In today's weird lawsuit news, the Daily News brings us the story of 67-year-old John Burke, a disabled bartender from Galway who lives alone in a rent-stabilized studio apartment on East 84th Street, for which he pays $288 a month. It's a humble and dark abode—especially since the building owner expanded the rear of the building into Burke's courtyard, choking out fresh air and sunshine. "I have a heart condition and I have no ventilation," Burke tells the News. But he does have an unexpected legal victory under his belt! more ›

A former employee of lingerie wholesaler Native Intimates says she was terminated by her supervisors simply for being too busty and attractive. Lauren Odes, 29, has filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against the company, alleging that her bosses asked her to tape her breasts down and wear her boyfriend’s oversize sweats to the showroom office. "When I was first told that I was too hot and that my breasts were too large, I was shocked," Odes said at a press conference yesterday. "After I was told to tape down my breasts, I cried." more ›

The big lawsuit filed by City Council members and Occupy Wall Street protesters wasn't the only civil lawsuit filed against the NYPD in federal court today! Another lawsuit, specifically concerning the NYPD's barricading of protesters at a demonstration last November, was filed today, seeking unspecified damages and an injunction stopping the NYPD from engaging in such tactics. more ›

Four New York City Councilmembers and a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters announced the filing of a big federal civil rights lawsuit (read it in full below) against the NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg. Councilmembers Letitia James, Melissa Mark-Viverito, Ydanis Rodriguez and Jumaane Williams appeared at a press conference at City Hall this morning to announce their lawsuit, which accuses the NYPD of routinely violating First Amendment rights and using excessive force to suppress dissent. Their lawsuit calls for the creation of an "outside monitor" to police the police. more ›

An aspiring cook has filed a lawsuit against the chef and owners of Spitzer's Corner, the popular Lower East Side scenester hangout that's previously been in trouble for serving booze to minors. According to the lawsuit (in full below) executive chef Sung Park, general manager David Moon, and owner Robert Shamlian violated multiple federal and state labor laws. Former employee Edward Kim claims they told him he would gain invaluable culinary experience from a renowned Michelin star-awarded chef, but instead made him slave away for up to 90 hours a week for as little as $3 an hour. more ›

The fancy Madison Avenue celebrity hotspot Nello—where the "market price" pasta with truffles comes with an infamous $275 price tag—is in the news again. Last time we heard from eccentric owner Nello Balan, it was when a judge threw out his million dollar lawsuit against lingerie model Le Call after he loaned her his $5000 umbrella and she returned it broken. Now Balan is the one getting sued—by employees who say Nello screws them out of overtime and tips. more ›

Since 1991, the NYPD has gotten permission from landlords to patrol the hallways of NYC apartment buildings in high-crime areas, as part of a crime-fighting tactic now called Operation Clean Halls. In some Clean Halls buildings, cops conduct floor-by-floor sweeps, called "vertical patrols," engaging in what critics call an overly aggressive enforcement strategy. Now the NYCLU and other groups have filed a class action lawsuit against the city to get the NYPD to stop the program, alleging that Clean Halls violates the rights of residents of those buildings and their guests, who are mainly black and Latino New Yorkers. more ›

Smoke shop entrepreneurs who thought they'd found a way around the city's exorbitant cigarette tax laws are learning that what they thought was a loophole is more like a noose. You might even say their dreams are going up in smoke (if you have no shame). City lawyers have been aggressively cracking down on smoke shops that sell discount "roll your own" cigarettes—customers buy loose tobacco, which is taxed at a much lower rate than cigarettes, then roll their own smokes using in-store machines. Six of these shops have already agreed to shut down in the face of legal action, and now two more are being targeted by the city and New York State. more ›

A federal judge has ordered the city to pay an estimated $128 million in back wages to minorities who applied to be firefighters with the FDNY, which is still 97 percent white and allegedly racist. Black and Hispanic applicants who took the department’s screening test in 1999 or 2002 and were not selected will be contacted about the settlement, which is intended to "recreate the conditions and relationships that would have been had there been no unlawful discrimination." more ›

SPOILER ALERT: There is a rather repulsive photo of what appears to be an animal toe below. If that kind of thing makes you squeamish, then scroll very carefully. (Or if that's what you're into, by all means skip ahead.) But don't blame us if your lunch is ruined; we didn't put the toe in the Sabra Spinach Artichoke dip that Andrew Brodsky bought at the Upper East Side Fairway at the end of September. Brodsky, 35, is now suing Sabra and Fairway over the unwanted garnish, which he discovered when it was on his tongue. more ›

A Staten Island woman says the NYPD wrongly forced her to go to the hospital while she was waiting for the ferry after a night of drinking in Manhattan. On December 8th last year, just before midnight, Chloe Sowers was sitting on the floor of the Lower Manhattan terminal drinking a coconut water and waiting for the boat to take her home. She was sitting on the floor because no seats were available, but this caught the eye of one Officer Kevin McKeon, who was so "concerned" about Sowers that she ended up handcuffed and taken to New York Downtown Hospital, where she was bound and drugged for the night against her will. more ›

NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, who was filmed pepper spraying a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters near Union Square in September, has been sued by two of the women who were injured in the incident. According to the Daily News, Chelsea Elliot and Jeanne Mansfield are suing Bologna and the city for damages for "physical pain and mental suffering." "I think he allowed his emotions to get the best of him," Mansfield said. more ›

The city's Law Department has filed two more lawsuits against stores that exploit a perceived loophole in the city's obscene cigarette tax law. You'll recall that New York Smokes, a retail tobacco outlet on Staten Island, was making bank selling customers loose tobacco, which is taxed at a far lower rate than cigarettes. Customers would then roll their own smokes in the store using cigarette stuffing machines, walking out with a pack for about $6—far less than the average $13 price. But then the city cracked down on that enterprise, and now the guv'ment is going after two more shops. more ›

Fed up with being stonewalled by the NYPD, the family of Mathieu Lefevre—an artist who was killed by a flatbed truck driver while riding his bike in Williamsburg in October—has filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court. At the beginning of December, the NYPD rejected the family's request for information under the Freedom of Information Law [FOIL], informing their lawyer that the investigation into Lefevre's death was ongoing, and therefore the NYPD would not share any documents related to said "investigation." You can read the lawsuit in full below. more ›

The company that manufactures Skee-Ball—the dull, repetitive game beloved by children and inebriated simpletons—is going after the Skee-Ball themed Williamsburg bar Full Circle, filing a lawsuit against the owners for trademark infringement. Full Circle has three Skee-Ball games, and owners Eric Pavony and Evan Tobias also founded a "Brewskee-Ball" League in 2005, after obtaining verbal permission from Skee-Ball, Inc. during a meeting with the company's CEO in Pennsylvania. But now it seems Skee-Ball has had a change of heart. more ›

A group of emotionally scarred commuters who were trapped on an A train for eight hours overnight during last year's Christmas weekend blizzard are suing the MTA. Nearly 500 souls were stuck aboard the train when it ground to a halt between the Aqueduct and Rockaway Boulevard stations around 1 a.m. on December 26th, as three feet of snow piled up around them. Desperation quickly set in: Twitter user OMJohnnyG wrote, "Son!!! I wanna go home!!! Dudes on the train talking about cannibalism lol I want out!!!" more ›

On the eve of the second anniversary of the Christmas Day underwear bomber, a man who helped stop the would-be bomber before he could blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit is suing for $10 million. Theophilus Maranga, a Dutchess County resident, has filed the lawsuit against thwarted terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Delta Air Lines, and Air France-KLM. In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday, Maranga says he “risked his life” by jumping on Umar Faroul Abdulmutallab after the Nigerian student lit his shorts on fire. more ›

For the third time in five years, B&H Photo and Video is being sued by employees who say the company has denied them promotions because of race or gender. Bronx residents Luis Santana and Carlos Marchand filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the huge retailer of denying them promotions and raises because they are Hispanic, the Daily News reports. And their lawyer says he'll make it a class action lawsuit if more people come forward (which, considering B&H's track record, is a definite possibility). more ›

A pedestrian who was sued by a cyclist that struck her in Central Park this summer has countersued. According to the lawsuit obtained by the Post, 28-year-old Meghan Rohan alleges that 46-year-old Sabine Von Sengbusch had "total disregard" when she hit Rohan and shattered her elbow. more ›

A cyclist dares to challenge the behavior of a pedestrian in Central Park, and the New York Post cannot BELIEVE the injustice. 46-year-old Sabine von Sengbusch is suing 28-year-old Meghan Rohan after von Sengbusch's bike struck Rohan after she allegedly walked into the bike lane near 69th Street and East Drive. Rohan shattered her elbow, but the cyclist is claiming the accident caused her "great physical pain and mental anguish." Maybe Rohan can use the Frisbee Defense? more ›

Julie Taymor, the envelope-pushing director who co-created the much-maligned Broadway spectacle Spider-Man: Please Make It Stop Turn Off the Dark, is suing the show's producers. After critics savaged the production before opening night, and several cast members sustained injuries, Taymor was pushed aside by the producers, who made significant changes before officially opening in April to mixed reviews and packed houses. Taymor's lawyer claims his client spent more than seven years creating the musical but was paid just $150,000—and that was five years ago. Now she's come to collect. more ›

A new lawsuit claims that the NYPD let Hispanic cops languish. Former detective Joseph Rivera, who worked the auto crimes division for over ten year is suing the NYPD for only promoting a single Latino cop to detective in the unit since 1997. more ›

Avert your gaze from the rabble on Wall Street to the real victims of the modern economy: highly successful restaurateurs. It's really difficult to manage a restaurant empire when you're getting sued for back pay and lost tips by your staff, says Joe Bastianich, who co-owns Eataly, Babbo, and Del Posto. "Money-hungry lawyers, through frivolous lawsuits, are shaking down the very foundation of Manhattan's restaurant industry," the money-hungry businessman tells the Post. "Someone in Albany needs to understand the agenda, what this is really costing the greatest restaurant city in the world." Despite this harshest of anti-business climates, restaurants in New York City grew by 42% in the last decade. more ›

A New Jersey teenager who seriously injured his leg after jumping down to the street from a fence around High Line is suing the city for $2.5 million, claiming that he was locked in the park and had no choice. "I crushed my knee, rupturing my ACL, and hurt my back. It really messed me up," 18-year-old Kirk Rasnick told the Daily News. Rasnick claims that the injuries he sustained on June 13 have prevented him from playing football during his senior year at Dickinson High School in Jersey City, and "you can't put a price on that." Except in this case: the price is $2.5 million, which works out to be around $700K per missed pep rally. more ›

A former NBC studio technician has filed a lawsuit against the network, claiming that co-workers hatefully insulted his Native American heritage by displaying a stereotypical Indian doll on a noose and calling it his daughter. As you can see from this photo, the doll was wearing a sign identifying it as "Baby Wells," and the ex-employee, Faruq "Peter" Wells, says a co-worker threw the doll at him, saying, "Here's your long-lost daughter!" more ›

Eater today points out an interesting lawsuit currently making its way through the courts against Upper West Side sushi restaurant. Susan Deprado claims that on the night of June 27, 2008, "somewhere around midnight" she received a takeout order of tuna rolls with spicy sauce on the side. Except she says the spicy sauce in question came with a little semen. more ›

A group of black firefighters are back in federal court this week for the next stage in the long-running lawsuit against the FDNY, which they accuse of discriminatory hiring practices. Last year, a judge blocked the FDNY from hiring recruits because he found the FDNY's previous three recruitment exams discriminated against nonwhites. The trial's current phase started off with a bang yesterday, when the plaintiffs submitted a sworn deposition by FDNY official Patricia Kavaler, who testified in 2008 about what she perceived as shady, nepotistic "back room" hiring practices that enabled white firefighter candidates to get hired despite troubling criminal records. more ›

A State Supreme Court judge has tossed a lawsuit filed by a former NYC firefighter who was trying to stop a mosque and community center from being constructed a couple of blocks from the site of the World Trade Center attacks. You may recall this mosque from last summer, when conservatives were going batshit crazy over it, holding ugly, xenophobic demonstrations and ranting on blogs about "Islamic supremacists who seek to desecrate the sacred ground of Ground Zero with a 15-story mega-mosque in a building destroyed in the 911 attacks." Oh, actually, that quote is from today. more ›

While not great for the city's coffers, Mayor Bloomberg's two-and-a-half terms have been good—financially if not emotionally—for discriminated city employees. The Times today has a long piece on discrimination lawsuits in Bloomberg's New York and the results, culled from FOIL requests, are very interesting. During Bloomberg's first two terms "the number of lawsuits by employees accusing the city of discrimination was 12 percent higher than" they were under Giuliani's watch and during that time "the city settled over 400 employee discrimination cases, for more than $69 million." At least one man managed to get two different discrimination settlements out of the city! more ›

If you're laying out in the sun this summer, getting those pretty cancer lines we all desire, and you start to inexplicably smell delicious BBQ, you bathing suit may in fact be cooking you! A Long Island woman is suing a swimwear manufacturer after the underwire of her bikini top gave her third degree burns. more ›