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Plexus faces two class action suits
Breaking Legal News | 2007/07/09 04:16

Shareholders of contract manufacturer Plexus have filed two separate class action lawsuits against the Wisconsin-based company. The suits accuse the company and three of its officers of insider trading and inflating the company’s stock price.Plexus has a manufacturing facility in Nampa. The first lawsuit, filed June 25 by Western Pennsylvania Electrical Employees Pension Trust, alleges that Plexus and its officers failed to disclose material facts about the company’s financial performance, which led shareholders to purchase stock at an inflated price.

The complaint alleges that, between January 25, 2006 and July 27, 2006, Plexus failed to disclose that the company’s position in the defense market was weakening and that operations in the United Kingdom would have to be reorganized. Because of this information, Plexus lacked a “reasonable basis” for the positive statements it made during that period about the company’s future growth.

According to the complaint, Plexus “shocked investors” when, on July 27, 2006, the company lowered its earnings outlook for the year, based in part on limited revenue growth. The plaintiff alleges that this news caused shares of the company’s stock to fall $10.71 per share, or approximately 32 percent, to close at $22.89 per share.

The complaint alleges that, in a conference call following the July 26 quarterly report, Dean Foate, president, CEO and chairman of the board of directors, said that fourth quarter revenue outlook was softer than had been previously implied.
Foate and F. Gordon Bitter – chief financial officers – and John Nussbaum, who also served as chairman of the board, are all named individually as defendants.

The complaint alleges that because Foate, Bitter and Nussbaum controlled the contents of the company’s reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the public, they had the opportunity to correct the statements. According to the plaintiff, the defendants knew that the statements made by Plexus were “materially false and misleading.” 
The suit also accuses corporate officers and board members of insider trading, alleging that company officers were motivated to misrepresent revenue growth to allow company insiders to “sell 664,666 shares of their personally-held Plexus common stock for gross proceeds in excess of $26.3 million.”

The suit claims that Foate, Bitter and Nussbaum all benefited from selling stock during this period, as well as executive officers Michael Verstegen, Joseph Kronser, Thomas Czajkowski, David Clark, Paul Ehlers, David Rust, Joseph Kaufman, Simon Painter and George Setton and board members Ralf Boer, David Drury and Thomas Prosser.

The second lawsuit, filed June 29 by the Alan M. Ozell Trust, reasserts the accusation that Plexus withheld relevant information that caused the stock price to drop, but does not accuse anyone in the company of insider trading.

Both lawsuits request compensation for all damages in an amount to be proven at trial, as well as costs and expenses.
Plexus issued a statement on June 25 acknowledging that a class action complaint had been filed against the company, though Plexus claimed it had not yet received a copy of the complaint.

“Plexus believes that all of its public statements were correct and properly made; it thus intends to defend itself vigorously in this litigation,” according to the statement.

Angelo Ninivaggi, vice president, general counsel and secretary for Plexus, did not return a call requesting an updated statement.
The law firms of Ademi & O’Reilly, LLP and Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP are representing the plaintiffs in both cases. The lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.



Appeals court supports Bush on wiretapping
Breaking Legal News | 2007/07/07 09:14

A federal appeals court on Friday removed a serious legal challenge to the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, overruling the only judge who held that a controversial surveillance effort by the National Security Agency was unconstitutional. Two members of a three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of a major lawsuit that challenged the wiretapping, which President Bush authorized secretly to eavesdrop on communications involving potential terrorists shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The court did not rule on the spying program's legality. Instead, the decision found that the American Civil Liberties Union, academics, lawyers and journalists who brought the case did not have standing to sue because they could not demonstrate that they had been direct targets of the clandestine surveillance.

The decision vacates a ruling in the case last August by a U.S. District Court judge in Detroit, who found that the administration's program to monitor private communications violated the Bill of Rights and a 1970s federal law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Friday's action in the 6th Circuit means that the principal remaining legal challenge to the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program is a group of cases pending before a U.S. District Court judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California.

The primary issue before that appeals court, differing somewhat from that in

the Michigan case, is whether the administration may claim that a privilege covering state secrets precludes the litigation.
In January, after Democrats gained control of Congress, the administration abruptly shifted its position. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that the surveillance program would start to be overseen by a court established to hear FISA cases.

But administration officials have not described critical details of the new approach, including whether a separate warrant is required for each instance of monitoring. Aides to Bush also have asserted that the president still retains the authority to conduct surveillance without court permission.

Judge Ronald Lee Gilman, a Democratic appointee, disagreed in a dissenting opinion in which he concluded the plaintiffs were entitled to sue because they felt a need to alter their communications after the program was disclosed. Gilman also wrote that the case was not moot because "the president maintains that he has the authority to 'opt out' of the FISA framework at any time," and he agreed with the lower court judge that the program violates federal law.

Administration officials lauded the 6th Circuit's decision. Deputy White House press secretary Tony Fratto called the lower court finding that the program was unconstitutional "wrongly decided." Fratto said the appellate court "properly determined that the plaintiffs had failed to show their claims were entitled to review in federal court."

The ACLU's legal director, Steven Shapiro, said, "As a result of today's decision, the Bush administration has been left free to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress adopted almost 30 years ago to prevent the executive branch from engaging in precisely this kind of unchecked surveillance."

Shapiro said the ACLU was examining its legal options, including the possibility of an appeal to the Supreme Court.



College Tuition Hike At Center Of Lawsuit
Breaking Legal News | 2007/07/07 08:24

Former Florida Governor Bob Graham, an FAU professor and eight others are suing the Florida Legislature, claiming it is "unconstitutionally" controlling college tuition rates in the state. Filed on the heels of a failed 5 percent tuition hike approved by lawmakers in May but vetoed by Gov. Charlie Christ, the suit claims the Board of Governors should have the ultimate authority over how much students pay to attend Florida Atlantic University and the state's 10 other public universities.

The suit likely will not affect tuition rates this fall, but if it's successful, it could lead to a rise in the cost of a college education in Florida, where tuition is among the lowest in the country.
Established in 2003 with a constitutional amendment approved by Florida voters, the Board of Governors was given "exclusive power to operate, regulate, control, and manage" the overall state university system.

A state law allowing the Legislature to control tuition is therefor unconstitutional, the complaint states.

"They are violating the will of the people of Florida," Graham said during a conference call with reporters Friday morning. "(The Board of Governors) has a constitutional responsibility."

However, Senate President Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, who, along with House Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, is named as a defendant in the suit, fired back. He called it "nothing more than an attempt to get unbridled tuition increases."

"God help our students if they win," Pruitt said in a statement. "I don't think voters were trying to turn the Board of Governors into the fourth branch of government."

None of the plaintiffs sit on the policy-making board, but several are university trustees and professors.

One of them, FAU marketing professor Eric Shaw, said university resources have become increasingly stretched in recent years as student enrollment increases.

More money is needed, either from the state or students, to provide quality higher education in Florida, where low tuition has led to high faculty-to-student ratios, Shaw said.

"Classes sizes get larger, faculty teach more and that cuts into their research time," he said. "But mostly you don't have as much contact with students."

Although board members would not comment on the lawsuit Friday, Shaw said he expects them to join the plaintiffs.

The board will take up the issue at a public meeting Tuesday at the University of Central Florida, said Bill Edmonds, board spokesman.

Crist's spokesman said the governor would need to review the lawsuit before commenting.

Meanwhile, Graham said the 20-page lawsuit, filed in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee, has been in the works for a while but was pushed into court now because of the recent tuition increase freeze, which has universities scrambling to tighten their budgets.

"The legislature not only provides taxpayer money but decides what the student contribution will be," he said. "It does it in a way that it makes it almost impossible to have effective management of the university system."



Goldman Sachs targeted with death threats
Breaking Legal News | 2007/07/06 11:11

The FBI is investigating anonymous threats against Goldman Sachs, the world's biggest securities firm, contained in handwritten letters warning that "hundreds will die." The letters, sent to newspapers nationwide, read: "GOLDMAN SACHS. HUNDREDS WILL DIE. WE ARE INSIDE. YOU CANNOT STOP US. A.Q.U.S.A." The letters, all mailed from Queens, N.Y., were sent to nine newspapers including publications in Newark, N.J.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Corpus Christi, Texas; and Boise, Idaho, the Star-Ledger of Newark reported.

"We take these things very seriously," said FBI spokesman Bill Carter, who added, "we have no specific and credible information about a credible threat to Goldman Sachs other than these letters."

The letters were postmarked late June from New York and were handwritten in red ink on loose-leaf paper.

"We are working closely with the law enforcement authorities, who tell us they don't believe the threat to be very credible," Goldman Sachs said in a statement today. "We have a broad range of security measures in place to counter all likely threats and we're monitoring the situation closely."

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette received the letter Monday, said Bobby Wells, the newspaper's administrative assistant, and the FBI and local police department have since picked up the letter.

The Star-Ledger reported that it received one of the letters, postmarked June 27. The letter was addressed to the news department and was turned over to the FBI, according to the newspaper.

Goldman is a powerhouse in investment banking, with $37 billion in revenue last year and a profit of $9.5 billion. It hands out the biggest paychecks on Wall Street, averaging $623,418 per employee last year with individual rainmakers raking in up to $50 million, according to U.S. regulatory filings.

Goldman Sachs sent the following internal memo to its employees:

"The firm is aware that a number of local newspapers in a few places in the U.S. have received anonymous letters threatening the firm. We take any threat to the safety of our people and our business very seriously. The Office of Global Security has consulted the FBI and other relevant authorities. Authorities have informed us that they believe the threat to be of low credibility. Nevertheless, they have mounted an active investigation to try to determine the source of the letters. We have a broad range of security measures in place to counter all likely threats and we continue to monitor this situation closely. We do not view this situation as a cause for concern."

A source at Goldman who asked not to be named said that the firm didn't think the letters were credible and that officials were satisfied with the many security provisions in place, especially in New York.



Federal appeals court overturns wiretap ruling
Breaking Legal News | 2007/07/06 10:13

A federal appeals court panel today vacated an order by a federal judge in Detroit that ruled that the Bush Administration's wiretapping program was unconstitutional -- a move that concerned local civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders. In a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati said that the plaintiffs, which included local Muslim and Arab-American groups, could not prove they have been harmed by a National Security Agency spying program created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Bush administration argued that such a program was legal and necessary to defend the nation from terrorism.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, along with groups and attorneys based in Michigan, filed a lawsuit in Detroit in January 2006 saying that the government's surveillance program was unconstitutional and interfered with their jobs.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled in favor of the plaintiffs last August. The U.S. Justice Department then appealed the case to the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court.

Kary Moss, head of the Michigan branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said "it's a really unfortunate decision."

She said that one of the reasons the plaintiffs had difficulty proving they were being adversely affected was that the government has kept information about the wiretapping program a secret. Moss said they are considering appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations, one of the co-plaintiffs, said: "It's a shame that the court overturned the decision... what the executive branch was doing was unconstitutional."



Three Admit to Online Terror Plot
Breaking Legal News | 2007/07/05 10:33

Three men have admitted using the internet to urge Muslims to wage holy war on non-believers, police said, in what is believed to the first prosecution of its kind in Britain.

Tariq Al-Daour, Younes Tsouli and Waseem Mughal had close links with Al-Qaeda in Iraq and thought there was a 'global conspiracy' to wipe out Islam, London's Woolwich Crown Court was told.

UAE-born Al-Daour, 21, admitted a charge of 'inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the UK which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder'.

Moroccan-born Tsouli, 23, and British-born Mughal, 24, admitted the same charge on Monday.

The guilty pleas came two months into their trial.

Al-Daour and Tsouli, who lived in west London, and Mughal, from Kent, in southeast England, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud banks, credit card and charge card companies.

The trial was told the computer experts spent at least 12 months trying to encourage people to follow the extreme ideology of Osama bin Laden using email and radical websites.

Films of hostages and beheadings were found among their possessions, including footage of British contractor Ken Bigley, who was killed in Iraq in 2004; and US journalist Daniel Pearl, killed in Pakistan in 2002.

CDs containing instructions for making explosives and poisons were also found, with other documents giving advice on how to use a rocket-propelled grenade and how to make booby traps and a suicide vest.

Police also discovered online conversations in which Al-Dour talked of sponsoring terrorist attacks, becoming 'the new Osama' and justifying suicide bombings.



Chicago police probe insulin overdose case
Breaking Legal News | 2007/07/04 08:15

Chicago police are investigating whether three elderly patients, including two dead and the other in a coma, at the University of Chicago Medical Center were intentionally given insulin overdoses, according to media reports Wednesday.

Suspicions were raised after extremely high levels of insulin was found in a comatose hospital patient less than three weeks after a similar case.

"Right now we have not been able to determine criminal intent," said Chicago Police Department spokeswoman Monique Bond. "It's very early in the investigation."

On the other hand, the hospital spokesman John Easton said, "We haven't necessarily tied it to anyone. We don't know if it's medical error or product integrity or defective test results." "We just don't know yet."

All three patients were elderly women being treated in the same wing of the Hyde Park hospital, all were stricken between May 7 and June 5, and none had been prescribed insulin or was suffering from diabetes, Easton said.

According to experts, insulin is produced by the pancreas and controls blood sugar levels, which can cause serious complications including coma and death if they're too high or too low.

Insulin also is given as a medicine to treat diabetes and some other conditions that affect blood sugar control. A normal insulin level ranges from fewer than 10 to 50 micro international units per micro-liter.

The test found that two of the victims had insulin levels "thousands of times higher than normal levels," -- over 2,600. The third was not tested for insulin levels but was hypoglycemic at the time of her death, officials said.

Easton said the hospital has strengthened the security of its insulin storage procedures and increased oversight of how insulin is administered to patients, but that no staffs have been reassigned.

Doctors were alerted to the problem on June 6 when they first saw a high-insulin test result, Easton said. Test results for a second victim were seen on June 14. The hospital notified police after a June 22 staff "root cause" meeting at which internal investigators could not explain the deaths, Easton said.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been notified, Easton said, in case there were problems with the insulin itself.



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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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