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Iowa top court: Firing of attractive aide is legal
Court Watch |
2013/07/13 09:32
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The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday stood by its ruling that a dentist acted legally when he fired an assistant because he found her too attractive and worried he would try to start an affair.
Coming to the same conclusion as it did in December, the all-male court found that bosses can fire employees they see as threats to their marriages, even if the subordinates have not engaged in flirtatious or other inappropriate behavior. The court said such firings do not count as illegal sex discrimination because they are motivated by feelings, not gender.
The ruling upholds a judge's decision to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit filed against Fort Dodge dentist James Knight, who fired assistant Melissa Nelson, even while acknowledging she had been a stellar employee for 10 years. Knight and his wife believed that his attraction to Nelson _ two decades younger than the dentist _ had become a threat to their marriage. Nelson, now 33, was replaced by another woman; Knight had an all-female staff.
The all-male court issued its revised opinion Friday in the case after taking the unusual step last month of withdrawing its December opinion, which had received nationwide publicity, debate and criticism.
Nelson's attorney, Paige Fiedler, had asked the court in January to reconsider, calling the decision a blow for gender and racial equity in the workplace. She had warned the opinion could allow bosses to legally fire dark-skinned blacks and replace them with light-skinned blacks or small-breasted workers in favor of big-breasted workers.
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Ill. Supreme Court ends challenge to abortion law
Breaking Legal News |
2013/07/12 09:32
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The Illinois Supreme Court ended a lengthy and emotionally charged legal appeal over an abortion notification law Thursday, clearing the way for the state to begin enforcing a 1995 measure that requires doctors to notify a girl's parents 48 hours before the procedure.
The court ruled unanimously to uphold a circuit court's earlier dismissal of a challenge to the law that was filed by a Granite City women's health clinic and a doctor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
After court battles that lasted nearly two decades, Illinois now joins 38 other states in requiring some level of parental notification. The law goes into effect in 35 days unless it's appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has found such laws to be constitutional elsewhere.
Opponents of the notification law had argued that it violated privacy and gender equality rights because young women should be able to make their own decisions about their bodies and pregnancies. Supporters of the law, which was defended by the Illinois Attorney General's office, argued that parents would be deprived of basic rights if they were not notified of a daughter's decision to have an abortion.
Anti-abortion activists have long said Illinois was a haven for teens from states with stricter laws on the books seeking abortions.
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NJ court overturns award for view lost to dune
Court Watch |
2013/07/09 00:19
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New Jersey's highest court on Monday overturned a $375,000 jury award given to an elderly couple who complained that a protective sand dune behind their house blocked their ocean views.
In a ruling seen as a wider victory for towns that want to build barriers to protect themselves from catastrophic storms, the state Supreme Court faulted a lower court for not allowing jurors to consider the dune's benefits in calculating its effect on property value. The high court ruled that those protective benefits should have been considered along with the loss of the ocean views.
The sand dune in question saved the elderly couple's home from destruction in Superstorm Sandy in October.
The 5-year-old case is being closely watched at the Jersey shore, which was battered by Sandy. Officials want to build protective dune systems along the state's entire 127-mile coastline, but towns fear they won't be able to if many homeowners hold out for large payouts as compensation for lost views. |
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SC high court overturns $11M defamation verdicts
Criminal Law |
2013/07/05 00:21
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South Carolina's high court has overturned $11 million in verdicts against a Charleston attorney accused of defaming a businessman by comparing him to television mobster Tony Soprano.
The state Supreme Court this week sent a civil case against Paul Hulsey back to Circuit Court, according to a report from The Post and Courier of Charleston.
Hulsey was sued several years ago by Charleston businessmen Lawton Limehouse Sr.
The attorney had previously sued Limehouse's company on behalf of day laborers, claiming staffing agency L&L Services made fake green cards and Social Security cards, exploited workers and failed to pay overtime.
"This is a blatant case of indentured servitude," Hulsey told the newspaper in 2004. "L&L Services took advantage of the complexity of the system. They have created a perfect racketeering system, just like Tony Soprano."
Authorities looked into Hulsey's allegations but didn't bring charges. The lawsuit was ultimately settled for $20,000, according to the high court's ruling.
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Court in NYC upholds insider trading conviction
Current Cases |
2013/07/02 09:31
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A stock trader nicknamed "the Octopussy" because he had access to so many sources of inside information was properly convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison, a federal appeals court concluded Monday.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of Zvi Goffer and two others in a case the government had once touted as the biggest insider trading prosecution in history.
In all, more than two dozen defendants were convicted, including a one-time billionaire whose hedge funds had commanded as much as $7 billion.
The Israeli-born Goffer was convicted with two others in 2011 in a conspiracy to pay bribes to two lawyers at a Manhattan law firm. The government said Goffer and others earned more than $10 million illegally.
Goffer, whose nickname is a reference to a James Bond film, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after prosecutors said he arranged to pay two attorneys nearly $100,000 in 2007 and 2008 for inside tips on mergers and acquisitions. Prosecutors said Goffer's network used prepaid cellphones to avoid detection and destroyed them after each successful tip.
His lawyers challenged his conviction and sentence on several grounds, including that wiretap evidence should have been suppressed, that jury instructions were erroneous and that Goffer was punished for refusing to plead guilty.
A three-judge panel of the Manhattan appeals court noted the novelty of using wiretaps in a securities fraud case as it rejected defense arguments that the law permitting wiretaps does not list securities fraud as an offense for which it can be used.
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Wash. gay wedding flowers case goes to court
Court Watch |
2013/06/28 09:03
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The dispute over a Washington state florist who declined to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding goes to court Friday.
Oral arguments are scheduled in Benton County Superior Court.
The Washington state attorney general's office sued the owner of Arlene's Flowers, Baronelle Stutzman, saying she violated consumer protection law by refusing service in March to customers Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed.
Stutzman says she has no problem with homosexual customers but won't support gay weddings because of her religious beliefs.
In addition to the state, the ACLU sued Stutzman on behalf of the Kennewick, Wash. couple. A religious freedom group, Alliance Defending Freedom, countersued the state on behalf of Stutzman.
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Supreme Court strikes federal marriage provision
Breaking Legal News |
2013/06/26 09:30
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In a major victory for gay rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a provision of a federal law denying federal benefits to married gay couples and cleared the way for the resumption of same-sex marriage in California.
The justices issued two 5-4 rulings in their final session of the term. One decision wiped away part of a federal anti-gay marriage law that has kept legally married same-sex couples from receiving tax, health and pension benefits.
The other was a technical ruling that said nothing at all about same-sex marriage, but left in place a trial court's declaration that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. That outcome probably will allow state officials to order the resumption of same-sex weddings in the nation's most populous state in about a month.
In neither case did the court make a sweeping statement, either in favor of or against same-sex marriage. And in a sign that neither victory was complete for gay rights, the high court said nothing about the validity of gay marriage bans in California and roughly three dozen other states. A separate provision of the federal marriage law that allows a state to not recognize a same-sex union from elsewhere remains in place.
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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