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Megabus driver charged in NY crash that killed 4
Court Watch |
2011/05/09 02:10
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The driver of a double-decker Megabus that smashed into a low bridge in upstate New York in September, killing four passengers, has been charged with criminally negligent homicide.
John Tomaszewski pleaded not guilty Monday. He made a wrong turn off an interstate highway late at night near Syracuse, and the 13-foot-1-inch-tall bus failed to clear the railroad bridge's 10-foot-9-inch span.
The Philadelphia-to-Toronto bus was carrying 29 people, including the driver, when it crashed Sept. 11 on the Onondaga Lakeside Parkway in Salina.
After months of review, a grand jury decided to indict him on four counts of criminally negligent homicide plus one count of failing to obey a traffic control device.
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4 guilty in $5.2M Medicare fraud scheme in Houston
Court Watch |
2011/05/04 09:32
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Four people have been convicted in Houston of conspiring to defraud the Medicare program out of $5.2 million over a three-year period.
A Justice Department statement identifies the four convicted Wednesday as 46-year-old Ezinne Ubani, 45-year-old Caroline Njoku and 47-year-old Terrie Porter, all of Houston, and 55-year-old Mary Ellis of Missouri City.
The federal jury in Houston acquitted 62-year-old Estella Joseph of Houston, all after a 15-day trial before U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 20-21. Ubani and Ellis could receive up to 20 years in prison, Njoku could get up to 15 years in prison, while Porter could get up to 10 years in prison. |
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Firm hired by GOP ends work on gay marriage ban
Court Watch |
2011/05/02 09:05
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A prominent law firm hired by Republican lawmakers to defend the federal ban on gay marriage said Monday it was withdrawing from the case amid criticism by advocacy groups, prompting the partner leading the work to quit.
The move by Atlanta-based King & Spalding is the latest flashpoint in the public debate over gay rights. Chairman Robert Hays Jr. said the firm chose to divorce itself from the controversy after determining that the decision to take the case wasn't vetted properly, but gay rights groups had also been pressuring the 800-lawyer company with plans for a protest Tuesday in Atlanta and with calls to its other clients. The groups cheered the move.
The decision, however, was sharply criticized by conservative groups, legal observers and the partner who had been handling the case, a former high-ranking Justice Department official under President George W. Bush. Washington-based attorney Paul Clement said he's moving to another law office so he can continue the work.
Clement had been retained by House Republican leaders after President Barack Obama ordered the Justice Department in February to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act. His administration said it believes the 1996 law, which defines marriage as only between a man and a woman, was unconstitutional.
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US Supreme Court imposes limits on class actions
Court Watch |
2011/04/28 06:19
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the ability of people to combine forces and fight corporations together when they want to dispute contracts for cell phones, cable television and other services, a move consumer advocates called a crushing blow.
In a 5-4 ideological split, the high court's conservatives said businesses can block their customers from using class actions. The court said the federal arbitration law trumps state laws that invalidate contracts banning class actions.
The decision came in a dispute between AT&T Mobility and a California couple who objected to being charged around $30 in sales tax for what they were told was a free cell phone.
Businesses commonly require arbitration clauses in consumer contracts to protect them from facing their customers in court. The Supreme Court's decision means that corporations now won't need to worry about consumers, shareholders or even employees banding together and fighting them using lawsuits or arbitration, consumer groups said.
"Now, whenever you sign a contract to get a cell phone, open a bank account or take a job, you may be giving up your right to hold companies accountable for fraud, discrimination or other illegal practices," said Deepak Gupta, a Public Citizen lawyer who argued the case.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the decision would hamper the rights of consumers to be protected by state laws.
"Class actions are an effective way to ensure consumer protection, but today's opinion by the Roberts court continued to move in a direction that undermines this access to justice for hard-working Americans," Leahy said.
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Group sues Calif. over race-based prison lockdowns
Court Watch |
2011/04/28 02:19
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California's use of race as a basis for locking prisoners in their cells after fights amounts to illegal discrimination and should be banned, attorneys representing inmates said in a class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The policy unfairly punishes innocent inmates simply because they have the same color skin as those involved in the violence, the nonprofit Prison Law Office said in its suit, filed in federal court in Sacramento.
Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said lockdowns are sometimes necessary to protect safety and security. It is not the department's policy to base lockdowns and other restrictions solely on race or ethnicity, she said.
However, a proposed revision to the department's lockdown policy says inmates often organize themselves based on race or geographical area. The policy acknowledges that some uninvolved inmates may be affected, but it is the department's goal to get them back to a normal routine as soon as possible.
Rebekah Evenson, an attorney with the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office, said the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a similar argument in 2005 when it told the state to end its policy of housing inmates based on their race. The high court and other states have found that such race-based policies encourage violence by splitting inmates along racial lines, Evenson said.
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Judge Considers $30M Dairy Antitrust Settlement
Court Watch |
2011/04/18 09:51
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A federal judge in Vermont is considering moving forward with a partial settlement of an anti-trust lawsuit in which national dairy processor Dean Foods would pay some northeast dairy farmers $30 million.
But U.S. District Court Judge Christina Reiss said Friday she may defer a decision on part of the settlement that would require Dean Foods of Dallas to change its milk-buying practices in the region for 30 months by buying milk from independent farmers, a controversial provision that the plaintiffs say would jump start competition but a national dairy cooperative says would harm some farmers.
"I am likely to sever the settlement," Reiss told lawyers during a hearing on Friday.
Farmers have complained for years that Dean, the cooperative Dairy Farmers of America and its marketing affiliate Dairy Marketing Services have come to dominate the milk-buying market and have held down prices paid to farmers.
By agreeing to the settlement, Dean Foods does not admit any liability and "continues to maintain that it has not broken any laws," Dean Foods' attorney Paul Friedman said Friday.
It settles a class action lawsuit filed in 2009, which means 5,000 to 10,000 farmers could get a share of the settlement.
During the more than two-hour hearing, both sides urged Reiss to approve the deal, which plaintiff lawyer Kit Pierson said was "reached after extraordinarily difficult negotiations with Dean Foods."
But DFA and DMS, which are also named as co-defendants in the class-action lawsuit but are opposed to the settlement, said the provision in which Dean Foods would get 10 to 20 percent of the raw milk it buys for plants in Lynn and Franklin, Mass., and in East Greenbush, N.Y., from sources other than DMS for 30 months takes business away from their farmers and gives it to someone else.
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Court turns down appeal in murder plot case
Court Watch |
2011/04/18 09:50
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The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal in a murder-for-hire plot after the star prosecution witness forged documents used at trial and lied about his military background.
The court said Monday it will not review a divided appeals court ruling that, by a 6-5 vote, upheld the conviction of Idaho businessman David Hinkson for plotting to kill a federal judge, prosecutor and tax agent. Hinkson is serving a 43-year prison term.
Earlier, a three-judge panel on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had decided that Hinkson deserved a new trial because the witness, Elven Joe Swisher, lied about his war record, including presenting forged documents.
Swisher later was convicted of defrauding the government of nearly $100,000 in veterans' benefits and wearing unauthorized military medals.
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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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