Court Roundup

Florida
Jury finds Bubba the Love Sponge didn’t defame
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A jury has found that Bubba the Love Sponge Clem didn’t defame another disc jockey.
The jury deliberated for three hours Wednesday. Radio disc jockey Todd “MJ” Schnitt filed the suit, claiming Clem’s on-air statements about Schnitt and his wife, Michelle, were injurious.
Schnitt claimed that Clem and his Bubba Radio Network defamed the Schnitts and incited Clem’s fans, known as “Bubba’s Army,” to harass the family.
Clem has testified that the statements outlined in Schnitt’s lawsuit were opinion, hyperbole, satire and directed toward a public figure, and therefore protected by the First Amendment.
The judge had previously dismissed five counts against Clem in the case.

Georgia
Groups appeal ruling to let Navy train near whales
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Environmental groups asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to overturn a judge’s ruling that cleared the Navy to build a $100 million undersea training range off Georgia and Florida in waters that conservationists fear would put warships and submarines too close to endangered right whales.
The Southern Environmental Law Center filed its appeal brief with the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta. It asked the court to schedule oral arguments in the case.
The law center represents about a dozen conservation groups opposing the Navy’s plans to install a web of cables on the ocean floor about 50 miles offshore to allow sailors from nearby bases in both Georgia and Florida to train with a mix of submarines, surface ships and aircraft. The undersea array would include about 300 sensors covering an area of about 500 square miles.
Conservationists sued in 2010, saying war games in that area would pose a risk to right whales, which migrate each winter to the coasts of Georgia and Florida to give birth to their calves. Experts say only about 400 of the whales remain, and each death brings the species a significant step closer to extinction.
U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood disagreed in a ruling last September. She concluded the Navy took a “hard look” at the potential risks to right whales and reasonably concluded they would be minimal.
Wood’s ruling also cited case law that says judges should give “great deference” to military commanders on issues dealing with training, readiness and national security.

Louisiana
Judge tosses Saints fan’s suit over bounty probe
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans Saints ticket holders who blame NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for the team’s disappointing season aren’t entitled to special compensation for their suffering, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Helen “Ginger” Berrigan dismissed a class-action lawsuit that a Saints season-ticket holder, David Mancina, filed against the NFL and Goodell over the league’s bounty investigation, which led to suspensions of players, coaches and its general manager.
The suit claimed the NFL’s sanctions against the team over its alleged system of offering cash bonuses to Saints players for big hits punished ticket holders more than anyone else and sought more than $5 million in damages.
Berrigan rejected the notion that Saints ticket holders were the only ones who could have experienced “mental suffering” from the team’s 7-9 record this season.
“Rather, that agony has been much more widely felt by the Who Dat Nation,” Berrigan wrote in her ruling, which came only days before New Orleans hosts Sunday’s Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens.
Mancina, 56, of Mandeville, claimed he and other ticket holders were entitled to compensation for the diminished vale of their tickers and their “personal emotional reaction to the unwarranted penalties inflicted on their beloved team, players, coaches, and executives.”
Berrigan, however, said Mancina hadn’t provided any legal support for the argument that a “sport fan has rights greater than those of a spectator, regardless of how ardent his team devotion may be.”

Pennsylvania
Girl back to class after suspension over bubble gun
MOUNT CARMEL, Pa. (AP) — A 5-year-old kindergartner is headed back to class in central Pennsylvania after being suspended for comments she made to another girl about a pink toy gun that blows soapy bubbles
Officials say the girl, whose name has not been released, told one of her classmates in the Mount Carmel Area School District she was going to shoot her with a Hello Kitty pink bubble gun machine earlier this month. She was later suspended 10 days, but the discipline was reduced to two.
The Patriot-News reports Robin Ficker, an attorney representing the family, says the girl will return to class at Mount Carmel Elementary School on Thursday.
Ficker has said the girl didn’t even have the bubble gun with her and has never fired a real gun.