Weekly Briefs: 'Taco Tuesday' trademark spat resolved; Trump Organization settles with Michael Cohen
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‘Taco Tuesday’ trademark abandoned
Taco John’s has agreed to give up its “Taco Tuesday” trademark after Taco Bell sought its cancellation in what it described as a “liberation” campaign. Taco John’s CEO Jim Creel said in a statement “paying millions of dollars to lawyers to defend our mark just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.” The company did pledge to donate $100 for each of its stores to a nonprofit supporting restaurant workers and challenged Taco Bell to do the same. (Taco John’s announcement, Reuters, Inc.)
Michael Cohen settles fee dispute with Trump Organization
Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for former President Donald Trump, has reached a confidential settlement in his fee lawsuit against the Trump Organization, lawyers told a judge Friday. Once a Trump defender, Cohen alleged in congressional testimony that Trump is a racist, a con man and a thief. Cohen’s suit claimed that the Trump Organization agreed to cover his attorney fees for congressional hearings and investigations, but it stopped paying after he agreed to cooperate. (Law360, the New York Times)
Ex-ACLU legal chief dies at 95
Melvin L. Wulf, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1962 to 1977, has died at age 95. Before Wulf took the job, the ACLU’s legal work mainly focused on filing amicus briefs. Wulf pushed the group to represent people for civil liberties violations in a “widespread expansion” of legal work, according to the ACLU. He argued 10 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and oversaw creation of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, which was led by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (The New York Times, American Civil Liberties Union press release)
Judge’s order curbing US contact with social media is temporarily stayed
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans has temporarily blocked a federal judge’s curbs on the Biden administration’s contacts with social media. Chief U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana had blocked the contacts in a lawsuit alleging that U.S. efforts to stop misinformation was an attempt to suppress protected speech. The 5th Circuit plans a quick hearing to consider whether to keep the stay in place pending appeal. (Reuters, Politico, the 5th Circuit’s July 14 order)
Trump loses new-trial bid in sexual assault case
Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York has rejected former President Donald Trump’s request for a new trial in the sexual assault lawsuit by writer E. Jean Carroll. Jurors had found in May that Trump was liable for $5 million for sexually assaulting the writer in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room and then defaming her by denying that it happened. Kaplan said the verdict was not a “seriously erroneous result” and was not a “miscarriage of justice.” (Reuters, Courthouse News Service)
