Rod Boggs and Bill Hart, who have lived in the four unit condo since 2006, said the Harrisons and their 17-year-old son have done everything from report false accusations to the police, attempt to instigate fist fights, hurled slurs, let the air out of the couple’s car tires, threatened to kill their cat and more.

Though Mr. Harrison denied the claims that he and his wife told the couple that “gays weren’t welcome at Brighouse,” he was not believed.

“I have concluded that Mr. Harrison was not a credible witness,” Justice Doug Halfyard wrote. “I have grave concerns about his honesty, and I would not accept his testimony on the disputed points, unless I was satisfied that his evidence was confirmed by other independent and reliable evidence.”

Justice Halfyard did not award greater damages to the men because “to a limited extent” they had provoked the Harrisons, primarily by making complaints to the building. Among other things, the Harrisons had to remove their basketball hoops and provide adult supervision for their children in the pool.

Though Hart admitted to calling Patricia Harrison several names, he insists that he never called her “fat” to her face.

Read the full Vancouver Sun article here.

The firefighters – Alex Kane, Chad Allison, Capt. John Ghiotto and Capt. Jason Hewitt – claimed they were subjected to sexually charged conduct and lewd comments while riding a fire engine in the July 2007 parade, which drew about 150,000 spectators.

The firefighters’ attorney, Charles LiMandri, said during his closing argument that his clients were targets of vulgar gestures and catcalls while being forced to watch barely clothed men and women simulate sex acts and touch themselves and one another.

“The Fire Department knew what goes on there,” LiMandri told the jury.

This was the second trial on the firefighters’ claims. In October, jurors were unable to reach a verdict.

LiMandri requested up to $1 million for each client at the first trial. He didn’t propose specific damages at this trial.

A crew that volunteered to ride a fire engine pulled out shortly before the parade because the captain’s mother died. LiMandri told the jury that department supervisors didn’t try to find other volunteers, but gave the assignment to the crew in the city’s Hillcrest area, home to a large gay population where the parade is held.

The firefighters’ attorney argued that his clients objected but weren’t taken seriously. The city said the firefighters expressed discomfort but didn’t complain of sexual harassment at the time.

Deputy City Attorney Don Shanahan said the firefighters weren’t satisfied after Chief Tracy Jarman apologized and promised to change the department’s policy and use only volunteers in the parade.

“The department bent over backwards,” Shanahan told jurors.

The city will appeal the verdict and oppose any motions to pay the firefighters’ legal fees, Shanahan said.

(New Orleans, Louisiana) A man who worked as a driver for Eddy Curry is suing the New York Knicks center, alleging Curry owes him money, sexually harassed him and berated him with racist slurs.

Curry denies the allegations.

“I’m shocked, really,” said Curry, who missed the Knicks’ 101-95 victory at New Orleans on Monday night with right knee soreness. “He approached my friends a while back, trying to get money. I just never, ever thought it would go past what it did, which was just idle threats, money-or-else kind of stuff.”

Dave Kuchinsky alleges in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York that Curry owes him $98,000 in back pay and expenses, according to a story in the New York Post. Newsday reported Tuesday that Kuchinsky is also seeking $5 million in compensatory damages.

Kuchinsky also accuses Curry of exposing himself and harassing the former driver and said Curry referred to his Jewish heritage in a derogatory way, calling him a “cracker,” “white slave,” “white devil” and “grandmaster of the KKK.”

Curry said he never made such comments.

“Everyone who knows me knows I’m not a racist. I’ve never made a comment like that, playing, or nothing,” Curry said. “Aside from the fact I wouldn’t do it because I’m not racist, I wouldn’t do it because I wouldn’t want someone to play with me like that. That’s incredible, man.”

Curry, 26, is married with four children. He is in his eighth NBA season and fourth with the Knicks. He has played in only one game this season because of knee injuries.

The lawsuit comes a little more than a year after former Knicks team president and coach Isiah Thomas was found by a jury to have sexually harassed former team executive Anucha Browne Sanders. MSG, the company that owns the Knicks, was ordered to pay $11.6 million in damages.

Curry portrayed the lawsuit against him as a desperate ploy for money by Kuchinsky, who was his employee for three years ending last October.

“It’s like a prime example of you got to watch who’s around you,” Curry said. “This is a guy who I really thought he was my friend up until the last four, five months. I can’t even believe this happened. … I can’t believe it went this far. I can’t believe someone would represent something like that.”

(Geneva) A brother of the United Arab Emirates’ ruler appealed to a Swiss court Monday to overturn his conviction for assaulting an American with his belt in a luxury hotel bar.

A lawyer for Sheik Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan denied that the 38-year-old whipped Silvano Orsi, 40, after the American declined a bottle of champagne the sheik offered him in August 2003.

Defense lawyer Marco Crisante urged a three-judge panel in the Geneva cantonal (state) criminal court to declare the sheik innocent and annul the 10,000 Swiss franc ($9,820) fine imposed by the Geneva police tribunal in July.

The lower court had convicted the sheik of inflicting “bodily harm with the use of a dangerous object” and also imposed a suspended penalty of 540,000 francs ($530,000), which would be payable in the event of another infraction in Switzerland during the next three years.

Geneva’s chief prosecutor, Daniel Zappelli, told the appeals court that it should uphold the verdict. Zappelli said two former hotel employees and a security officer had independently testified that they had seen the sheik assaulting Orsi.

Crisante said Orsi’s accusations were “false” and purely motivated by his desire to gain money from the sheik.

Orsi, a resident of Rochester, N.Y., claims that after he refused the champagne, the sheik – whom he had never met – came up behind him, jostled his glasses, sat in his lap and tried to kiss and fondle him. When Orsi protested, the assault began, he says.

The sheik says the men got into a heated argument after he overheard someone call him gay and acknowledged that he pulled his belt from his trousers, but insists he never struck Orsi.

Crisante said the sheik’s bodyguards intervened and prevented him from whipping Orsi.

Orsi’s lawyer Alec Reymond said the sheik “did not have sufficient education to understand he cannot whip other people like a dog” and asked the court to uphold the ruling.

Prosecutor Zappelli has said Orsi’s injuries and post-traumatic shock from the beating left him incapable of working.

It was unclear how long it would take for the judges to issue a verdict. Neither the sheik nor Orsi attended the hearing Monday.

The defendant is a brother of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who was appointed president of the United Arab Emirates in 2004 after the death of their father, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

The school district has not said if it will appeal to the California Supreme Court.

Joey Ramelli and Megan Donovan were students at Poway High School in northern San Diego County. Over the course of their junior year, other students relentlessly taunted them with antigay slurs.  Joey was physically assaulted and his car was vandalized.

The two students found the harassment so brutal that they both had to drop out of Poway High School and completed studies toward their high school diploma at home. They took the district to court in 2005, represented by Lambda Legal.

During the trial, the court was told that both Donovan and Ramelli reported the harassment to school officials but nothing was done.  The jury found that the officials took “minimal or no action at all” when they reported the incidents. Further, the jury found that the harassment was so “severe and pervasive” that they awarded a combined $300,000 to the students.

Ramelli was awarded $175,000 and Donovan $125,000. They had sought $225,000 each.

The school district appealed to the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District.

The court heard oral arguments in July where Lambda Legal said the jury verdict should be upheld to send a message to other school districts.

“Joey and Megan are seeking justice so that no other gay or lesbian student will have to endure what they did,” said Lambda attorney Brian Chase.

“This decision sent a clear message to schools across California that harassment of gay and lesbian students will not be tolerated,” Chase said.

Following the appeals court ruling, Chase said he was pleased with the ruling because it ” recognized that every student has a right to feel safe and protected at school.”

“Unfortunately, what happened to Megan and Joey is far from uncommon. We hope this lawsuit and the attention it has generated will remind school officials everywhere that parents expect their kids to be safe from bullying and violence during school hours,” Chase said.