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Court hearing set in lawsuit against Reynolds-Lorillard merger
Class Action |
2014/12/24 16:26
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A Delaware judge is set to hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging the planned $25 billion merger of cigarette makers Reynolds American Inc. and Lorillard Inc.
The judge was to hear arguments Friday on a motion by plaintiffs who are seeking a preliminary injunction and a motion to expedite the case.
The two companies last week announced that they would hold special shareholder meetings Jan. 28 in North Carolina, where both companies are headquartered, to vote on the merger.
The combination of the two companies would create a formidable competitor for Virginia-based market leader Altria Group, owner of Philip Morris USA.
Reynolds sells Camel, Pall Mall and Natural American Spirit cigarettes. Lorillard's brands include Newport, Maverick and Kent.
Federal regulators are conducting an antitrust review of the deal. |
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Court rejects appeal over Senate filibuster rules
Class Action |
2014/11/04 13:15
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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a public interest group and four members of Congress who challenged the Senate filibuster as unconstitutional.
The justices let stand a lower court ruling that said Common Cause and the lawmakers did not have legal standing to pursue the case.
The plaintiffs argued that Senate rules requiring at least 60 votes to bring legislation to a vote violates the constitutional principle of majority rule. A federal appeals court said the lawsuit was filed against the wrong parties.
The case was brought against Vice President Joe Biden in his role as president of the Senate, and against the Senate's secretary, parliamentarian and sergeant at arms.
Common Cause says it can't sue the Senate directly because that is barred under the Constitution's Speech and Debate Clause.
Last year, the Senate voted to end use of the filibuster rule from blocking most presidential nominees. Democrats said they ended the rule out of frustration that Republicans were routinely using the tactic to block President Barack Obama's nominees for pivotal judgeships and other top jobs.
But 60 votes are still required to end filibusters against legislation. |
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Japan court orders Google to remove search results
Class Action |
2014/10/13 16:10
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A Japanese judge has ordered Google to remove search results of a man's unflattering past in an order the plaintiff's lawyer compared to Europe's "right to be forgotten" ruling.
The Tokyo District Court ordered Google Japan on Thursday to remove search results that hinted at the man's relations with a criminal organization after he complained his privacy rights were violated.
Google Inc. spokesman Taj Meadows said the company has a standard process for removal requests, and people can come to Google.
"We remove pages from our search results when required by local law, including Japan's longstanding privacy and defamation laws," he said. He said the company was reviewing the ruling.
The plaintiff's lawyer, Tomohiro Kanda said the case addressed privacy, defamation and other issues defined by Japanese law but also took the European "right to be forgotten" ruling in May as an example and used some of its logic and language.
In that case, Europe's highest court ruled Google should delete references to negative past information, including old debts and past arrests. Google has scrubbed more than 200,000 Web links from its European search results after reviewing nearly 145,000 individual requests submitted from 32 countries, according to statistics that the Mountain View, California, company released Friday. |
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Case of American jailed in Cuba back in US court
Class Action |
2014/09/22 13:38
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An attorney for a Maryland man who has spent over four years jailed in Cuba argued before a federal appeals court that his client should be allowed to sue the U.S. government over his imprisonment.
An attorney for Alan Gross, who was a government subcontractor when he was detained in Cuba in 2009, appeared Friday before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
A lower court judge dismissed Gross' lawsuit against the government in 2013, but Gross' lawyers appealed.
Gross was arrested while setting up Internet in Cuba as part of a project for the government's U.S. Agency for International Development. Cuba considers USAID's programs illegal attempts by the U.S. to undermine its government and Gross was given a 15-year prison sentence.
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Appeals court questions proof-of-citizenship rules
Class Action |
2014/08/27 12:16
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A federal appeals panel in Denver on Monday suggested that a partisan stalemate in Congress may mean that Republicans in Kansas and Arizona will be unable to force federal election officials to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements on voter registration forms.
Those two states sued the Elections Assistance Commission after the agency refused to adjust the federal voting registration forms it distributed in Kansas and Arizona to reflect those states' requirements that voters present documentation that proves they are citizens.
A lower court found the commission needed to include the more stringent state language. But on Monday, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted that Congress has not approved a single commissioner to sit on the commission in three years.
The judges were skeptical the agency could decide whether to change the federal form, one way or the other, without any commissioners.
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Court further limits reach of gas drilling law
Class Action |
2014/07/21 15:29
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A Pennsylvania court has further limited the reach of a major 2012 law that modernized drilling regulations, ruling Thursday that state public utility regulators cannot review how local zoning restrictions affect the natural gas industry.
The Commonwealth Court decision threw out the Public Utility Commission's newly authorized power to withhold drilling fee revenue from municipalities whose zoning it deems to illegally restrict drilling activity.
The decision is another blow to an effort by Gov. Tom Corbett and the Republican-controlled Legislature to respond to the drilling industry's complaints about municipal zoning. It follows a state Supreme Court ruling in December that said the law could not strip local zoning authority over drilling activity, such as the placement of rigs, pipelines, waste pits and compressor stations.
John M. Smith, a Pittsburgh-area lawyer who helped represent the seven municipalities that sued, said they were pleased that the court "once again protected the rights of local governments and Pennsylvania citizens."
The Commonwealth Court ruling rejected three other challenges in the lawsuit to elements of the sprawling law.
Those three victories led Corbett's office to say the opinion "speaks volumes to the constitutionality of state regulation of oil and gas activities." A spokesman would only say that the office is evaluating the impact of the ruling on the intended role of the utility commission. |
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Suspect in bodies-in-suitcases case due in court
Class Action |
2014/07/17 11:17
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A former police officer charged with dumping two bodies in suitcases along a rural Wisconsin road is due to enter a plea.
Fifty-two-year-old Steven Zelich is scheduled to attend a plea hearing in Walworth County Circuit Court Thursday on two counts of hiding a corpse.
Zelich's attorney, Travis Schwantes, says the charges might not stand up because prosecutors need to show the former West Allis officer tried to conceal a crime. Schwantes says Zelich claims he killed the two women in the suitcases accidentally during sexual encounters.
Authorities say homicide charges are expected to be filed in the counties where the women died. The bodies of 19-year-old Jenny Gamez, of Cottage Grove, Oregon, and 37-year-old Laura Simonson, of Farmington, Minnesota, were found in the suitcases by highway workers June 5. |
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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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