The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Peabody Energy must continue to pay benefits to 3,100 Patriot Coal retirees after Patriot split from its once-parent company and filed for bankruptcy. The three-judge appellate bankruptcy panel overturned a lower bankruptcy court ruling in favor of Peabody Energy, which held the company no longer was obliged to pay the benefits. That ruling was linked to the bankruptcy of Patriot Coal Corp....
If you want to win an age discrimination case with direct evidence, there’s a good chance you’ll have to argue hearsay. If your case involves double hearsay, you have to argue why the statement is admissible at each step. For example … Robert Back worked in Nestlé’s “Hot Pocket” plant in Mount Sterling, Ky. from November 1998 until July 2007. He was 53 when Nestlé fired him for his “history of failing to properly supervise his subordinates and his team’s history of failing to meet expectations....
Connecting Legal Departments to the Business at Large As corporate legal teams continue to evolve, covering everything from risk management to transactional work, a new field has risen to help in-house counsel operate effectively. Corporate legal operations (CLO) professionals are quickly becoming a vital piece of both large and medium-sized legal departments, led by people with a title reminiscent of The West Wing: Legal Chief of Staff. What Does a Legal Chief of Staff Do?...
Judges have an important role in safeguarding the impartiality of the courts. Still, judges don’t live in a vacuum. Many may feel obligated to support certain causes, particularly the current movement advocating for racial equality. So, can judges participate in peaceful rallies and protests supporting racial equality such as Black Lives Matter? According to a recent California Supreme Court Ethics Committee advisory opinion, it isn’t prohibited in all circumstances. But they must do so carefully to preserve the public’s opinion of judicial impartiality....
The case of John Doe v. University of Cincinnati is not without some confused emotions. While it may sound like a typical case of a college campus ‘he said she said’ sexual assault dispute, the courts have found the disciplinary process to be unconstitutional. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the college’s disciplinary process violated the due process rights of the student accused of sexual assault because he was denied the right to confront his accuser....
Spengler v. Worthington Cylinder, 08-3110, concerned a challenge to the district court’s denial of defendant’s Rule 50(b) motion and jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff, in plaintiff’s age discrimination suit against his former employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Ohio’s anti-discrimination statute. In afirming, the court held that the district court did not err in allowing plaintiff’s case to proceed to trial as the language in plaintiff’s EEOC charge sets forth sufficient facts to put the EEOC on notice of plaintiff’s retaliation claim despite his failure to check the “Retaliation” box on the charge....
Fleeing the cops is a “violent crime” for the purpose of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), according to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. No, it’s not as violent as staring the cops down in a gun-blazing standoff, but courts are looking for the potential for violence, rather than the actual degree of violence in particular situation. John Lee Bartel pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison....
Holiday travel is complicated enough, but if you’re a gun owner and plan to bring your firearm with you when you go home for the holidays, it gets even more complex. Guns are largely a matter of state regulation. That means you need to know the gun laws in your own state, and also the laws in any states you plan to travel to (or through) with your firearms. You also need to make sure your method of transportation allows guns....
In Vereecke v. Huron Valley Sch. Dist., No. 08-2051, the Sixth Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s grant of summary judgment for defendants in a high school English teacher’s suit against a school district and individuals for First Amendment retaliation, claiming that certain disciplinary actions were taken against him for initiating a lawsuit against another teacher on behalf of his daughter for harassment. As stated in the decision: “The third element of a First Amendment retaliation claim requires the plaintiff to prove ‘a causal connection between the protected conduct and the adverse action....
Two Pennsylvania lawmakers don’t think it’s right that cops in that state can legally have sex with people in their custody. They’re proposing bills to prohibit it. But before you conclude that Pennsylvania is a weird place for letting their police officers do that, consider this: 31 other states also allow it. We’re talking consensual sex, mind you. If cops force themselves sexually on those in their custody, they can face criminal charges like anyone else....
If I was trying to go incognito, my first thought probably wouldn’t be to rent an electric scooter and zoom around downtown Los Angeles with it. They are not particularly inconspicuous. Yet a recent Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion dealt with the “reasonable expectation of privacy” LA residents and visitors might have when renting e-scooters, which are more popular than ever due to their mobility, ease of use, and low cost....
When people speak of justice being elusive, the recent Ninth Circuit appellate decision, McCray v. Marriott, involving the San Jose union employees being denied the local minimum wage, is rather illustrative. The case was first filed in state court, then removed to the federal district courts, where it was dismissed. And now, after an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a panel of justices has decided to send the case back to state court, to actually get litigated....
District court’s denial of plaintiff’s petition for writ of habeas corpus is affirmed where, although the Wisconsin appellate court applied a methodology based on an unreasonable reading of the decisions of the Supreme Court and thus improperly endorsed the trial court’s abnegation of its non-delegable responsibility to determine the appropriate security measures for a jury view of the crime scene, the Wisconsin court did not run afoul of any clearly established principle of federal law when it determined that the security measures taken did not violate plaintiff’s federal constitutional right to due process of law, and any error was harmless....
The impact of last week’s decision in McCutcheon v. FEC is obvious: There will be a lot more money injected into politics. Those who can afford to donate will, which realistically means that the rich will have an even louder voice. Chief Justice John Roberts didn’t seem particularly concerned about the impact of his controlling plurality opinion, noting that Congress may not “restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others,” while Justice Stephen Breyer predicted doom and gloom, stating that the decision “eviscerates our nation’s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve....
In US v. Moran, No. 09-2519, the Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant’s conviction and sentence for conspiracy to distribute at least fifty grams of actual methamphetamine, on the grounds that 1) the government produced sufficient evidence to support defendant’s conviction; 2) even if the police were aware of defendant’s earlier felony convictions, this awareness did not require that they cease their investigation; and 3) defendant’s mandatory sentence of life imprisonment did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment....
In an appeal from the Bankruptcy Court’s refusal to approve Debtor’s Chapter 13 plan, the Bankruptcy Court’s order is affirmed, where an above-median income debtor seeking bankruptcy relief under Chapter 13 may not deduct from his projected disposable income a vehicle “ownership cost” for a vehicle he owns free and clear. Read Ransom v. MBNA Am. Bank, N.A., No. 08-15066 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted June 9, 2009 Filed August 14, 2009...
The dust has finally settled around the controversy over student speech in the “I Heart Boobies” bracelet case, and now another school in the Third Circuit has come under fire for potentially violating a student’s right to free speech. Though there’s never a clear line drawn as to what kind of speech can be prohibited, this case is a particularly difficult one because the speech being prohibited is religious in nature....
Justice Sonia Sotomayor capped off a 10-day tour of Alaska on Sunday with a speech at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Sadly, the Bronx native didn’t regale her audience with tales of Grizzly sightings, glacier climbing, or moose hunting, which is what we would have liked to hear about. But she did have some words of wisdom for her legislative branch counterparts back in Washington, D.C.: You might work together a bit better if you chilled out and got along, just like they do it in the Supreme Court....
Once again, another Super Bowl is overshadowed by the shenanigans of its half-time performers. First it was Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during the 2004 Super Bowl, and now it’s singer M.I.A.’s bird-flipping during the 2012 Super Bowl. In the midst of all the screams of moral corruption, the spotlight has returned to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to toss the FCC’s $550,000 indecency fine against CBS for broadcasting Jackson’s nipple-slip because the FCC “improperly imposed a penalty on CBS for violating a previously unannounced policy....
Is downloading a song the legal equivalent of performing a song when calculating music royalties? Last year, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said it wasn’t. Hoping for a final word from the Supreme Court on the issue? You’re out of luck. In its Monday orders, the Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari in the case. In case you missed the controversy when it was in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, we’ll recap for you....
