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Ernie Brooks, 64, led law firm
Legal Careers News | 2007/08/07 03:11

Ernie Brooks, president of Southfield-based Brooks Kushman P.C., an intellectual property and commercial law firm, died Thursday in a car crash in Farmington Hills.

Brooks, 64, founded the firm in 1983 along with partner James Kushman. They grew the firm from five attorneys and three secretaries to more than 50 attorneys and 60 support staff today.

A registered patent attorney and top-flight trial lawyer, Brooks was saluted last year as one of the nation's 10 best litigators by The National Law Journal, a weekly newspaper for the legal profession.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by the McCabe Funeral Home 31950 West 12 Mile Road, Farmington Hills.

Visitation continues 1 p.m.-9 p.m. Monday. Funeral services are 11 a.m. Tuesday.



First BanCorp Ordered To Pay $74.25 Mln To Settle
Class Action | 2007/08/06 09:28

First BanCorp Holding Co. announced that the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico has issued preliminary order on August 1, 2007, asking the company to pay $74.25 million to settle a class action lawsuit filed by shareholders. First BanCorp said that $61 million settlement amount has to be deposited in a settlement fund within fifteen calendar days of the issuance of the preliminary order. The remaining settlement amount of $13.25 million will be paid before December 31, 2007, the company added.

The company noted that this class action lawsuit settlement will have no impact on earnings and capital in 2007, as it has accrued $74.25 million in 2005 for the potential settlement of the class action lawsuit.



UC receives money from Enron class action lawsuit
Breaking Legal News | 2007/08/06 08:30

As the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit against Enron executives, the University of California has obtained more than $7.2 billion from the executives, accountants, attorneys and financial institutions that organized the fraud. On July 27, officials announced a proposed allocation plan to distribute the money to defrauded Enron investors who submit valid claims. “This is the first step in returning funds to these investors,” said Dan Newman, spokesman for lead counsel Lerach Coughlin, the law firm representing the university and the class of Enron investors.

The proposed plan allocates money to investors who purchased Enron securities between Sept. 9, 1997 and Dec. 2, 2001. Roughly 1.5 million Enron stock and bond purchasers lost more than $40 billion during this period, Newman said.

Due to accounting fraud, Enron shareholders have lost tens of billions of dollars. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

In 2002, the United States District Court chose the university as the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit due to both financial and legal factors, which included the amount of losses the plaintiff endured from Enron investments, and the plaintiff’s ability to coordinate litigation as a single investor, according to a press release from the university. As lead plaintiff, the university helps monitor and oversee the litigation of the case, Chris Patti, UC general counsel, said.

The university lost $144.9 million based on 2.2 million Enron shares purchased during the class period, according to the press release. This money was taken from employees’ pension and endowment funds, said Trey Davis, director of special projections for the UC.

“The money the UC will receive (from the allocation plan) will go back to these funds, so there will be no effect on students directly,” he said.

The university worked with outside counsel and experts to design the plan. But it has been a difficult process, Patti said, to ensure that all investors receive the money they deserve. The allocation needs to account for what type of Enron stocks and bonds investors purchased, when they purchased them and when they sold them.

“We want to make sure it’s as fair as possible, and (we are) therefore taking extra steps to ensure we do not miss anything,” Patti said.

The UC is asking for feedback on the proposed plan from an independent expert consultant and the public. Comments from the public can be submitted until Aug. 20 through a specially created Web site, Enronfraud.com.

After reviewing the public’s comments, university officials will request permission from Judge Melinda Harmon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, to ask for formal input about the plan from members of the Enron class.

Only after Judge Harmon approves the plan and any appeals are resolved will the money be distributed. It is difficult to predict when this will happen, Davis said, but it will not be before 2008.

Other plaintiffs have still not settled cases against Enron executives. A similar case has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and its result will determine if the case against the remaining defendants will continue, Newman said.

“This is an ongoing process, but investors have received a lot of support,” Newman said.

Most attorney generals, academic experts and professional groups have filed friends-of-the-court briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of investor protections, according to the university’s press release.



Katrina Insurance Claims Continue
Insurance | 2007/08/06 07:19

Almost two years after the devastating storm, our country’s Katrina victims still await closure and healing. Many have found themselves embroiled in legal disputes in pursuit of the opportunity to rebuild their lives. The harrowing task of settling insurance policy claims on their damaged or destroyed homes is just one aspect of this struggle.

Today, the 5th Circuit plans to hear an appeal on a Mississippi-based Katrina insurance coverage claim. The trial judge told these policyholders, a couple who believes their home suffered $130,253 in damages from the storm, that their policy did not cover damage resulting from a combination of water and wind. This distinction has been the subject of a great number of Katrina-related insurance disputes.

Last week, the 5th Circuit ruled against Katrina-affected insurance policyholders and overturned a U.S. District Court ruling that insurance companies had to pay its policyholders’ Katrina-related claims. The previous ruling held that ambiguous policy provisions made it unclear which forms of storm damage were covered, while the most recent ruling states that the policy is unambiguous.



Jurors' doubts weigh heavily in Davis case
Legal Business | 2007/08/06 06:32

Five days before Troy Anthony Davis' scheduled execution, Brenda Forrest got a call from her husband of eight years.

He had just heard a report on a Chicago radio station about a convicted cop killer from their hometown of Savannah. The report said serious questions had surfaced about whether the man was actually guilty of the 1989 murder.

"Oh my God," Forrest said, finally letting go of the secret she had kept. "I was on that jury. I've got to get involved."

The next day, Forrest called lawyers at the Georgia Resource Center, whose attorneys help represent Davis. She reviewed recanted testimonies of seven of nine trial witnesses and also the affidavits of others who had stepped forward with additional information. Some implicated another man in the murder of Officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

Forrest signed a sworn statement of her own:

"I have some serious doubts about the justness of Mr. Davis' death sentence. I find it very troubling that the jury's sentence was based upon incomplete and unreliable evidence. If I had been aware of this newly gathered evidence and had the benefit of it at trial, I would not have sentenced Mr. Davis to death."

Three other jurors in Davis' 1991 trial signed similar statements that his defense lawyers presented to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles at a hearing on July 16, the day before Davis was set to die.

Curtis Wilson, Isaiah Middleton and Cynthia Quarterman also expressed concerns as to the fairness of Davis' punishment given after reviewing the revised testimonies.

The clemency board temporarily stayed Davis' execution.

On Friday, the Georgia Supreme Court agreed to hear Davis' request that he be granted a new trial. A spokeswoman for the clemency board said it would announce today if would hold a hearing previously scheduled for Thursday after the five board members have reviewed the Supreme Court's decision to hear the case.

Forrest said she believes Davis should not be put to death until the new evidence in his case is examined by a judge or jury. No court has yet seen the new information because of a 1996 federal law designed to streamline capital cases and place a time limit on inmate appeals.

"I can't say for sure if he's guilty or not, but he deserves to be heard," Forrest said.

It's not common to have four jurors change their minds based on new evidence, said one legal expert who has been studying capital case juries for 15 years.

"In this case, the fact that there are any jurors, but especially four with doubts about the death penalty, would sort of indicate that chances of a life sentence would be significant," said Scott Sundby, law professor at Washington & Lee University.

Because of the federal law, however, the difficulty is getting any forum to hear from Davis' defense attorneys, Sundby said. "I am impressed that the pardons board is open to this evidence," he said.

Sundby said a lot is asked of jurors who must make a decision of life and death.

"One of their greatest frustrations is when they have gone through this process and then they find out they didn't have the full picture," he said. "There is a sense of betrayal on their part. Their view is: You asked us to condemn someone to death, and we didn't have all the facts."

Forrest knows that if Davis' execution is carried out, it will be done in her name.

Since the trial, she has wrestled with her faith and the moral correctness of the death penalty. She is troubled by the case even more now that she has read the new testimony.

Forrest was 35 and working as a chemist when she was called for jury duty. She said few of the witnesses seemed like upstanding citizens, and she questioned their credibility.

"They were not people who were believable," Forrest said in a telephone interview from her office in Chicago, where she relocated in 1999.

The jury of seven blacks and five whites deliberated for one hour and 57 minutes before returning a verdict.

In the somber jury room, Forrest said her fellow jurors debated the testimony of Harriet Murray, who testified that she saw Davis with a "smirky-like smile" on his face when he shot MacPhail. The jury found her story compelling but discussed whether she could have really seen what was happening from a distance and in the darkness of night, Forrest recalled.

After the trial, in a 2002 affidavit, Murray was more ambiguous about who she saw that night. She no longer named Davis as the killer. Murray has since died.

Other jurors, Forrest said, talked about Davis' demeanor. She always thought he had a look of resignation.

There was a conversation about possible innocence. Is there any doubt about Davis' guilt based on what we heard? the jurors asked themselves.

Then they wrote down their verdicts. It was unanimous.

"I was under oath to vote according to the evidence we heard," she said. "I was compelled to agree [he was guilty] at the time.'

But the trial troubled Forrest. She never spoke about it with anyone, not even with the man she later married.

She got on with her new life, far from Savannah, far from the prison at Jackson, where Davis has been on death row for 16 years.

"What I did was put it out of my mind," she said.

After reviewing the new defense documents, she was eager to know what the clemency board would decide. "I was sitting on pins and needles to see if he got a stay," she said.

Now, like every other interested party in the case, Forrest has to wait longer.

If Davis winds up being executed, Forrest says she will have to live with herself. It will haunt her until her own death.



Bush and Karzai hold "strategy session" in US
International | 2007/08/06 06:15
Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai has arrived in Camp David for what has been billed by experts as a "strategy session" with US president George W. Bush. On the agenda: the struggling, six-year effort to rebuild the war-torn country, and the efforts to defuse the threat from Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. A report from US spy agencies last month found both groups were training new recruits in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, near the Afghan border.

The more immediate crisis of trying to free the remaining 21 South Korean hostages seized by the Taliban last month will also dominate the talks. Seoul is pressuring the US and Afghanistan to do all they can to secure the group's release. Analysts say Bush will want to reassure Karzai of US commitment to his country. Washington has already allocated ten billion dollars for Afghanistan this year, and has also boosted troop levels.


Woman Pleads Guilty To Passing Bad Checks
Court Watch | 2007/08/06 04:26
An employee of a physician-billing service pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of passing about $100,000 in forged checks. Christine Ann Wilson, of Beechview, deposited checks issued by health care insurance companies into her own account between May 2004 and March 2006, according to prosecutors. Wilson was indicted in December on 124 counts of forgery and pleaded guilty on Thursday. She faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond scheduled a sentencing hearing for Nov. 6.


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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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