Local tech news in a compact, digital format. City Duped By New Court Technology City officials are threatening a lawsuit against Maximus Inc, the company that was hired to supposedly make things easier for the municipal court system. Officials are giving the company until Thursday to come up with a plan to work out the bugs. The city has already dropped a cool $10 million into this flawed system. Continental Allows Cellphone Check In...
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Results tagged “lawsuit”
In 2003, Detroit's Electric Six effectively made it okay for heterosexual males to sing about gay bars to fellow heterosexual males without opening the door for a sexual harassment lawsuit or nursing a bloody nose. Newly armed with their latest and release, I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master, Electric Six is ready to blow Houston's mind one more time. "I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me...
Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market...
Good morning, Houston. Sure, you've heard a lot about Alamo defender Davy Crockett — but have you ever read his final letter? Soon you'll be able to see it in person: The Texas Historical Commission has bought the letter, which was discovered in a file folder last month, for $550,000. Crockett wrote the letter to his children Jan. 9, 1836, shortly after he arrived in Texas and less than two months before he died...
Here is a bizarre news story that makes the Blue Elephant cry…
Good morning, Houston. If you haven't gotten a speeding ticket in the city lately, consider yourself lucky — a lot of your fellow Houston drivers have. According to a report from the National Motorists Association, Houston is the third worst speed trap in the nation (up from fifth place last year). The ranking was based on the number of Houston-related posts to the NMA's Speed Trap Exchange — which, by the way, is definitely...
City Council candidate Roy Morales probably has more important things to do than deal with a signmaker who has accused him of not paying $1,000 he owed for signs made during the 2005 election. The printer, Michael Franks, says that Morales also owes him $4,000 from this year's election. Morales didn't deny that he owed Franks the money. The Morales campaign told ABC's Miya Shay that they were working out a payment plan with the...
There was a hearing yesterday on a request from a Richmond Avenue resident and business owner to order Metro officials to testify about its transit expansion plans, but there was no ruling — yet. Daphne Scarborough, an outspoken opponent of proposals to run a light rail line down Richmond, filed the motion in mid-April seeking information about the University Line alignment, Metro's substituting buses for trains on some of its proposed new transit lines, how...
Good morning, Houston. We're sure you've heard about the tornadoes that devastated the border city of Eagle Pass on Tuesday night, destroying buildings and killing at least 10 people. And now there's information on ways to help the people of Eagle Pass: State Rep. Pete Gallego (D-Alpine) has set up a page on his website with a list of places you can send donations, including banks and the San Antonio chapter of the Red...
KTRK has an exclusive interview with William Lewis, the man who was Tasered by an off-duty HPD officer as he tried to leave The Woman's Hospital of Texas with his newborn daughter early in the morning of April 12 — and Lewis really doesn't say much.
So you know how Lakewood Church pastors Joel and Victoria Osteen have taken a vow of poverty, right? Yeah, yeah, we're kidding — but if you're anything like Houstonist, you've wondered at one time or another exactly how much the Osteens are worth. (Go ahead, admit it.) Turns out we're not the only ones: Reginald McKamie, the attorney for Continental flight attendant Sharon Brown, asked a judge yesterday to make the Osteens' net worth public...
Oops! Houston siren Beyonce's getting sued. Seems she wanted to cover mid-90s popstar Des'ree's song. (You'd recognize Des'ree from her song "You Gotta Be", which Houstonist runs into at the gym every single time we go. Also? Five words: Sunny. Ninety-Nine. Point. One. Or is that four words? We never understood about the hyphenated thingies....) Ahem. Anyway.... Des'ree's song "I'm Kissing You", which was featured in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet back in 1996 somehow...
As we watched the ultra-classy Larry Birkhead celebrating his little bundle of cash solemnly announcing that he was the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby last week, we foolishly breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally," we thought, "the media can turn its attention to something else. Bring on the Imus!" We should have known better. Over the weekend, the AP reported that Howard K. Stern, Smith's former attorney (and ex-baby daddy contender), has filed suit...
Metro has issued a response to the legal action taken by rail opponent Daphne Scarborough, and it's a pretty strong-willed statement. They call this measure a "fishing expedition" because Scarborough did not file a lawsuit, she filed a "section 202 motion," hoping that a judge will grant the authority to start "fishing" for evidence against Metro, with the intent to file a lawsuit later on. Here is an excerpt from Metro's response, but the full text is online here:
Ubiquitous Richmond Avenue rail opponent Daphne Scarborough has pulled out a new weapon in her fight against the light rail expansion that she says would destroy her livelihood and her street: Scarborough has sued Metro, claiming that the transit agency has broken a "contract with the voters" established by the 2003 passage of the Metro Solutions referendum. Scarborough's focus in the suit isn't solely the contentious Richmond light rail alignment, but that's certainly a part of it: The suit claims that Metro has isn't complying with the terms of the referendum because the western section of the proposed University light rail line won't run totally on Westpark. Scarborough said she's filing suit because she has tried to talk with Metro for three years and has gotten nowhere: "I can't seem to get any straight answers," she said.
Looks like Misty Ann Weaver's defense attorneys won't be the only people picking through the rubble of the burned-out office building on the North Loop: The family of Jeanette Hargrove, one of three people killed in the March 28 fire, has filed suit against the building's owners and Weaver, the nurse who has confessed to setting the blaze, and they want their own investigation of the structure's fire safety systems. The suit, filed on behalf...
Remember Tom Nixon, the HPD officer who was reassigned and later fired after publicly criticizing the department's chase policy? Two bits of news about him this week: First, City Council is set to decide whether to spend $35,000 more fighting his suit, which alleges the city abridged his First Amendment rights by firing him; and second, Nixon is running for a seat on City Council. (Yeah, Nixon's candidacy in the special election for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs'...
We talked last week about how the city had revoked the certificate of occupancy for Carter's Grove, the north Houston apartment complex with a history of safety and code violations — and sure enough, city officials shut the place down yesterday after helping the last residents move out. The complex drew attention when two kids were nearly electrocuted while playing around an unlocked electrical transformer box in February, but the city said it had racked...
Things are apparently progressing — slowly — in the lawsuit against Victoria Osteen filed in September: The Chronicle is reporting that the attorney for a flight attendant accusing Osteen, the wife of Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen, of assault wants to have the interior of the airplane where the incident occurred photographed. This all goes back to Dec. 19, 2005, when Osteen reportedly went ballistic about some liquid that had been spilled on her first-class...
Good morning, Houston. Yeah, it's been a while since we had a Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee media moment — but now, thanks to Isiah Carey, we have a classic: a series of photos showing Jackson Lee's skill in getting in front of TV cameras during Sen. Hillary Clinton's visit to Houston last week. The hardest-working woman in Congress? You betcha — don't you know it's tough do to your own blocking? [via HouStoned] >>...
Looks like the end of the road for Friendswood's attempt to make English the city's official language: Last night, the City Council voted 5-2 not to include the measure on the May 12 municipal ballot. The idea, you'll remember, came about in November when a Friendswood resident tried (unsuccessfully) to communicate with a Spanish-speaking crew trimming trees near his house — that prompted the City Council to consider a measure requiring all city employees to speak English, but councilmembers later swapped that out for a proposed city charter amendment that would make English the city's official language. City Councilman Chris Peden, who insists that the measure was never an issue of "English only," asked that the amendment be placed on the ballot and said he wasn't upset that it didn't make it: "[The other councilmembers] voted their conscience," he told the Chronicle. "They did what they felt was right. I don't have a problem with that, honestly."
The Chronicle reports this morning that Mayor Bill White has decided to delay the addition of two City Council seats until the 2010 Census, saying none of the recent population estimates are accurate enough to trigger the potentially messy redistricting process.
A Katy woman has filed suit against ConAgra Foods Inc. claiming that she got sick after eating a jar of peanut butter that may have been contaminated with salmonella, making her the first person in Harris County to sue in connection with the nationwide peanut butter scare.The woman in question is Deborah Sanchez, a mother of four who said she became ill after using the potentially tainted Peter Pan creamy peanut butter on her pancakes. "It tasted really good," she told KPRC. But when she landed in the hospital, things weren't so great: "I thought I was going to die," she said. "I wasn't sure."
Michael Kubosh, the Houston bail bondsman and red-light camera opponent who made headlines in September when his plan to intentionally run a light backfired, is finally going to have his day in court: According to the Chronicle, Kubosh plans to file a lawsuit against the city in state district court this week. At issue, Kubosh said, is that the city overstepped its authority by installing the red-light cameras, which issue civil citations to the registered owners of cars they catch running red lights at intersections across the city: "The city has gone outside their legislative authority," Kubosh told the Chron. "We just can't let this go because accidents increase at intersections where these things are put up."
Good morning, Houston. You know what the problem is around this town? We'll tell you: mismatched news racks. But never fear — City Council is trying to save us. Under an ordinance presented to council this week, newspaper vendors would have to make their racks relatively the same size, keep them clean and in working order and paint them all the same color: forest green (we had some details back in the summer). The reaction?...
On Sundays, Houstonist runs opinion pieces relevant to life in Houston. The opinions expressed below are entirely those of the author. Myspace, the social networking website, is in the news again (did it ever leave?). Last week, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of five minors from around the country who were targeted by “online predators” via the site. The suit is calling for cash money - in the range of millions of dollars -...
You probably heard about Jerry Hines Jr., the city of Houston employee who was killed trying to help motorists on a Highway 59 entrance ramp during Wednesday's ice storm. But now there's a new development: Yesterday, Hines' family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a driver who they say caused the traffic accident that ended in Hines' death.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit yesterday against Lyondell Chemical Co. and two of its subsidiaries, accusing the companies of releasing harmful pollutants into the air and not doing anything to try to stop the problem. The suit says Lyondell, Equistar Chemicals and Millennium Petrochemicals released volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide from plants in La Porte, Channelview and Chocolate Bayou. "Texas will vigorously enforce environmental laws that protect the health...
The Texas First Court of Appeals overturned community activist Quanell X's conviction for evading arrest yesterday — and now Quanell X said he's going to sue the city of Houston.
Laid-back singer Jimmy Buffett is taking aim at a Galveston-based website he claims is falsely representing itself and selling items at too high a markup. Uh, not to take away from the gravity of the situation, but don't those claims relate to 99 percent of all beach-related retail enterprises?