Consider the following two food facts: At least one-third of the food we produce in the U.S. is never eaten and largely ends up in landfills, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions like methane.Many Americans go hungry because they don’t have enough money, and it’s getting worse. If it strikes you that something is out of whack here, you’re not alone. Slowly but surely, public awareness about the amount of food waste is growing....
We all know that a Supreme Court opinion trumps a circuit opinion. To make that point crystal clear to litigants, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an unpublished this week rejecting a defendant’s consecutive sentence appeal. In the opinion, the court noted it had vacated its own precedent in U.S. v. Almany in light of controlling Supreme Court precedent in Abbott v. U.S. Appellant Padron Thomas pleaded guilty to one count of possession of more than 1000 kilograms of marijuana with intent to distribute and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking offense....
In a trademark infringement case involving interpretation of a trademark licensing agreement of plaintiff’s “VO5” trademark, and Japanese trademark law, district court’s judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and orders enjoining the defendant from using the variant mark, and terminating the licensing agreement to return all the licensed trademarks to the plaintiff is vacated and remanded as under Japanese trademark law, the term senyoshioken, which the district judge refused to give the meaning of to the jury, means exclusive-use right where the license holder not only has an exclusive right to use the licensed trademarks within the geographical scope of the licensed trademarks but can sue infringers of the trademarks in its own name....
Lee Boyd Malvo was 17 years old when he murdered three people and served as the “spotter” for killing seven others in the “DC Sniper” shootings. He and his accomplice, John Allen Muhammad, shot the victims in a month-long killing spree in 2002. Muhammad has since been executed, and Malvo is serving two life sentences. In Mathena v. Malvo, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether Malvo’s sentence was too harsh because of his age at the time....
In an action for tuition reimbursement under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA), summary judgment for defendant department of education is affirmed where: 1) because the IDEA does not require that an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) name a specific school placement, plaintiff-child’s IEP was not procedurally deficient; and 2) there was substantial evidence in the record that the IEP provided significant benefits to plaintiff in addressing his problematic behaviors....
Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 decision. Chief Justice John Roberts, surprisingly, was the swing vote on the Court. In March, when everyone began handicapping the Affordable Care Act arguments, the question was whether the Court would justify the individual mandate under the Commerce Clause. But the Obama administration didn’t win this case on its argument that the individual mandate was permissible under the Commerce Clause....
Sentence for drug crimes is affirmed where: 1) the district court’s drug-type finding was not clearly erroneous as the court properly relied on the testimony of people familiar with crack to determine that the substance was crack; and 2) the judge’s disputed comments at sentencing did not constitute reversible error. Read US v. Betts, No. 08-3555 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division....
Defendant’s drug sentence is affirmed where the district court lacked authority to sentence him to less than the minimum of the amended guideline range because the Sentencing Commission’s policy statements neither take away from its ability to define and limit its own policy statements under 18 U.S.C. section 994, nor undercut the binding effect of U.S.S.G. section 1B1.10. Read US v. Williams, No. 08-1284 Appellate Information Filed August 4, 2009...
In a one-paragraph order, Chief Justice John Roberts has put the climate change case of the decade on hold. The big climate change case being brought by a group of children was slated to go to trial in a week, but it looks like the federal government just succeeded in derailing the train of experts and testimony that was expected to shock the world with facts about climate science and government accountability or the lack thereof....
James White pleaded guilty to violating the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) after he failed to update his sex offender registration when he moved from Oklahoma to Texas. (He actually moved to Texas, then “drove back to Oklahoma every ninety days to maintain the illusion that he continued to reside there.”) On appeal, he claimed SORNA violated the Commerce Clause, the Tenth Amendment, and the Ex Post Facto Clause....
On Monday, the Supreme Court overturned a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion granting class certification to the women in the Walmart gender discrimination lawsuit. Monday’s decision has been hailed as a huge victory for the retail giant and for employers everywhere. In 2004, a U.S. Federal District Court within the 9th Circuit certified the case to proceed as a class action lawsuit. The district court lawsuit alleged that Walmart discriminated against women in the way the retail giant recruited and promoted managers....
Did you know that there’s a documentary about the Notorious RBG? Unfortunately, you still have to wait over a month before it is released in theaters nationwide on May 4th. Fortunately though, you won’t be guessing which movie is about her, as the film is simply titled: RBG. Those lucky moviegoers that attended this year’s Sundance Film Festival were treated to the first run of the film, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive....
Harvey v. Jordan, No. 07-15023, concerned an action claiming that corrections officers used excessive force and violated plaintiff-inmate’s due process rights in the course of removing him from his cell. The court of appeals affirmed the dismissal of the action in part, on the ground that, because plaintiff did not file a grievance until well after the applicable fifteen-day period had ended, he did not properly exhaust his administrative remedies on the excessive force claim....
In Renico v. Lett, No. 09-338, a case involving a first-degree murder prosecution, the Court reversed the grant of petitioner’s habeas petition, holding that it was reasonable for the Michigan Supreme Court to determine that the trial judge had exercised sound discretion in declaring a mistrial, and thus the state court’s decision was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under a proper application of the AEDPA’s deferential standard of review....
Walter Bagdasarian, a California man accused of violating a federal law that prohibits making threats against a presidential candidate, dodged a .50 caliber conviction bullet using his crack legal team and the foot permanently inserted in his mouth. On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Bagdasarian’s conviction for threatening to kill or inflict bodily harm upon a major candidate for the office of President. In October 2008, Bagdasarian, under the pseudonym “californiaradial,” posted multiple messages on a Yahoo!...
Transcript Panel 1: An orange blob, holding a vaping device, looks up at the smoke around it, which is coming out of its device. Inside the smoke is the text: “What happens if I get caught vaping?” Panel 2: The text says: “Vaping and e-cigarettes are regulated like tobacco. Depending on where you are, if you get caught vaping, and you’re a minor, you could be breaking the law.” Below the text are four round characters lounging and smoking and vaping....
For the first time, a federal appeals court has ruled that a resident doctor may sue a teaching hospital for gender discrimination under education laws. Reversing and remanding a trial judge’s dismissal, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals said the former resident at Mercy Catholic Medical Center could proceed with her case under Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments Act. The case was a matter of first impression in the circuit, which includes Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and the U....
Sulima v. Tobyhanna Army Depot, No. 08-4684 involved a challenge to the district court’s grant of summary judgment in plaintiff’s suit against several federal government defendants under the ADA and the RA, arising from his voluntary layoff from employment with the Army Depot. However, because plaintiff did not demonstrate that the medications that were causing his problems were medically necessary, their side effects cannot be considered as impairments within the meaning of the ADA....
In a surprising reversal, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and largest shareholder of Twitter, abandoned his plan to join the social media company’s board of directors and instead offered to buy the company outright and take it private. Dare we say it, the internet is all a-twitter. Some people are joyous; others are livid and horrified. Musk’s primary goal seems to be liberalizing Twitter’s free speech policies. To do that, he would need to acquire substantial control of the company....
In a dispute involving pension benefits, district court judgment is affirmed where under ERISA an age is the normal retirement age because the pension plan’s text makes it so, and thus the statutory language allows employers to vary by contract aspects of pension plans and specify a normal retirement age that may differ from typical retirement patterns. Read Fry v. Exelon Corp. Cash Balance Pension Plan, No. 08-1135 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division....
