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The latest proposal in Purdue Pharma’s efforts to settle thousands of lawsuits related to the damage opioids have dealt across the nation would cost the Sackler family up to $6 billion. The Sacklers have owned Purdue since the 1950s. Several state attorneys general rejected an earlier settlement offer with a $4.3 billion contribution from the Sacklers, arguing that even this seemingly large amount was not enough to hold the family accountable....

Public school students don’t lose their constitutional rights when they walk onto school property. This includes your expectation of privacy and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Outside of school grounds, this usually means police officers and other law enforcement officials cannot search an adult without probable cause and a warrant. However, because of the special need to maintain school discipline and an orderly learning environment, the U....

Service Employees Int’l. Union v. Nat’l. Union of Healthcare Wkrs., No. 09-15855, concerned an action by a union seeking injunctive relief to obtain restoration of properties it alleged were illegally taken by the former officers and leaders of the union, who formed a rival union. The court of appeals affirmed the temporary restraining order (TRO) entered by the district court, holding that 1) the TRO was an appealable order and thus the court of appeals had jurisdiction to review it; 2) in its subsequent preliminary injunction the district court explicitly preserved a portion of the TRO as still effective after issuance of the injunction, so the appeal was not moot; and 3) the district court’s jurisdiction was proper under 29 U....

In plaintiff’s action against a used-automobile dealer for selling him a truck that had been involved in a fatal accident without having applied for a salvage title as required under Indiana law, plaintiff’s appeal from an adverse summary judgment ruling is certified to the Indiana Supreme Court to determine whether an entity that purchases and later sells a wrecked vehicle is required to apply for a salvage title under Ind. Code section 9-22-3-11(e) when it no longer owns the vehicle upon receipt of the certificate of title....

Remember how it seemed that the world was coming to and end in the case of O’Connor v. Uber when District Court Judge Chen certified a class of Uber drivers that numbered approximately 150,000? Uber was not too happy about that and appealed the class certification. They got denied once. Just Kidding! It looks like the Ninth Circuit will be hearing that issue after all. It should be emphasized that the challenge to certification does not stop the case, but a decertification of the class would be a major step back for Uber plaintiffs who’ve been pushing for employee status and labor protections....

In a civil rights action alleging that the exculpatory result of post-trial DNA testing was not timely disclosed to plaintiff, denial of defendant-prosecutors’ motion for summary judgment based on absolute or qualified immunity is reversed where, because the testing was undertaken in connection with post-trial proceedings and was therefore integral to the advocacy function, the prosecutors enjoyed absolute immunity under Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976). Read Warney v. Monroe Cty....

‘Tis the season for generosity and giving. But when you are dining out with friends, colleagues, or family members over the holidays, you may be wondering just how generous you need to be with tips — particularly, if the service wasn’t that great. Are There Laws on Tipping? Tipping is not mandatory in the United States, so there are no laws that govern how much gratuity should be paid. That means it is generally up to you to decide how much of a tip to leave a server at a restaurant....

A temporary restraining order (TRO) is a compelling legal option for anyone facing domestic violence. It is a court order that protects a person or persons from physical, mental, verbal, or other abuse. It can require the abuser to keep at least 100 yards away from the victim, enforceable by arrest. It can be filed against a spouse, ex-spouse, parent of a child, boyfriend, girlfriend, grandparent, or anyone else initiating harm....

When a Ninth Circuit panel refused to reinstate President Trump’s immigration ban executive order yesterday, the president went straight to Twitter. “We’ll see you in court,” he said – in all caps. We’re presuming he means the Supreme Court here. It’s possible that an emergency appeal to the highest court in the land will come within a day or two. But if Washington v. Trump makes its way to SCOTUS, will the outcome change?...

While everyone’s eyes were on the Supreme Court, and the last few days of its term, the Tenth Circuit just dropped an opinion that is just as important, if not more so, than the High Court’s slate of cases: it just ruled that Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional. The court’s ruling is the first to come from one of our nation’s appellate courts*, and should impact the states of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming....

Charlton Heston, the late Hollywood actor and conservative activist, played an unusual role in overturning Paul McKernan’s 1998 conviction for the murder of his roommate. McKernan’s bench trial was held before Judge Lisa Richette. The trial went a bit awry after Judge Richette discovered a blog post criticizing her as a “bleeding heart judge” and quoting Charlton Heston’s characterization of her as “Let ’em Loose Lisa.” That blog post caused Judge Richette to lose her impartiality, McKernan argued, and his counsel should have demanded her recusal....

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the findings of the a lower district court: a woman with a tested IQ of only 57. In the opinion of the court, Karen Ash did not qualify for social security benefits because she was still able to live a relatively average life, thus allowing the district court to affirm the ruling “substantially on the record.” Petition for Social Security Benefits The petitioner in this case applied for social security disability benefits and claimed that she suffered from a disability of mental retardation....

A Chicago Cadillac dealer is being sued in federal court by the EEOC on allegations that the employer created a hostile work environment for its Muslim and Arab staff. According to the Chicago Tribune, a suit was filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Wednesday on behalf of Rizza Cadillac employees, seeking damages and injunctive relief for the discriminatory work environment created by the dealership’s managers. Suits like this one are typically losing battles when the allegations of racism are this severe....

This wasn’t an easy question. If you want to see how difficult the question of the proper means for calculating restitution for child pornography victims is, see the many, many, many different approaches taken by courts over the last few years. It all comes down to the impossibility of making a victim whole while the crime is ongoing. When “Amy” (pseudonym) was a child, she was the victim of abuse by her uncle, who distributed images of her online, images that are amongst the most distributed in the world....

In Sears v. Upton, No. 09-8854, a capital murder prosecution, the Court vacated the Georgia Supreme Court’s affirmance of the denial of post-conviction relief, holding that the state post-conviction trial court failed to apply the correct prejudice inquiry the Court had established for evaluating defendant’s ineffective assistance claim, because 1) the court curtailed a more probing prejudice inquiry because it placed undue reliance on the assumed reasonableness of counsel’s mitigation theory; and 2) the Court never limited the prejudice inquiry under Strickland to cases in which there was only “little or no mitigation evidence” presented....

Even those of us who find it impossible to put down our phones when we’re behind the wheel would have to admit that we’re not better drivers when we’re distracted. And with the meteoric rise in car crashes linked to cell phone use, states have been cracking down on distracted driving like never before. While no state bans all cell phone use for all drivers (yet), those state laws can vary depending on what is prohibited and the possible penalties....

For better or for worse, the Sixth Amendment permits criminal defendants to represent themselves. Attorneys know that self-representation among criminal defendants tends to end poorly. Many attorneys accused of crimes don’t even represent themselves. But the question of proceeding pro se isn’t about intelligence, training, or even ego. According to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, it’s about finality. The Eighth Circuit reviews pro se debacles under its 2011 U.S. v....

Trooien v. Mansour, No. 09-2032, involved an action alleging violations of the Minnesota Securities Act, negligent and fraudulent misrepresentation, and breach of fiduciary duty. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendants in part, on the grounds that 1) plaintiff’s misrepresentation claims based on the company at issue’s revenue projections were properly dismissed by the district court since they were not false statements of past or existing fact, and were not pled with sufficient particularity; and 2) the injuries alleged in plaintiff’s breach of fiduciary duty claims were those to corporate assets, and a claim to recover damages for such injuries must be brought as a derivative action....

A decision handed down by the conservative majority of the High Court this week was criticized by Justice Sotomayor as using “a sledgehammer to crack a nut.” Notably, the case involved claims under the Alien Tort Statute seeking to hold Arab Bank, a corporation located in Jordan (with a branch in New York), liable for deaths and injuries caused by terrorist acts committed abroad. The majority affirmed the holding of the lower courts that a foreign corporation cannot be held liable under the ATS if all the conduct occurred abroad, and went a step further, ruling that foreign corps can’t be sued at all under the ATS....

A Hustler Hollywood store has lost its interlocutory appeal to Seventh Circuit of the denial of a preliminary injunction to allow the establishment to open right next door to a Chuck E. Cheese’s in Indianapolis. The primary issue boils down to a zoning rights fight which started in 2016 when the establishment believed it would be allowed to operate based on conversations it had with city officials. When Hustler Hollywood sought permits to put up signage, the city denied those permits citing zoning restrictions prohibiting adult stores....