This American Life fans should recall the recent story of the 'P.I. Moms,' which aired last fall, and which was based on a story originally broken in Diablo Magazine. It involved a totally sketchy private investigator named Christopher Butler from Concord who hired East Bay housewives to help investigate people, and who was subsequently featured on Dr. Phil and the Today show — and then he did this crazy thing where he reenacted investigations and/or created them wholesale for the Diablo journalist, Peter Crooks, unbeknownst to him, and then tried to scare a teenager straight by pretending to arrest him on drug charges, and stealing his ecstasy to resell it. Well, Butler's back in the news this week as the lawsuits against him are mounting from ex-husbands whose wives hired Butler to entrap them into DUIs. more ›

Yesterday, the Board of Supervisors agreed to pay out a nearly quarter-million-dollar settlement to the victim of some shoddy street surfacing. The 68-year-old victim of the city's boobytrap was leaving the San Francisco Ballet's season opener two years ago when she stepped in a flooded pothole on Franklin Street and broke both her feet in the process. more ›

A federal judge in Sacramento has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a marijuana dispensary up there that argued that the federal government broke its promise in launching its recent crackdown on the medical marijuana industry across the state. Citing the 2009 Ogden memo, in which the Obama administration instructed federal prosecutors not to focus energy on marijuana enforcement, the lawsuit was one of four filed in each of CA's federal districts trying to state the same case about feds being overly mean to the pot trade. In this case, as in two others already decided in Oakland and San Diego courts, the judge was basically like, "Guys, that was just a memo." more ›

Matt Gonzalez, the former Board of Supervisors President and current chief attorney in the San Francisco public defender's office, has been doing some moonlighting for a client with a $16 million lawsuit out against the city of San Francisco. As the Chronicle's Mustache & Mustache report today, Gonzalez is currently taking a monthlong vacation from his $188,000-per-year city gig to help a former law partner argue a case in which Cobra Solutions Inc., makers of administration software, claims they were banned from winning some city contracts after becoming mixed up in a bribery scheme. more ›

Two civil lawsuits were filed today on behalf of the City of San Francisco against two Tenderloin businesses that are considered "host businesses" for drug sales and the fencing of stolen property. The businesses are Barah's Market at the corner of Leavenworth and Turk, and Razan Deli & Grocery nearby at 391 Ellis Street. City Attorney Dennis Herrera says these lawsuits were needed to help kids and seniors and to "create an environment where people can thrive and be the best we can be." more ›

Remember this case, in which the National Center for Lesbian Rights took on a discrimination case on behalf of three allegedly straight players on San Francisco's D2, a softball team that is part of the San Francisco Gay Softball League? The players got kicked off the team after their sexuality was called into question during league play, and the lesbian lawyers found this highly offensive. Challengers on the Atlanta Mudcats team claimed the players were straight ringers, and that this violated the rule stating that there could only be two non-gay players on the team. more ›

Well, the opening volley by the Justice Department going after the medical marijuana trade in California was met first with an over-net return in the form of a letter from a group of pot-friendly Congresspeople, and now a strong back-hand from the industry itself in the form of a lawsuit, announced today, seeking an immediate order from a federal judge to stop the crackdown on dispensaries and property owners. more ›

According to the Associated Press, a San Jose Panda Express is in a world of trouble after allegedly discriminating against Latino employees. "Federal officials are suing a San Jose Panda Express, accusing the restaurant of making Latino workers clean toilets and perform other menial work while Asian employees stood around and watched." The suit also claims that the manager "disciplined Latino employees more harshly and more frequently than their Asian counterparts." more ›

Perhaps because of their ongoing litigious efforts in a Massachusetts federal court, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss simply could not stay silent about some recent public remarks by former Harvard president Larry Summers in which he referred to the twins as "assholes." Summers was speaking at Fortune's "Brainstorm Tech Conference" earlier this week and, perhaps to amuse the audience, he recounted the meeting he had with the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra in April of 2004, which was dramatized in 2010's The Social Network. To wit: "One of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday afternoon at three o'clock, there are two possibilities. One is that they're looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an asshole. This was the latter case." more ›

Those greedy, seemingly quite stubborn Winklevoss twins (portrayed by the handsome and strapping Armie Hammer in The Social Network), have finally decided to throw in the towel and stop trying to undo the settlement they reached with Facebook back in 2008, which was then worth $65 million. Turns out, as CBS reports, the $45 million in stock that was offered in that settlement would now be worth $100 million, so the poor dears have chosen not to take their fight all the way to the Supreme Court. more ›

Five new lawsuits were brought against PG&E in San Mateo County Superior Court yesterday, with five families affected by the September 9 inferno suing the utility for unspecified damages as well as the removal of the gas pipeline from the neighborhood. These are not the first suits to reach court, with the first class action suit arriving swiftly on September 17, and another earlier this month, demanding that PG&E turn over control of its $100 million victims' fund to an independent body. more ›

The cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton, along with five environmental and citizens groups, filed suit Monday to stop the proposed high-speed rail that will rip through their quiet enclaves, if and when its built. The towns have banded together to call bullshit on an environmental impact report produced by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, claiming that the report shows inflated ridership numbers. In legalese, here's what they said in the suit, "The defective and inaccurate ridership and revenue information ... resulted in the [Authority] not being able to make accurate and informed choices among various project alternatives and in not being able to properly or accurately determine the financial feasibility of various project alternatives and mitigation measures." more ›

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg ruled last week in favor of San Francisco's ranked choice voting system, which has been in effect since 2004. Sunset district resident Ron Dudum filed the suit, calling the system unconstitutional, after he narrowly lost to Ed Jew during the 2006 election. The judge concluded that while the system does "exert some burden on voting rights, it is not severe." more ›

For the next seven years, as a new Transbay Terminal is constructed, commuters gathering at the temporary, mostly al fresco transit hub downtown will be going without restrooms -- or just finding a discreet spot, Dolores Park-style. Greyhound passengers are allowed a restroom, and AC Transit workers have a toilet there, but no one else. As KGO reports, this could spell lawsuits, seeing as there are inevitably going to be a lot of people with medical conditions and such for whom a nearby restroom is a necessity. But who to sue first? [KGO] more ›

Due to poor reception on the new iPhone 4, angry customers are hitting Apple with legal action "Apple is engulfed in at least four different federal lawsuits over reception problems with its new iPhone, as customers and their attorneys race to build class-action cases against the company," Valleywag reports. "Angry customers, meanwhile, are reportedly swarming lawyers." Yikes. Is it really that bad, iPhone 4 users? (Like, worse than 3G reception?) According to Steve Jobs, these are just rumors. When one customer sent the Apple an angrily desperate email about their lack of reception, Jobs replied, "You are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down." more ›

A judge in NYC has ruled that Critical Mass needs a parade permit. more ›

Local kook Stanley Hilton is suing San Francisco International Airport for $15 million for creating noise and smog that led to his divorce. He's also suing the real estate agent for selling him the San Mateo county house in 2003 for $1.4 million, saying that everything went down hill after he and his wife moved there. Hilton is representing himself in the case, and despite being an experienced trial lawyer, he was "deemed ineligible" to practice law back in August, right around the time he sued a building for $20 million after he got stuck in an elevator. Needless to say, 85% of NBC Bay Area readers are laughing at him. more ›

Be careful what you say about corporations and public entities on Twitter, dear readers! This is not your personal IM and someone might just try to sue your ass. Case in point: a Chicago woman who is being sued by Horizon Group Management, a real estate management company over a tweet she twittered regarding the company's alleged love of moldy apartments. They believe her little <140 character complaint is worth $50K, but we kind of doubt a judge will agree... especially a judge who doesn't really grasp this whole twit business. This all follows on the much more amusing tale of Courtney Love getting sued for defamation over her repeated Twitter rants about clothing designer Dawn Simorangkir, who she claimed was gouging her with bills for custom clothing that sucked. more ›

Bon voyag-ee, Cosco Busan! And don't come back! The leaky Cosco Busan ship that contaminated our beautiful bay with oil is expected to get clearance to get the heck outta Frisco, setting sail at noon today to head back to South Korea. more ›

-- Girl fight! [KGO] more ›

Since February, that's $670,381.39. It's been a busy month for lawyers: Muni's conceding $131,695.06 (about the cost of a bribe to Ted Stevens, or one foot of collapsed-bridge repairs, or a single union employee, or an English teacher in Seoul, or your very own hair salon) in settlements for August in nine separate cases. more ›

June is busting out all over! With lawsuits, we mean. Added to the total from a few weeks ago, we're up to $456,565.92 in Muni claims since February. Wow, that's a lot of money. Sure would've gone a long way toward hiring a few more drivers, or repairing a few more buses, or buying a few more NextMuni signs. Oh well. more ›

Some fights seem really really important to the folks involved, and utterly mystifying to everyone else. You know like when you see two pigeons fighting over a hamburger bun, and you can't decide which one to root for because it seems like they both want the same thing and they'd just be better off sharing? Or another example: the unnecessary feud going on at the Cable Car Museum. more ›

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! more ›

What was long rumored is now true as the Beatles and Apple settled their trademark issues over the apple trademark. They are now both expected to sue Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin. What this means is that Beatles songs could be showing up on iTunes any minute now. Bloggers everywhere like this deal because when you give them a cute, Brangelina like nickname, it's still Apple. more ›

The battle over that athletic center at Berkeley took another turn as a camp out in the oaks that was set up to support all protestors up in the trees was rousted by the cops this morning. According to reports, around 6 or so, the cops came to chase everyone away and then came in and swept up all the camping equipment and supplies, supposedly including people's laptops. Now that's just mean. more ›

You know that totally obvious idea of creating some sort of general pass that works on the plethora of public transportation options? And you know how it's so obvious that you want to bang your head against the table that it hasn't happened yet. Well, it's happening, finally. Or at least a trial run of it. more ›

One good thing about being the area known as having the most-liberal, terrorist loving court system is that we get all the fun lawsuits happening here. Which would describe a lawsuit filed a couple of days ago against the Federal Government at the US District in San Francisco for slacking on a global warming report. more ›

That eavesdropping case we've been following took another step to eventually seeing the light of as an appeals court has decided to review the decision by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker that the lawsuit should move forward despite the whining of the Federal Government. The eavesdropping case, for those who don't remember, was brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the Government and AT&T for reading things they shouldn't be reading. Of what, we don't know but its super serious and of utmost importance to the War on Terror. And porn. We're sure somewhere they're checking out porn. more ›

Yeah, we know, totally obvious title for the post -- they can't all be winners, okay? more ›