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Hustler magazine will not have to pay $250,000 in punitive damages for publishing nude photos of pro wrestler Chris Benoit’s late wife, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. But the racy men’s magazine is still on the hook for $125,000 in compensatory damages to the estate of Nancy Benoit, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Nancy Benoit’s mother sued Hustler for publishing 20-year-old nude photos of her daughter without permission in March 2008 – about eight months after Nancy Benoit was killed by her husband, CNN reports....

If you’ve ever been a juror or watched a court case on television, you know that we rely on witness testimony to decide whether people are guilty. The more witnesses there are, and the more their stories agree with each other, the more likely it is that a jury will convict the defendant. Makes sense, right? Well, not quite. A recent study has found that too much agreement amongst many witnesses might be proof that witnesses are lying, or at least recalling incorrectly, reports Vocativ....

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, Kim Richards, must pay a friend thousands of dollars in compensation for a dog bite. Early last year, Kim Richard’s friend Kay Rozario was visiting at Richards’ house. According to Rozario, Richards’ dog Kinglsey, without provocation, attacked Rozario. The 80-year-old victim suffered wounds to her left hand and right arm. Rozario sued for more than a million dollars, claiming that Richards refused to pay her medical bills....

Keep an eye not just on your own holiday meals this year, but on what your pets are eating as well. The Kroger Co. recently announced that it is voluntarily recalling some of its pet foods from some Kroger retail stores because the products may pose a health risk to pets. The Kroger pet food recall includes Kroger, Old Yeller and Pet Pride dry dog and cat food and is due to the presence of aflatoxin, reports Yahoo News....

Police made an arrest in a suspected hate crime in suburban Philadelphia. The murder is a suspected “gay bashing,” as John Joe Thomas, 28 allegedly confessed to police that he killed his friend Murray Seidman, 70. Police arrived on the scene after Thomas called them. When they arrived, they found Thomas sitting down in the hallway crying. Thomas allegedly said “I’m not going down there again, there is too much blood....

CNN reports that Natasha Richardson, the award-winning actress and wife of Liam Neeson, has passed away after a ski accident. The news may have many people understandably wondering about the fragility of life and health. After all, Natasha Richardson was relatively young at 45, and by all accounts healthy, vibrant and full of life. Adding to that, she suffered the fall while skiing on a beginner’s slope. The accident has renewed calls for helmets while skiing, but while there may be merit to those suggestions, some suggest that a helmet might not have made any difference....

The Republican National Convention (RNC) barely started Monday but the first protester was arrested Sunday afternoon for having a machete. Jason T. Wilson was caught allegedly carrying his machete inside the ’event zone’ of the Tampa convention area. When police asked him to stop he refused and reportedly resisted arrest. He told police he was allowed to carry the weapon, reports Tampa Bay Times. Wilson was partially right. The issue wasn’t the weapon he was carrying....

Many of us have enjoyed sitting down for a good old round of Hasbro’s board game Monopoly. If so, you might remember one of the game’s cards giving us cash for a “bank error” in our favor. In the game, you’re gifted some cash and go on your merry way toward more acquisitions and real estate joy. Real life, however, was not so kind to a Pennsylvania couple, Randy Pratt and his wife Melissa, after they ended up with $177,250 in their bank account instead of a $1,772....

Burt Reynolds died unexpectedly, but he did leave a will, drafted seven years prior. Reynolds intentionally left his son, Quinton, out of the will, stating that he had provided for Quinton during his lifetime with a Declaration of Trust. Reynolds’ niece, Nancy Lee Brown Hess, is the personal representative of Reynolds’ estate. Why would Burt Reynolds intentionally leave his son out of his will, and instead, provide for him with a trust?...

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay more than $4 billion to settle lawsuits over its recalled metal hip implants. Why is this such a big deal? According to Reuters, J&J is expecting to resolve more than 7,500 lawsuits against the company’s DePuy orthopedics unit in both state and federal courts. Those lawsuits were brought by plaintiffs who have “already had the defective devices removed.” What does this proposed settlement hold for similar implant cases?...

Lawyer jokes abound and attorneys are widely mocked and reviled. But the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer has given many Americans a new lawyer to love. And he came just in time, according to The New Republic. One of the defense attorneys featured in the documentary, Dean Strang, has been making headlines and finding fans based on his portrayal in the series, which covers the murder trial of Steven Avery in 2007, who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit only to be accused of murder while his exoneration proceedings were happening....

Abusive relationships affect far too many individuals in this country, but there are ways that the law can help. Speaking with the New York Daily News, Katie Ray-Jones, president of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, noted that it’s often “difficult for victims [of abuse] to move forward.” It’s not a small problem, as family, financial, and legal ties commonly bind victims to their abusers. To help victims of abuse move on, here are five legal tips to consider:...

Jury selection has started today in the Barry Bonds perjury trial. While the parties attempt to find an unbiased jury in San Francisco (impossible?), we’re going to focus on just what makes this case so interesting. Though steroids have played a prominent part in the slugger’s legal history, he is not actually being prosecuted for illegal drug use. He is being prosecuted for lying under oath. Surprisingly, the Barry Bonds’ perjury trial is a great example of perjury and just how easy it is to prove guilt....

On Tuesday, U.K. officials agreed to extradite Richard O’Dwyer to the U.S. to face criminal copyright charges. The 23-year-old British college student ran TVShack, a linking website that directed users to pirated content hosted on third-party sites. Brits – and many U.S. techno-activists – are outraged at the decision, as O’Dwyer’s site was operated and hosted in Europe. They want an explanation for why the U.K. Home Secretary has approved the extradition....

After a car accident, police may come on the scene and prepare a police report. Police officers are human, and it’s not uncommon for them to make mistakes. So you may be wondering if you can have a police report changed. Unfortunately, the rules for changing police reports are generally vague. Typically, states leave it to individual police departments to determine when and how to change a police report. And many states that do address police reports changes simply leave it to the discretion of the officer who made the report....

In L.A., everything has a sequel. We are now one step closer to what many hope will be the last showing of the legal saga of director Roman Polanski, wanted since the 1970’s for sentencing on a conviction for unlawful sex with a minor. In a hearing today in a L.A. courtroom, Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza ruled that Polanski must face the court in person for sentencing and may not be granted the unusual step of being sentenced in absentia....

Sara Butler and her children stripped naked in the parking lot of a high school outside Philadelphia. But Butler is blaming some bad medicine interactions for the incident. Butler is on medication for Lupus and the combination of her treatments allegedly led her to think the world was ending. With that news she decided to gather all her children around her – which is an understandable impulse for any mother....

More legal drama has begun to unfold in the Lindsay Lohan lawsuit over the E-Trade “Talking Babies” Commercial. The firm is requesting that the court fight move to Manhattan. Lawyers for the financial firm filed hundreds of pages detailing Lindsay Lohan’s drug abuse, hard-partying, rehab stints and DUI arrests, the New York Post reports. Dina Lohan, the star’s mother, said the court papers are only going to help Lindsay’s lawsuit....

Not all of the country’s residents are native English speakers, nor is everyone fluent in the language. This can be a problem during natural disasters or other emergencies when timely information can be the difference between life and death. But currently, the Federal Communication Commission doesn’t require broadcasters to translate emergency alerts and broadcast the alerts in languages other than English. And yesterday a federal court sided with the FCC in a lawsuit challenging English-only emergency alerts....

A federal jury in Atlanta convicted Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, a 23-year-old Georgia man of conspiring with his previously convicted friend, Syed Haris Ahmed, of giving material support to terrorists by sending videos of Washington, D.C. landmarks like the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol, World Bank, and fuel storage tanks to supporters of ‘violent jihad’ and terrorist activities overseas. According to the indictment and evidence presented at trial, Sadequee and Ahmed traveled to Toronto, Canada in March 2005 to meet with, and discuss carrying out terrorist acts in the United States, and traveling to Pakistan to receive terror training....