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Court rules Ventas may immediately collect $102M
Breaking Legal News |
2011/08/22 10:25
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Health care real estate investment trust Ventas Inc. said a federal court has ruled it can immediately collect $102 million in damages awarded by a federal jury in 2009 in a judgment against HCP Inc.
The two companies had agreed to delay payment of the funds while HCP appealed the decision. In May, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judgment and ordered a second trial to decide punitive damages. Those proceedings are set to begin in February.
Ventas, based in Chicago, said late Monday that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled that HCP could not further delay enforcement of the judgment. In the case, Ventas accused HCP of driving up the purchase price of Sunrise Senior Living real estate investment trust.
HCP of Long Beach, Calif., said in a separate statement it will promptly pay the $102 million. It had accrued the full amount in the third quarter of 2009, and the payment will have no additional impact on its earnings.
Ventas operates a portfolio of senior housing communities, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, medical office buildings and other properties in 47 states and two Canadian provinces.
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Lawsuit Over Idaho's Mental Health Care for Kids Revived
Breaking Legal News |
2011/08/21 10:25
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A federal appeals court has revived a decades-old lawsuit against the state of Idaho over claims of substandard children's mental health care.
The case began in 1980 when a little boy known only as Jeff D. brought a class-action lawsuit against the state for institutionalizing mentally ill children instead of providing care for them. In Wednesday's ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the lower court must consider whether the state was meeting the larger goals of providing community-based mental health care to indigent children with severe emotional and mental disabilities.
Idaho Deputy Attorney General Michael Gilmore said he couldn't immediately comment on the ruling because his office was still reviewing it. The attorney representing Jeff D. said the ruling was a vindication for children with severe emotional disturbances and their families.
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Drug company lawyer taped trying to foil lawsuit
Breaking Legal News |
2011/08/19 08:59
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International business can be an ethical jungle, but it's rare to get details of bare-knuckle tactics on tape.
A lawyer in Mexico for a leading U.S. drug manufacturer offered to pay an opposing expert in a lawsuit if he would leave the country on a key court date to undermine the case.
The company, Baxter International Inc., promotes itself as a champion of global anticorruption efforts. Baxter said the lawyer was not authorized to make any offers, and it has severed all ties with him.
The recording and its disclosure offer an unusual glimpse of fishy maneuvers in the global marketplace and come as the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission crack down on misconduct by U.S. companies abroad, part of a multinational effort to clean up commerce.
Based near Chicago, Baxter is a major manufacturer of intravenous drugs and medical devices. Its medications are used to treat people with hemophilia, kidney disease, immune system problems, infectious diseases, serious burns and other conditions.
The lawyer was talking to accountant Rafael Aspuru Alvarez, an expert witness for Translog, a trucking company embroiled in a $25 million legal dispute with Baxter's subsidiary in Mexico.
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Government probe of Standard and Poor's
Breaking Legal News |
2011/08/19 08:58
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The Justice Department is investigating whether the Standard & Poor's credit ratings agency improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The investigation began before Standard & Poor's cut the United States' AAA credit rating this month, but it's likely to add to the political firestorm created by the downgrade, the newspaper said. Some government officials have since questioned the agency's secretive process, its credibility and the competence of its analysts, claiming to have found an error in its debt calculations.
The Times cites two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews as its sources. According to people with knowledge of the interviews, the Justice Department has been asking about instances in which the company's analysts wanted to award lower ratings on mortgage bonds but may have been overruled by other S&P business managers.
If the government finds enough evidence to support a case, it could undercut S&P's longstanding claim that its analysts act independently from business concerns. The newspaper said it was unclear whether the Justice Department investigation involves the other two major ratings agencies, Moody's and Fitch, or only S&P.
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EEOC sues, argues man on treatment should be hired
Breaking Legal News |
2011/08/18 09:21
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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued a national insurance company, contending the firm violated federal law by refusing to hire a North Carolina man after he disclosed he was participating in a methadone treatment program for a drug addiction.
The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Raleigh against United Insurance Co. of America, said EEOC attorney Lynette Barnes.
The complaint argues the firm violated federal disability discrimination law by refusing to hire Craig Burns, 30, who applied for a job in the firm's Raleigh office in December of 2009. The firm made a conditional offer of employment to Burns the following month, depending upon his passing a drug test, the complaint said.
The test showed the presence of methadone in his system, so Burns submitted a letter to the firm from his treatment provider saying he was participating in a supervised methadone treatment program and taking legally prescribed medication as part of the treatment, the complaint said.
Upon receiving this information, United Insurance notified Barnes he was not eligible to be hired and withdrew the employment offer, the complaint said.
Barnes said the action violates the Americans With Disabilities Act, which protects employees and applicants from discrimination based on their disabilities. A recovering drug addict is covered under the act, the attorney said in an interview.
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Law school graduates sue alma mater over job stats
Breaking Legal News |
2011/08/12 10:31
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Four graduates of Thomas M. Cooley Law School have sued their alma mater, claiming the school misrepresented its post-graduation employment statistics to attract students.
The Lansing State Journal and the Detroit Free Press report the lawsuit was filed Wednesday. The suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan by New York law firm Kurzon Strauss seeks class-action status and $250 million in damages.
James Thelen, Cooley's associate dean for legal affairs and general counsel, says the school stands by its post-graduation employment and salary statistics. He says any claims that students or graduates have been misled or legally harmed are "baseless."
The Lansing-based school earlier sued the law firm, claiming it was defaming the school in online ads seeking potential plaintiffs who attended Cooley.
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Once-exonerated Conn. man ordered back to prison
Breaking Legal News |
2011/08/09 02:21
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A month after the Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated murder convictions against two men who had been exonerated, a judge on Monday ordered one of them back to prison but allowed the other to remain free while fighting cancer.
George Gould was sent back to prison while Ronald Taylor, whose lawyer says he has terminal colon cancer, was allowed to remain out on bail. Both men await a new appeal trial connected to their murder convictions in the 1993 fatal shooting of New Haven grocery shop owner Eugenio Deleon Vega.
Gould and Taylor were both sentenced to 80 years in prison for the killing. They filed habeas corpus appeals, challenges to imprisonment that typically come after other appeals fail.
They were freed in April 2010 after 16 years behind bars when Superior Court Judge Stanley Fuger ruled they were victims of "manifest injustice" and declared them "actually innocent." Fuger's ruling came after a key prosecution witness recanted her trial testimony. He ordered both men released.
Prosecutors appealed to the state Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous decision last month saying that Fuger was wrong to overturn the convictions because Gould and Taylor hadn't proven their innocence. The high court ordered a new habeas corpus trial for the two men. |
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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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