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Short week

Labor Day and Rosh Hashanah in one week makes for slow news.

South Florida Lawyers has more on the 11th Circuit "boy" case. The NY Times has gotten interested in the story:

Last month, for the third time and in the face of a 2006 rebuke from the United States Supreme Court, the federal appeals court in Atlanta said there were no racial overtones when a white supervisor called an adult black man ?boy.?
?The usages were conversational,? the majority explained, repeating what it had told the trial court after the Supreme Court ruled, and ?nonracial in context.? Even if ?somehow construed as racial,? the unsigned 2-to-1 decision went on, ?the comments were ambiguous stray remarks? that were not proof of employment discrimination.
Two Alabama juries had seen things differently.
They had heard testimony from another black Tyson worker, Anthony Ash, who recalled sitting in the cafeteria at lunchtime when the plant?s manager said, ?Boy, you better get going.? Mr. Ash said the manager?s tone was ?mean and derogatory.?
Mr. Ash?s wife was there. ?He?s not a boy,? Pam Ash shot back, according to her husband. ?He?s a man.?
Ms. Ash testified that the manager, Tom Hatley, ?just looked at me with a smirk on his face like it was funny.?
Mr. Ash explained to the jury why the remark stung.
?You know,? he said, ?being in the South, and everybody know being in the South, a white man says ?boy? to a black man, that?s an offensive word.?

I wonder how the 11th Circuit will deal with this case when the jury awards a big number to the wrongfully arrested:

An Orlando mother was arrested after disembarking from a cruise ship, mistaken for a suspected prostitute wanted in Central Florida.
Thirty-one-year-old Paola Londono spent more than 36 hours in a South Florida jail before her attorney could persuade a judge to let her out. She had been mistaken for a woman with the same name, but who was seven years younger, five inches taller and looked completely different.

Rumpole and I finally agreed to terms on our NFL bet. We will each take one team against the spread. This week I took TB -3. Wish me luck.

Full post as published by Southern District of Florida on September 08, 2010 (boomark / email).