The state of New York, facing its worst measles outbreak in over 25 years, has passed a new law to hopefully put a stop to the outbreak. The law eliminates non-medical and religious exemptions from the legally mandated vaccine requirement for children in schools and daycare. While the law itself cannot stop the virus from harming those it has already infected, it is expected to help prevent more cases from arising....
You know that prank when you send a pizza to someone who didn’t order one? Well, it was no joke to Pablo Villavicencio when he went to deliver a pizza and got nabbed for deportation. It’s not exactly the same as the pizza prank, but it definitely messed up his day. Fortunately for the Long Island resident, his story caught the attention of the media, lawmakers, and a judge who stayed his case....
America’s roads and highways are becoming ever more dangerous places. Death rates are escalating at frightening levels, largely due to reckless driving. So is road rage and, perhaps unsurprisingly, deadly road rage involving guns. Police don’t necessarily keep track of whether road rage is the cause of a shooting. Many states don’t recognize road rage as a criminal category and instead charge offenders with other violations or crimes like homicide or assault, often several in connection with a single incident....
This case has everything: a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader, who slept with (and later became engaged to) a student, sued a gossip website over posts submitted by users claiming that she had multiple sexually transmitted diseases and that she had slept with the entire Bengals football team. Yes, that’s a very loaded sentence, as is the case. Actually, check that: this wouldn’t be a loaded case, were it not for a district court judge misapplying the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a law which has unanimously (at least, outside of this single Kentucky-based federal court) been interpreted as protecting websites from being sued for user-submitted content....
In a conviction for manufacturing and passing counterfeit currency, district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress key evidence used against him is reversed and remanded where: 1) the inevitable discovery doctrine does not apply to warrantless searches where a warrant could have been obtained based on probable cause; and 2) the case is remanded to evaluate the statements made by defendant to the agents, based on the mistaken belief that the printer was properly admissible evidence, to evaluate whether they should also be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree....
District court’s imposition of a 24 months’ imprisonment followed by 3 years of supervised release upon a defendant convicted of stalking the surgeon who saved his life is affirmed as, the district court did not rely on any inaccurate information in sentencing defendant and did not abuse its discretion in considering defendant’s mental health among the variety of factors discussed at sentencing. Read US v. Zohfeld, No. 08-3252 Appellate Information...
Way back in 1787, when the framers were drafting the Constitution, they included a provision about the application of state laws to federal enclaves. The provision wasn’t a big deal like the taxing power, the Necessary and Proper Clause, or the Commerce Clause, but it occasionally pops up in the news. This week, it popped up in a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals retaliation claim. Federal enclave doctrine operates as a choice of law doctrine that dictates which law applies to causes of action arising on these lands....
Civil rights can sometimes be a bit confusing. The case of Anthony Runion is definitely one of those ‘I-may-not-agree-with-what-you’re-saying-but-I-support-your-right-to-say-it’ situations in the view of the Eighth Circuit. Runion was picketing his employer, Cooper Tire, after striking union employees were locked out. As a group of strike-breaking employees crossed the picket line, Runion made racist comments, which were not heard by the strike-breaking employees. Nevertheless, Cooper Tire terminated Runion for making the racist comments....
A federal appeals court ruled that a man with a claw hand, denied a job on a locomotive, was not disabled because he could do other jobs. The U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a dismissal against the man, who sued for disability discrimination after a railroad company retracted a job offer because of his disfigured hand. The employer was not liable under the Americans With Disabilities Act because it considered him able to perform other jobs, the court said....
Just two days after Labor Day, the Ninth Circuit has ruled against Uber drivers in a decision that could seriously limit their ability to pursue class actions against the company. On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Uber’s driver contracts, which include causes requiring individual arbitration of disputes, were not unconscionable and could be enforced against the drivers. The ruling comes in response to a driver class action over background checks, not the massive employee misclassification class action the company also faces, but the Ninth’s decision could have significant implications for those plaintiffs as well....
Overtime Claim by Minister in Training Under Washington’s Minimum Wage Act In Alcazar v. Corp. of the Catholic Bishop of Seattle, No. 09-35003, an overtime claim brought under Washington’s Minimum Wage Act, the court affirmed judgment on the pleadings for defendant where plaintiff was a minister under any reasonable interpretation of the ministerial exception, as he had entered into a church-recognized seminary program to become a minister and brought suit concerning employment decisions arising from work as a seminarian....
Record Breaking Divorces Prior to the Bezos divorce, which MacKenzie Bezos tweeted out has finally been completed, the most expensive divorce paled in comparison. The Wildenstein divorce in 1999 previously held the record with the socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein receiving a total of $3.8 billion. Even the divorce of Rupert and Anna Murdoch, which also happened in 1999, only hit $1.7 billion. Record Breaking Couple Related Resources: Johnny Depp Sues Ex-Wife Amber Heard for $50M (FindLaw Celebrity Justice) 3 Celebrities That Lost Over $1 Billion in Divorce (FindLaw Celebrity Justice) Latest Celebrity ‘Conscious Uncoupling’ Divorce (FindLaw Celebrity Justice) You Don’t Have To Solve This on Your Own – Get a Lawyer’s Help Civil Rights Block on Trump’s Asylum Ban Upheld by Supreme Court...
In a kidnapping and assault prosecution, grant of petitioner’s habeas petition is affirmed where defense counsel did not reasonably investigate petitioner’s alibi defense, and the evidence against petitioner was based solely on the testimony of two eyewitnesses with obscured views and was far from overwhelming. Read Bigelow v. Haviland, No. 07-3340 Appellate Information Submitted: February 4, 2008 Decided and Filed: August 6, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Sutton Counsel For Appellant:...
Moor v. Palmer, No. 07-16045, concerned habeas proceedings challenging the denial of petitioner’s parole, following his conviction for using a minor in the production of pornography. The court of appeals affirmed the denial of the petition, holding that 1) the revocation of petitioner’s parole in 2002 was not the type of criminal punishment that would trigger the protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause; 2) to the extent petitioner asserted that the parole board’s violation or misapplication of Nevada law violated his federal due process rights, petitioner had no liberty interest in parole; and 3) it is not an objectively unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent to conclude that subjecting petitioner to a review panel certification process would not create a substantial risk that he would serve more prison time than if he had been evaluated for parole under standards applicable at the time of his conviction, as found in Nev....
Colwell v. Rite Aid Corp., No. 08-4675, concerned an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) action claiming constructive discharge based on plaintiff’s partial blindness. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendant in part, holding that no reasonable juror could find that the actions to which plaintiff referred made her workplace so unbearable that a reasonable person would have felt compelled to resign. However, the court reversed in part where the ADA contemplated that employers may need to make reasonable shift changes in order to accommodate a disabled employee’s disability-related difficulties in getting to work....
Telemarketers are annoying, so we’re on the “Do Not Call” registry, and we don’t answer our phone unless we recognize the caller’s number. But how do you combat unsolicited advertising faxes? If you’re Compressor Engineering Corporation, you sue the sender in federal court … and that’s okay with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Compressor Engineering Corporation brought suit in federal court after Manufacturers Financial Corporation and Charity Marketing LLC allegedly sent unsolicited fax advertisements to Compressor Engineering and at least 39 others recipients....
Getting older can be tough, especially when you lose a job based on your age. That’s what Ramona DeBra said happened at JPMorgan, where she was a teller. As she neared 60, the Michigan branch let her go. Unfortunately in DeBra v. JPMorgan Chase & Company, it got worse for her. According to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, her age wasn’t the reason she was fired. Low Overall Rating DeBra started working for the bank in 1996....
If you’re a drinker of diet soda, you might assume it will help you lose weight. On Dec. 30, however, a federal appeals court said your assumptions may be wrong. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 to dismiss a case that was filed in 2017 by a California woman who was upset that drinking Diet Dr. Pepper for 13 years did not result in significant weight loss....
Gary Brunckhorst could not go back to work because a bacteria was literally eating him alive. The disease practically killed him, and after three life-saving surgeries and five months of hospitalization, he still couldn’t go back to work. He finally recovered enough to work again, but by then his employer said the job had been eliminated. He sued for disability discrimination in Brunckhorst v. City of Oak Park Heights. Like the disease, however, the appeals court said it wasn’t the employer’s fault....
Things picked up for Neil Gorsuch today. The second day of the Senate’s hearings on Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination saw the judge tackling, and sometimes evading, weighty issues. Judicial independence was in play, as were Roe v. Wade and other controversial precedents. There was even an untimely reference to the passing of Justice Samuel Alito. Here are the highlights so far. The Democrats made it clear yesterday that they wanted Judge Gorsuch to prove his independence from the man that nominated him....
