Tribe-related legal news

A few of the regular commenters here are lawyers and/or law students, so I thought you might be interested in this recent decision by the 6th Circuit involving a lawsuit by a Tribe fan.

The fan was sitting in the bleachers at a game against the D-Rays, and was heckling Russ Branyan with the oh-so-clever taunts of "Branyan, you suck!" and "Branyan, you have a fat ass!"

A security guard asked him to "cut it out."  The fan ignored him.  So the guard escorted the fan out of the stadium.  On the way out, a scuffle ensued.  The guard and the fan disagree about who started the scuffle.  

The fan sued the guard for violating his civil rights, including his first amendment right of free speech.  The district court ruled that the suit was untimely and that the guard had immunity from suit.  The 6th Circuit reversed.

Although the court allowed the suit to go forward, the court also expressed some skepticism about the plaintiff's likelihood of ultimate success: "For a baseball fan to make a 'federal case' out of being ejected from a game may well strike many as a colossal waste of judicial resources. A jury might well agree."

Amen.  I think the guard clearly over-reacted by ejecting the fan, but give me a break.  This is not the sort of civil rights violation that should lead to a lawsuit.  Let it go, dude, let it go.

Here's a link to the opinion:
http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/06a0355p-06.pdf