Maybe Martin Luther King, Jr. could help her win the case, attorney Mary Bogan thought. The nation had recently celebrated the life of the great civil rights leader, and his words were still in the air. “The time is always right to do the right thing,” Bogan quoted to the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Nice speech, but not really relevant? According to reports, Bogan’s argument over the “Empire” show might have been a little awkward....
US v. Orr Water Ditch Co., No. 07-17001, involved an Indian tribe’s appeal from Nevada State Engineer Ruling 5747, allocating groundwater in the Tracy Segment Hydrographic Basin, on the ground that the ruling adversely affected the tribe’s water rights under a consent decree. The Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, on the grounds that 1) the decree forbade groundwater allocations that adversely affected the tribe’s decreed rights to water flows in the river; and 2) the federal district court had jurisdiction over an appeal from groundwater allocations by the Engineer that were alleged to have such an adverse effect....
Another one bites the dust. Earlier this year J.P. Morgan and the DOJ reached a $13 billion settlement, and yesterday U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DOJ and Citigroup have reached a settlement regarding federal investigations of mortgage securities. The $7 billion settlement is much more than the $363 million Citi initially offered, and a bit more than half of the $12 billion the DOJ countered with, reports The Wall Street Journal....
The popular Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” depicts the life of a trailblazing chess prodigy named Beth Harmon. While the character and story are fiction, the struggles and prejudice the female protagonist in the series faced would have been very real. In the world of chess in the 1950s and 60s, it was widely assumed that to be among the best chess players in the world, you had to be a man....
If you thought cheese could make you fat, what would you think if you found out it was made of cellulose? Cheese and crackers! You may as well just inject fat into your thighs. Hook up an IV with liquid cholesterol. Actually cellulose doesn’t make you fat, but we try to do a gouda job reporting here and a cheese case is too good to cut straight. If you think that sounds cheesy, a Chicago judge didn’t like it either:...
District court decision affirming the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration’s denial of claimant’s application for disability insurance benefits is affirmed where: 1) the ALJ did not err in determining claimant retained the residual functional capacity to perform light work and that she could thus return to her prior work; and 2) the ALJ did not err in discrediting claimant’s testimony regarding her limitations as he sufficiently considered her testimony, but discredited it for good cause because her testimony was inconsistent with the medical and other evidence in the record as a whole....
Naruto, the smiling selfie-monkey, got no love from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Dissing the animal rights group that sued for him, the appeals court said animals don’t have copyrights. The case attracted global attention because the macaque actually took his own picture, but that did not seem to impress the federal judges. The Ninth Circuit handed the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals a loss in Naruto v....
After nearly 30 years of legal battles over the fate of former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, Philadelphia’s District Attorney has announced his office will no longer pursue the death penalty. The decision was announced a month after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Pennsylvania’s request to review the Third Circuit’s finding that Abu-Jamal was entitled to a new sentencing hearing. Given the Supreme Court’s denial to rehear the case, the district attorney had two choices: 1) conduct a new sentencing hearing, or 2) revert Abu-Jamal’s sentence to life without parole....
In re Johnson, No. 08-5088, concerned a challenge to the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel’s (BAP)judgment for the trustee and against the lender of the debtor’s pick-up truck, in Chapter 7 proceedings. In affirming the judgment of the BAP, the court held that the enabling loan exception of 11 U.S.C. section 547(c)(3) does not protect the lender’s interest in the pick-up truck from avoidance as a preferential transfer because the perfection of the lender’s security interest in the truck did not occur until March 7, 2005, when the security interest was actually noted on the certificate of title....
In a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action seeking unpaid overtime for hourly employees, the appeal is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction where, because Plaintiffs voluntarily settled their Fair Labor Standards Act claims before the appeal was taken, the action was moot. Read the full decision in Smith v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., No. 08-55535. Appeal Information: Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Audrey B....
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a conviction in a drug trafficking case and remanded the case back to the District Court for sentencing earlier this week. After a jury in the Virgin Islands found the defendant to be guilty of conspiring to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute, the District Court of the Virgin Islands entered a judgment of acquittal, finding that there was insufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that the defendant participated in the conspiracy....
“How To Get Away With Murder,” our favorite legal soap opera/murder show, ended its first season with quite a bang last night, promising an equally interesting second season. Most of the mysteries – who killed Lila, what happened to Rudy Walters, and what the deal is with Rebecca – were answered, but the season ended on a brand-new mystery that will take us into Season 2. Though only the first of this two-part finale had much to do with the law, it naturally got some of the points wrong....
We have an aunt in Oklahoma who marvels at the number of meth lab explosions in the state. Apparently, the masses turn to the entrepreneurial spirit and drug production in a stagnant economy. Between family accounts of meth lab fires, and a few episodes of Breaking Bad, we’ve subconsciously concluded that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals only addresses drug appeals — whether qualified immunity challenges or warrantless searches — and Administrative Practices Act appeals from the Sierra Club....
Two more law firms fell victim to cybercrime, losing about $117,000 through malware on their computers. The cyberthieves used a malicious program to infect computer systems and capture banking login credentials. They also created look-alike internet pages for the victims’ financial institutions, then accessed bank accounts to transfer money out and convert it to bitcoin. Losing $117,000 is not the end of the world for most law firms, but it is hard to explain to clients....
The University of Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) convinced a federal jury in the Seventh Circuit yesterday that Apple had infringed on one of its processor patents. The iPhone maker is said to have infringed upon the WARF patent in the A7, A8, and A8X processors that are used heavily in 2013-14 iPads and iPhones. Now that it has been established that Apple infringed on U of W’s patent, the only matter left to be determined are damages....
District court’s denial of a defendant’s Apprendi challenge in a motion filed under 28 U.S.C. section 2255 is affirmed but the motion should have been dismissed rather than denied as the district court has no jurisdiction to entertain a successive section 2255 motion without the consent of the court of appeals, which was not sought or given in this case, and defendant’s second motion was in substance and therefore in law a section 2255 motion....
John Howell and his ex-wife Sandra divorced with an agreement that she would receive half of his military retirement, but he later opted for smaller disability payments because they were non-taxable. In a unanimous ruling in Howell v. Howell, the U.S. Supreme Court said he does not have to make up the shortfall to his ex-spouse. Howell had to give up part of his retirement to receive the disability pay, and the court said federal law preempts states from treating waived military pay as divisible community property....
If you want to officiate your cousins wedding, you can spend a few bucks and get ordained online in under 15 minutes. But if you want to establish a church plan, an ERISA-exempt defined benefit retirement plan, you better be a church. That’s the gist of a recent ruling by the Third Circuit that concluded, “per the plain text of ERISA, only a church can establish” such plans. Though the Third Circuit’s ruling seems straightforward, it contrasts with years of IRS practice found that “nonchurch status is not fatal” when establishing church plans and decades of court opinions assuming that church plans could be established by entities that simply have strong ties to churches....
The separation of immigrant children from their parents – and their subsequent detention – may be a hot news topic right now, but the issue isn’t exactly new. In fact, immigration officials have been trying to figure out what to do with unaccompanied migrant children since the early ’80s. Those efforts, and a class action lawsuit against the federal government decided by the Supreme Court, led to a 1997 settlement agreement between minor detainees and then-Attorney General Janet Reno outlining strict regulations and standards regarding the detention and treatment of minors in federal custody....
You may see Obamacare back in front of the Supreme Court next term, at least if religious nonprofits have their way. Just over a year ago, the Court ruled in Hobby Lobby that the Affordable Care Act must accommodate the religious objections of closely held corporations. The nonprofits all object to being involved with Obamacare’s contraception mandate in any manner. They’ve all made similar legal arguments. They’ve all lost – repeatedly....
