged for $100,000 in admission costs
d. Being accidentally locked into the park overnight
5. In a speech to the American Bar Association last week, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) General Counsel Andrew Weissmann called which of the following a “top priority” for the agency this year?
a. Going after overseas hackers in Asia and Eastern Europe
b. Increasing transparency around controversial drone strikes
c. Cracking down on illegal weapons trafficking
d. Monitoring Internet communications and cloud storage in real-time
6 . Which pharmacy is raising privacy concerns by forcing employees to undergo medical screening or pay a fee?
a. CVS
b. Rite-Aid
c. Walgreens
d. Duane Reed
7. Broccoli made frequent appearances during last year's Supreme Court arguments over the Affordable Care Act. This week, culinary metaphors surfaced again at the high court, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg invoked which foodstuff during arguments over gay marriage?
a. Milk
b. Foie gras
c. Spaghetti
d. Lettuce
8. Which of the following strange lawsuits was actually filed this month?
a. A pretzel enthusiast sued Rold Gold, claiming its pretzels are too sharp and cut the roof of her mouth and her esophagus.
b. An attendee of Chicago's St. Patrick's Day Parade is suing the city for the costs of repairing a broken jaw he says he sustained when one of the parade's Irish dancers kicked him in the chin.
c. A concerned mother is suing McDonald's for not monitoring or cleaning its PlayPlaces, claiming her toddler ate a used condom in a McDonald's PlayPlace on Chicago's South Side.
9. What kind of cases did National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Lafe Solomon say the agency is seeing increase?
a. Racial discrimination cases
b. Americans with Disabilities Act cases
c. Social media cases
d. Sexual harassment cases
10. The European Union has taken plenty of enforcement action against Microsoft Corp. over the past decade, and that trend continued this month. What did the tech company do to draw the EU's ire?
a. Buy up several major European tech companies, sparking monopoly concerns
b. Conduct secret surveillance on European users at the behest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
c. Publicly criticize a recently passed EU antitrust regulation
d. Fail to offer users a choice of web browser
1. Which notorious inside trader's family member was also charged with insider trading this month?
a. Rajat Gupta's son
b. Raj Rajaratnam's younger brother
c. Disbarred attorney Matthew Kluger's wife
Answer: b. Raj Rajaratnam's younger brother
The Rajaratnam family is creating a dynasty of the worst kind. Big brother Raj is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence for an insider trading scheme he perpetrated as hedge fund manager at Galleon Group. Now little brother Rajarengan has been accused of conspiring with Raj five years ago on material nonpublic information about Clearwire Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
2. True or false: A New York Supreme Court justice struck down New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's sugary drink ban because it had too many loopholes
Answer: True
New York Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling called the ban “arbitrary and capricious,” saying that its many exemptions—including for milk- and alcohol-based beverages and drinks sold in grocery and convenience stores—rendered it somewhat less than effective. Tingling also found that the Board of Health overstepped its authority by passing the ban, saying the board can only regulate New York City's food supply “when the city is facing eminent danger due to disease.”
3. This week, DLA Piper addressed several emails—written by a few of its former lawyers—which surfaced as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the firm, calling them “an unfortunate attempt at humor.” To what did those emails refer?
a. Sexual harassment
b. Overbilling
c. Bribery
d. Embezzlement
Answer: b. Overbilling
The emails came to light as part of litigation that began when DLA Piper sued a former client, Adam Victor, for failing to pay $675,000 in legal fees. Victor filed a counterclaim in which he alleged that the firm overbilled him, and he offered up the series of emails as evidence.
The online correspondence contained such gems as: “Now Vince [Roldan, another DLA attorney] has random people working full time on random research projects in standard 'churn that bill, baby! mode,” and “I hear we are already 200K over our estimate—that's Team DLA!” The firm, however, maintained in an internal memo that the communications, though unprofessional, were simply attempts at humor.
4. A federal judge recently awarded a California man $8,000 after he suffered which of the following calamities on a trip to Disneyland?
a. Getting stuck on the “It's a Small World Ride” for 30 minutes
b. Being assaulted by a drunken employee dressed as Mickey Mouse
c. Having his credit card mistakenly charged for $100,000 in admission costs
d. Being accidentally locked into the park overnight
Answer: a. Getting stuck on the “It's a Small World Ride” for 30 minutes
When the ride broke down the day after Thanksgiving in 2009, Disney employees managed to lead other passengers to freedom. But Jose Martinez, who uses a wheelchair, evidently couldn't be immediately evacuated, and was forced to listen to the ride's infamous theme song for half an hour. Martinez suffers from high blood pressure and panic attacks, both of which were exacerbated by his ordeal, according to his lawyer.
5. In a speech to the American Bar Association last week, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) General Counsel Andrew Weissmann called which of the following a “top priority” for the agency this year?
a. Going after overseas hackers in Asia and Eastern Europe
b. Increasing transparency around controversial drone strikes
c. Cracking down on illegal weapons trafficking
d. Monitoring Internet communications and cloud storage in real-time
Answer: d. Monitoring Internet communications and cloud storage in real-time
Under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, the FBI can require telephone and Internet providers to install surveillance capabilities on their networks and equipment. But the statute doesn't apply to companies that provide online chat, email or cloud services, such as Skype, Slate reports.
The agency can ask these providers to assist with surveillance using Title III orders, but Weissmann says that increased real-time surveillance would help to monitor communications on sites such as Dropbox and Gmail, which “are being used for criminal conversations.”
6. Which pharmacy is raising privacy concerns by forcing employees to undergo medical screening or pay a fee?
a. CVS
b. Rite-Aid
c. Walgreens
d. Duane Reed
Answer: a. CVS
According to a new policy intended to cut health care costs and increase productivity, all CVS Caremark Corp. employees will have to receive a medical exam or pay a $600 yearly fee. Critics worry that this could lead to discrimination against sick workers, and violate their right to privacy, but courts have upheld similar policies in the past. CVS claims that it won't see employees' medical information—it will go straight to WebMD, the program's third-party administrator.
7. Broccoli made frequent appearances during last year's Supreme Court arguments over the Affordable Care Act. This week, culinary metaphors surfaced again at the high court, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg invoked which foodstuff during arguments over gay marriage?
a. Milk
b. Foie gras
c. Spaghetti
d. Lettuce
Answer: a. Milk
The high court heard two same-sex marriage cases this week. The first revolved around Proposition 8, California's ban on gay marriage; the second dealt with the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to same-sex couples.
Ginsburg's quote came during oral arguments in the latter case, when she noted that, even in states where gay marriage is legal, same-sex spouses still do not have all the same rights as heterosexual married couples, resulting in “two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.”
8. Which of the following strange lawsuits was actually filed this month?
a. A pretzel enthusiast sued Rold Gold, claiming its pretzels are too sharp and cut the roof of her mouth and her esophagus.
b. An attendee of Chicago's St. Patrick's Day Parade is suing the city for the costs of repairing a broken jaw he says he sustained when one of the parade's Irish dancers kicked him in the chin.
c. A concerned mother is suing McDonald's for not monitoring or cleaning its PlayPlaces, claiming her toddler ate a used condom in a McDonald's PlayPlace on Chicago's South Side.
Answer: c. A concerned mother is suing McDonald's for not monitoring or cleaning its PlayPlaces, claiming her toddler ate a used condom in a McDonald's PlayPlace on Chicago's South Side.
We're sorry to report that the truth is grosser than anything we could make up ourselves. Anishi Spencer is suing McDonald's Corp. for negligence, seeking at least $50,000 in damages for an incident in which her son allegedly ingested a used condom off the floor of a PlayPlace and later coughed up a piece of it.
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