Late risers can rest easy: No matter how much you bother your neighbors, they cannot wake you up on a Saturday morning by honking their car horns in front of your house. What a relief!

The Seattle Times reports that last week, the Washington Court of Appeals ruled that laying on your horn in front of a neighbor’s home is not protected under the umbrella of the First Amendment and cannot be classified as free speech.

This unusual ruling was prompted by an incident that occurred three years ago in Monroe, Wa., when Helen Immelt honked her horn for ten continuous minutes in front of her neighbor’s home in the early hours of a Saturday morning. The neighbor had complained about the chickens Immelt kept in her yard and she felt this “wake-up call” was suitable retaliation.

The resulting noise violation led Immelt on a three-year crusade for what she felt were her First Amendment rights. In his ruling, Justice C. Kenneth Grosse stated that, “Horn honking per se is not free speech.”

While it may not be a landmark case, it will certainly help us all sleep easier on the weekends. Even if we complained about our neighbors’ chickens.

The Twitterverse is abuzz today with the news that the microblogging service has removed tweeter @Peter_Angelos. As I wrote in April, the person using the name of the personal injury mogul and Orioles owner was obviously not Angelos himself, but he did deliver some funny parody.

It shortly became clear that @Peter_Angelos isn’t really dead, though. He’s now known as @UnPeterAngelos. The same photo used for @Peter_Angelos is used for the new account, with the addition of a black bar over the eyes. The profile for the new account contains the sentence, “Disclaimer: This is a fake account, stupid.”

I conducted an e-mail interview with the guy behind @UnPeterAngelos this afternoon. He (yes, he confirmed that much) said he didn’t want to do a phone interview because he’s still debating whether he wants to “come out” as the man behind the tweets.

He said that he got an e-mail from Twitter telling him that someone had complained about the account. The Twitter folks let him keep all his followers and his tweet history; they just changed the name to @NotPeterAngelos (which he then changed to @UnPeterAngelos) and took down the photo (which he doctored and reposted). He writes:

From the beginning, I tried to keep the persona as absurd as possible to ensure that there was no confusion.  And every major news organization that caught wind of the account was quick to identify it as parody.  Unfortunately, I think this was less a situation of confusion and more an instance of someone personally disliking the satire.  For the record, I’m a fan of Peter Angelos.  I think he’s been unfairly maligned by folks who have no clue how the baseball business works.  He’s been a stalwart supporter in the community and a guy who’s shown a genuine love for the game – even if he’s not always right.

I don’t begrudge Twitter.  They have to cover their behinds, especially now that they’ve come under greater scrutiny.  And if they ever expect to monetize and actually profit from their service one day (tee-hee), they have to make sure to stay on the up-and-up at all times.

So for the foreseeable future the owner who’s number one in our tweets (even if he’s number one on SI’s list of worst owners) will live on as @UnPeterAngelos.

@UnPeterAngelos said he doesn’t think Angelos himself was the complainer:

The guy is rich and influential, and he didn’t get that way by wasting his time trolling time-sucks like Twitter and chasing down smart-assed chumps like me.  Besides, compared to some of the brutal, awful stuff I’ve seen printed about Peter Angelos, this Twitter account borders on flattery.  If I had to guess, I’d say it’s someone in the organization who’s looking to impress the brass by proactively “protecting” Angelos’s reputation.

Readers, do you agree with @UnPeterAngelos’ guess about the complainer?

An Exxon station in Northern Baltimore county closed last week because of an underground leak that apparently went unnoticed for several weeks. Exxon has taken full responsibility for the problem and has agreed to reimburse those affected by the leak.

Sound familiar? In fact, this Exxon station is located on Mount Carmel Road in Hereford (I-83, Exit 27). And the underground leak involved brine, a salty solution used to prevent the gasoline from freezing. The brine, which sits outside the gasoline tank, entered a regular, unleaded gasoline tank through a hole in the lining, according to news reports.

The contaminated gas has caused approximately 100 cars to shut down, local mechanics said. The mechanics have to empty the car’s gas tank and replace its fuel injector and pump.

Exxon has set up a 24-hour hotline for any people dealing with car problems from the station. The Maryland Department of the Environment, meanwhile, is looking into possible fines against Exxon for failing to report the leak; it learned of the problem from a citizen who saw the station’s gas pumps closed one day last week.

Both Exxon and MDE have said the leak did not spread into the environment.

On the Cover: Lawyers Wanted – Attorney layoffs have you down? Legal affairs writer Caryn Tamber reports on area law firms and agencies looking to hire partners and associates.

Attorneys slug it out not only in court but on the softball diamond in a multimedia report. 

In Breaking News, read why elder-law attorneys “have to have love” for their clients and why a federal judge fined a lawyer $10,000.

Read about how a fall from an X-ray table led to a $1.2 million jury award in Verdicts & Settlements.

In this week’s Pro Bono, Army veteran J. Michael Lawlor discusses his work coordinating a roster of 40 lawyers who assist Maryland National Guard members with their legal matters.

James B. Astrachan writes about the potential perils of parody in his column Legal ADvice (available only in print edition).

Stay up-to-date with our Law Digest, with cases from the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court and 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Happy Monday! Here are some law links to start your week:

• If you think Sonia Sotomayor is bad, you should see Andre Davis, writes Byron York of the Examiner. (Though the Examiner identifies York as its “chief political correspondent,” a term that to this journalist implies that he’s a reporter, make no mistake: he’s definitely a columnist, and he used to work for the National Review.)
• Stereotypes about jurors will only get you so far, The Sun’s Tricia Bishop writes.
• Constance Camus has a post about a battered woman whose husband trashed their home and everything in it. The woman sought help from many agencies but was turned down everywhere.
• Venable helped pay for the new prairie dog exhibit at the Maryland Zoo. There’s a joke in here somewhere…
• Check out these 18 on-screen courtroom moments that would never happen in real life. Which is your favorite?
• A law firm in Cincinnati has instituted an associate apprentice program, where new associates will earn less money, undergo training and have their time billed at a lower rate. HT: Above the Law.