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Craig Continues Minnesota Legal Appeal
Law Center | 2008/01/09 06:47
Seeking to have his guilty plea in a bathroom sex sting erased, the attorneys for Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho argue in a new court filing that the underlying act wasn't criminal because it didn't involve multiple victims.

An appeals brief filed Tuesday contends that Minnesota's disorderly conduct law "requires that the conduct at issue have a tendency to alarm or anger 'others'" — underscoring the plural nature of the term.

Craig's brief goes on to cite other convictions that were overturned because the multiple-victim test wasn't met. His lawyers apply the same logic to his case.

The Republican senator pleaded guilty in August after his arrest two months earlier at the Minneapolis airport. It was part of a broader undercover push targeting men soliciting sex in public restrooms.

Craig was arrested June 11 by an undercover officer, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, who said Craig tapped his feet and swiped his hand under a stall divider in a way that signaled he wanted sex. Craig has denied that, saying his actions were misconstrued.

"Appellant's alleged conduct in this case affected only a single individual — Sergeant Karsnia," the Craig brief says. "It did not — and could not affect 'others' as the disorderly conduct statute requires, and therefore, does not satisfy that element of the statute."

The brief also argues that Karsnia himself could not have been offended by the alleged conduct because "he invited it." The alleged conduct, Craig's lawyers added, doesn't rise to the level of being "offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous or noisy."

Craig's earlier attempt to withdraw his plea was turned down by a district court judge, and the case is now before the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Besides attacking the law he was prosecuted under, Craig's legal team argues that the hand signal allegedly used to communicate a desire to engage in sexual conduct would be constitutionally protected speech. They also say the plea is technically flawed because it lacked a judicial signature.

Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which oversees the Minneapolis airport and which brought the charges, said he was confident the guilty plea will stand.

"Facts are resilient, and Sen. Craig's continued, transparent efforts to escape them don't change the truth of his behavior in an airport restroom or the fact that he admitted guilt last August," Hogan said.

Prosecutors have 45 days to respond, and then the case will be scheduled for oral arguments. Once heard, a ruling is required within 90 days.

Craig has said he will finish his term, which ends in January 2009.



Supreme Court rules against local firm
Breaking Legal News | 2008/01/09 04:48
A Lapeer County gravel operation lost out to the federal government on Tuesday in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could influence thousands of similar cases.

In a 7-2 ruling, the justices said Metamora-based John R. Sand & Gravel Co. waited too long to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for property it seized as a Superfund cleanup site.

Justice Stephen Breyer said a federal appeals court was correct in raising the deadline question without being asked to do so by either party, and to rule that the company missed the deadline.

In some instances, such as lawsuits against the government, the Supreme Court "has often read the time limits ... as more absolute," Breyer wrote.

Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, saying the majority's decision "has a hollow ring" because the court previously had overturned a precedent that it relied on for Tuesday's decision.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Stevens in dissent.

"We're very disappointed in this ruling," said Jeff Haynes, a Bloomfield Hills attorney who represented the gravel company.

The decision ends the company's chances to collect any compensation from the EPA and will prompt other claimants to sue "early and often" to avoid a similar fate, Haynes said.

John R. sued the EPA in 2002 after the agency permanently fenced off 40 acres of land the company was leasing from a property owner.

Some of the seized property had been used as a municipal dump until about 1980 and was considered a hazardous waste site, although a portion contained clean sand and gravel, Haynes said.

The case initially was filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which hears claims involving the taking of private property without fair compensation.

The high court reviewed an appeal panel's finding that the John R. suit was barred by the six-year statue of limitations.

The EPA originally agreed that the case had been filed in a timely manner and didn't raise the statute of limitations issue, Haynes said.

But companies hired to clean up landfills intervened as friends of the court and raised the jurisdictional question, he said.

The appeals panel and the Supreme Court held that the clock started running when the EPA began erecting a series of temporary fences -- not when it permanently seized the 40 acres, Haynes said.

The effect of the high court's ruling is that judges at each step in the process will have to rule on time-limit issues in cases brought for money damages against the government, he said.

And anyone who wants to sue the federal government for taking private property without compensation will have to bring their claim as early as possible or risk having it tossed out, he said.

"We'll have a lot more needless lawsuits because property owners are going to have to protect their rights," Haynes said.

The Supreme Court didn't consider whether John R. was entitled to compensation by the EPA.

Haynes said the company valued the confiscated land at $8 million, while the EPA valued it at $250,000.



Drug-maker Faces Class Action Over Zimulti
Class Action | 2008/01/09 03:49

A class action lawsuit has been filed against pharmaceutical powerhouse Sanofi-Aventis alleging that the company hid data concerning adverse events associated with their obesity medication Zimulti. The French company allegedly concealed data showing Zimulti's propensity to cause depression. Zimulti has also been shown to increase suicidal ideation and action in some cases.

In June the FDA unanimously decided that Zimulti could not be recommended for approval in the U.S.; however, the drug can be purchased through online pharmacies based in other countries.



Cambridge Economics Group Announces Medmal Express
Legal Marketing | 2008/01/09 01:57

West Des Moines, Iowa, January 4, 2008:  Cambridge Economics Group today announced a new service for attorneys and their clients who are involved in medical malpractice cases.  The service, MedMal ExpressTM, is provided through the company's Internet site, www.medmalreports.com.  Users can sign up for a 2-week free trial, after which the service is $95 per month.

"The innovation of MedMal ExpressTM is that it lets users see expected settlements in up to 20 cases or case scenarios in real time," said Dr. David M. Frankel, Founder and Chief Economist of CEG.  "Our predictions are tailored to the lawsuit's location as well as other key case parameters."
"MedMal ExpressTM is intended for attorneys and clients on both sides of a lawsuit," Dr. Frankel added.  The company suggests the following potential uses for its new service:

•Advising insurance companies how much money to reserve in a case.
•Evaluating potential case strategies. For instance:
- adding or dropping a defendant;
- choosing which accusations to stress.

•Testing different case scenarios. For example:
- If the case against one or more defendants is dismissed;
- If the plaintiff's medical outcome changes.

MedMal ExpressTM uses CEG's proprietary predictive model, which is derived from patterns of payments in the National Practitioners Data Bank, a repository of essentially all malpractice payments made in the U.S.   The model considers the following key features of a case:

•The trial location (U.S. state)
•The age, gender, and medical outcome of the patient
•The number of defendants
•The defendants' ages and job descriptions
•The accusations made against each defendant

"But our model goes one step further," Dr. Frankel stated.  "It also considers important interactions between these features.  For instance, some states have caps on pain and suffering that reduce payments for certain outcomes (such as purely emotional injuries) more than others.  This means that the effect of medical outcome on payments depends on the state.  By taking account of this and other important interactions, we can generate very realistic predictions of the expected settlement in a case."

Note to Journalists

Journalists and other opinion leaders who wish to try MedMal Express without entering credit card information are asked to set up a user account on the site, medmalreports.com, and then to send their user name to CEG using the General Inquiry button on the medmalreports.com home page.  A MedMal Express trial subscription will be set up for you.

About Cambridge Economics Group

Cambridge Economics Group was founded in 2004 to provide economic and statistical analysis in complex litigation settings, including antitrust, intellectual property, regulation, and personal injury.  Its offices are located in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Dr. David M. Frankel is a tenured economics professor at Iowa State University and has been a visiting professor at Cornell and Stanford.  His research has appeared in leading economics journals such as Econometrica and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.  Dr. Frankel received his Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T. in 1993.  He has an M.S. in Sociology from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and an A.B. in Mathematics from Harvard (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude).  Prior to joining the faculty at Iowa State, Dr. Frankel taught for eight years at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

http://www.medmalreports.com



High Court to Announce Opinions Tuesday
Breaking Legal News | 2008/01/08 12:54
Several Supreme Court justices indicated yesterday that it may be difficult for them to definitely answer whether or when lethal injections violate the Constitution's protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

The morning arguments before the court came in a Kentucky case that has led to a halt to executions across the country. A lawyer arguing on behalf of two Kentucky death row inmates told the court that the three-drug protocol used by states and the federal government carries the potential to cause unnecessary and excruciating pain during executions.

"The risk here is real. That is why in the state of Kentucky it is unlawful to euthanize animals in the way it carries out its executions," said Washington lawyer Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who is representing Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling in the case, Baze v. Rees.

The main problem, the court was told, is the second drug in the sequence, which paralyzes the muscles. If the inmate is not properly anesthetized, the paralytic could mask whether the condemned is in tortuous pain.

Justice John Paul Stevens said he was "deeply troubled" by the use of the second drug, but that there was nothing in the record in the Kentucky case that raised the issue in a way for the Supreme Court to make a definitive ruling. Kentucky, he said, seemed to have done a good job of administering the drugs in the state's only execution by lethal injection.

Justices David Souter and Stephen Breyer also said it might be better to send the case back to lower courts for a comparative analysis of whether the three-drug process carries more risk than an alternative, which uses only a massive dose of a barbiturate.



Ga. Court Examines Banishment Policy
Political and Legal | 2008/01/08 10:54
An unusual question is before the Georgia Supreme Court: Should banishment of criminals be banned?

Though Georgia's judges are technically outlawed from banishing offenders, some have skirted the rule by restricting them from all but one of the state's 159 counties. Now, one convict is challenging the practice, claiming it is unconstitutional.

"It's a throwback to the dark ages," McNeill Stokes, the defense attorney who argued the case Monday, said in an interview. "The whole point behind this is zealous prosecutors wanting to get rid of problems in their counties."

State attorneys contend the orders are a way to rid criminals from populous areas and protect victims from repeat offenses. But some defense attorneys see them as thinly disguised efforts to evade a Georgia constitutional provision that explicitly forbids courts from "banishment beyond the limits of the state."

The case revolves around Gregory Mac Terry, who pleaded guilty to assault and stalking charges. According to court documents, he violated a restraining order by sneaking into his estranged wife's home, forced her into his car and then threatened her with scissors.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 10 more years on probation, and a judge added a condition that he be banned from all Georgia's counties except Toombs County in southeast Georgia. His attorney says that condition kept him in prison longer, because he couldn't complete a work-release program in another county.

State attorney Paula Smith Sr. said the ban is reasonable, because Terry wrote a letter saying he wouldn't forget his wife when he was released.

"What we're losing sight of here is the purpose, and that was to help Mr. Terry's wife from his documented obsession of her," Smith said, adding that the court was "trying to safeguard this woman."

The banished rarely move to the remote counties where they are sent, and lawyers say some flee the state altogether. DeKalb County alone has banished dozens of offenders to Echols County, which sits on the Florida border.

During arguments Monday, justices peppered attorneys with questions about how the policy works logistically.

For example, they asked, how would an offender even get to the county where he was supposed to live without passing through counties he was banned from?



Darden settles 2 class-action lawsuits for $4 million
Class Action | 2008/01/08 09:56
Darden Restaurants paid $4 million to settle two class-action lawsuits that had been brought by California employees of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, the Orlando-based company reported in a government regulatory filing late last week.

Settlement of the wage dispute, which was paid out during the company's fiscal second quarter that ended in November, trimmed earnings for the quarter by 2 cents a share, the company reported.

In its quarterly earnings report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Darden said the class-action suits, alleging wage-and-hour violations, were filed in 2004 involving the Red Lobster restaurants and in January 2007 involving the Olive Garden outlets.

In each case, several restaurants were accused of violating a California law that prohibits restaurant managers from requiring servers and bartenders to make up for cash shortages at the end of their shifts.

Darden has a nationwide policy that prohibits the practice, company spokesman Bob McAdam said. The company admitted no wrongdoing in settling the lawsuits, McAdam said, but decided they were too costly to pursue further in court. The allegations, he added, "are almost impossible to prove one way or the other."

Darden has "redoubled" its management training to ensure compliance with the company's policy, he said.


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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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