The case, Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, is perhaps the most important decision of the term. It centers on the Affordable Care Act's guarantee of no-cost prescription contraception.
Monday, June 30, 2014
ENERGY LAW: A SPECIAL REPORT: Digging In
Invigorated exploration for more resources is delivering plenty of work to the legal industry. Our report highlights changes in the law of importance to the attorneys who handle the matters.
Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202626153260?rss=rss_nlj
H-P Working to Settle Lawsuits Related to Disastrous Deal
Hewlett Packard Co. confirmed Friday it is negotiating to settle three lawsuits related to its 2011 acquisition of software firm Autonomy, but the company hasn't yet moved past the fallout from the disastrous deal.
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Pot Use On The Rise In U.S., Report Says
Unlike in the rest of the world, more Americans are using the drug, according to a new United Nations report. Marijuana's potency is also on the rise, the report found.
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More Churn at Squire Patton Boggs as the Post-Merger Dust Settles
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Judge Taps Veterans of Toyota Case to Take on GM
Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/06/26/judge-taps-veterans-of-toyota-case-to-take-on-gm/?mod=WSJBlog
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Sunday, June 29, 2014
Boy Plays With Fire, Will Have To Pay The Consequences, And I Do Mean “Pay”
I think it’s fair to say that virtually every kid on earth is told not to play with fire. Many kids ignore it, and manage to escape unscathed. Such was not the case for an 11-year-old boy in Sweden. He was 9 on that fateful day. Per The Local (Sweden):
An 11-year-old boy has been ordered to pay 1.9 million kronor (US $276,000) in damages after causing smoke and water damage to a Stockholm home, the Aftonbladet newspaper writes.
The boy, who was nine at the time, was visiting another family in the suburb in southern Stockholm when he got hold of a cigarette lighter and proceeded to set light to some paper in a wardrobe with devastating consequences.
The insurance company agreed to meet the costs incurred by the family for the damages to their home – 1.9 million kronor – and then proceeded to sue the boy in court.
Well that should make for some really good public relations …
The court has now ruled that the boy is responsible for his actions – the debt can not be claimed from the other members of his family.
“According to Swedish law children can be liable for damages to the same extent as adults,” said Mårten Schultz, an expert in liability law, told the newspaper. “The debt is the child’s, it is the boy that has to pay up,” he confirmed.
Are they going to garnish his allowance? Here’s the source.
Source: http://rss.justia.com/~r/LegalJuiceCom/~3/dCZhT4NaLWc/adf-13.html
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Washington's sexual orientation discrimination amendment is not retroactive
The Washington State Supreme Court held today that a sexual orientation discrimination amendment adopted in 2006 is not retroactive.
The court also concluded that conduct that took place prior to the amendment is admissible background evidence to prove the discriminatory nature of certain conduct occurring after the amendment.
Loeffelholz v. Univ of Washington (Washington 09/13/2012)
Loeffelholz sued under the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) claiming discrimination based on sexual orientation. WLAD was amended in 2006 to include sexual orientation as a protected class, and Loeffelholz alleged several pre-amendment acts and one post-amendment act.
The Washington Supreme Court held that (1) the WLAD amendment is not retroactive and the pre-amendment conduct is not actionable as it was not unlawful when it occurred, and (2) the post-amendment allegedly discriminatory comment is arguably similar enough to the pre-amendment conduct to survive summary judgment.
Loeffelholz alleged that her supervisor between 2003 and June 2006 maintained a hostile work environment based on sexual orientation. This was prior to the WLAD amendment. Loeffelholz also alleged a single act of discrimination by this supervisor after the WLAD amendment.
The court's findings:
(1) Pre-amendment conduct is not actionable. Retroactive application of the amendment would violate the employer's due process rights. The plain language of the amendment and its legislative history indicate only prospective application.
(2) Pre-amendment conduct is admissible as background evidence to prove why the post-amendment conduct is discriminatory.
(3) The post-amendment conduct was a single statement by Loeffelholz's supervisor, who was about to be deployed to Iraq, that he was "going to come back a very angry man." The court found that a reasonable jury could infer that this comment was a natural extension of pre-amendment conduct - the supervisor's dislike of lesbians and his anger management problems as illustrated by his comments that he had a volatile temper and kept a gun. This is enough to preclude summary judgment.
Source: http://www.lawmemo.com/blog/2012/09/washingtons_sex.html
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Federal judge upholds Colorado gun control laws
[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Colorado [official website] on Thursday upheld [opinion, PDF] two Colorado statutes that expanded mandatory background checks and banned high capacity magazines. CRS § 18-12-302 and CRS § 18-12-112 [texts, PDF] were challenged by a group of individuals and entities who claimed that the laws violated the Second Amendment [text] to the US constitution. Chief Judge Marcia Krieger found that the two laws did not violate the Second Amendment...
Source: http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/06/federal-judge-upholds-colorado-gun-control-laws.php
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Boy Plays With Fire, Will Have To Pay The Consequences, And I Do Mean “Pay”
I think it’s fair to say that virtually every kid on earth is told not to play with fire. Many kids ignore it, and manage to escape unscathed. Such was not the case for an 11-year-old boy in Sweden. He was 9 on that fateful day. Per The Local (Sweden):
An 11-year-old boy has been ordered to pay 1.9 million kronor (US $276,000) in damages after causing smoke and water damage to a Stockholm home, the Aftonbladet newspaper writes.
The boy, who was nine at the time, was visiting another family in the suburb in southern Stockholm when he got hold of a cigarette lighter and proceeded to set light to some paper in a wardrobe with devastating consequences.
The insurance company agreed to meet the costs incurred by the family for the damages to their home – 1.9 million kronor – and then proceeded to sue the boy in court.
Well that should make for some really good public relations …
The court has now ruled that the boy is responsible for his actions – the debt can not be claimed from the other members of his family.
“According to Swedish law children can be liable for damages to the same extent as adults,” said Mårten Schultz, an expert in liability law, told the newspaper. “The debt is the child’s, it is the boy that has to pay up,” he confirmed.
Are they going to garnish his allowance? Here’s the source.
Source: http://rss.justia.com/~r/LegalJuiceCom/~3/dCZhT4NaLWc/adf-13.html
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New Documents Reveal GM Criminal Probe Likely Picking Up Steam
The situation concerning General Motors Co. and its defective ignition switches has caught the attention of Justice Department prosecutors, and the investigation seems to be moving right along, according to WSJ reporter Jeff Bennett in a story Friday.
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THE NLJ 350: The NLJ 350 Regional Report: The Top U.S. and International Markets
Our Regional Report takes the headcount numbers from our NLJ 350 survey and dices up the data, region by region. • See the complete 2014 NLJ 350 survey results.
Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1402583484262?rss=rss_nlj
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Highlights from the Supreme Court’s Cellphone Search Ruling
Law Blog collects key passages from the cellphone privacy ruling handed down by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
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Saturday, June 28, 2014
Special Report: Judicial Transparency
Financial disclosure reports for 257 federal appellate judges reveal a trove of details about their outside earnings.
Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202654964129?rss=rss_nlj
LawBiz® Legal Pad: Pre-owned Car
Interested in making your firm more profitable? This video is for you.
Source: http://feeds.lexblog.com/~r/LawBizBlog/~3/LA-hViXx0Yw/
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What Would Atticus Have Done?
Hearing that the mob was going to storm the jail and lynch Tom Robinson, the fictional Atticus Finch stood at the doorway to block their entrance. Among criminal defense lawyers, Atticus Finch is revered as a paragon of honor. Not all lawyers saw it that way.
Yesterday was Race Day at the New York Times, where two op-eds argued the failure of a certain verdict in Florida was due to the one word unspoken throughout the trial, race. In a "surprising" choice that suggests the power of an excellent public relations team, one op-ed was by Gloria Allred's daughter, Lisa Bloom, who, after explaining the basis for her assumption about what was inside George Zimmerman's head, illuminated the race issue with the insightful:
This isn't a legal argument, however. Bloom and Yankah are both writing from the legal perspective, but what they are writing about isn't legal. It's sociological, a condemnation of a society that is still racist despite having a black president. Anyone who thinks it's "problem solved" is delusional.
But Yankah contends that it is "the simplest of truths: that race and law cannot be cleanly separated." Cleanly? No, it probably can't be cleanly separated, though it's similarly unclear that this constitutes "the simplest of truths." There is nothing simple about it.
It gives rise to a troubling question, that Yankah fails to adequately address and is way over Bloom's head.
Does the introduction of race by the prosecution into Zimmerman's perceptions alter the rule of self-defense? Does it render his subsequent conduct unlawful, even if it would have been lawful otherwise? Should there be two rules of law, one for interactions between people of different races where perceptions of the significance of conduct is assumed to be racially related, if not motivated?
To point out that we still live in a society where race remains a pervasive unresolved issue is to state the obvious. To suggest that the criminal law should accommodate it is to present an intractable problem. Atticus Finch didn't hesitate to put his life on the line for his client, a black man accused of raping a white woman. But he didn't do enough because he didn't confront the racist society in defending Tom Robinson?
If the prosecution had been allowed, and inclined, to argue that George Zimmerman's conduct was racially motivated, and that his ultimate decision to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin was, at least in the tiniest of ways, based upon his race, would that have rendered his belief that he was about to suffer death or serious injury unreasonable? If his head was being beaten against concrete by a white youth, as opposed to a black youth, would the harm have been different?
The argument that this scenario would never have commenced had Trayvon Martin been a white youth in a sports jacket and khakis is likely true. It's pure speculation no matter how much your head screams "yes, yes, yes," of course, but still. Yet how would the law have been any different at the point where a shot was fired?
If we are to have a nation of laws to guide ourselves, how do we draw these vague, fuzzy lines where the law ceases to apply, where it's a free for all, where there is no longer a fixed right and wrong and everything becomes a matter of feelings, assumptions and personal perspective? Yankah may be right that race and law cannot be cleanly separated in our collective consciousness, but then we cease to be a nation of laws when we ignore one for the other.
You might prefer that to happen here, but will you feel the same when you sit in the defendant's chair? So what would Atticus Finch have done? He would have defended George Zimmerman based on the law, even if he failed to meet Monroe Freedman's expectation that he not be morally ambiguous. Atticus Finch would have still been the paragon of honor, even in the face of societal condemnation. That's what criminal defense lawyers do. That's what we are sworn to do.
© 2007-13 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.
In 1992, Monroe Freedman, a legal ethics expert, published two articles in the national legal newspaper Legal Times calling for the legal profession to set aside Atticus Finch as a role model. Freedman argued that Atticus still worked within a system of institutionalized racism and sexism and should not be revered. Freedman's article sparked a flurry of responses from attorneys who entered the profession holding Atticus Finch as a hero, and the reason they became lawyers. Critics of Atticus such as Freedman maintain that Atticus Finch is morally ambiguous and does not use his legal skills to challenge the racist status quo in Maycomb.While Atticus might have fulfilled the highest calling of a lawyer, Freedman saw the character as failing his calling as a human being in a racist society, and considered that to be a fatal flaw.
Monroe H. Freedman, ""Atticus Finch, Esq., R.I.P.,"" 14 LEGAL TIMES 20 (1992); Monroe H. Freedman, ""Finch: The Lawyer Mythologized,"" 14 LEGAL TIMES 25 (1992) and Monroe Freedman, Atticus Finch – Right and Wrong, 45 Ala. L. Rev. 473 (1994).
Yesterday was Race Day at the New York Times, where two op-eds argued the failure of a certain verdict in Florida was due to the one word unspoken throughout the trial, race. In a "surprising" choice that suggests the power of an excellent public relations team, one op-ed was by Gloria Allred's daughter, Lisa Bloom, who, after explaining the basis for her assumption about what was inside George Zimmerman's head, illuminated the race issue with the insightful:
Huh?In contrast, Cardozo lawprof Ekow Yankah invokes the spirit of his fellow lawprof, Freedman, in writing:
The anger felt by so many African-Americans speaks to the simplest of truths: that race and law cannot be cleanly separated. We are tired of hearing that race is a conversation for another day. We are tired of pretending that “reasonable doubt” is not, in every sense of the word, colored.This conforms with my assumption as well. I find it impossible to believe that Zimmerman's perception of Martin as being "a punk" wasn't colored by race. Sure, there was also youth and attire, but it was part of the whole package. And to the extent that his skin color played a role in his perception that this was a kid who needed to be followed, who posed a threat of doing something wrong, it is racist. Maybe not white hooded, cross-burning racism, but racist nonetheless.
Every step Mr. Martin took toward the end of his too-short life was defined by his race. I do not have to believe that Mr. Zimmerman is a hate-filled racist to recognize that he would probably not even have noticed Mr. Martin if he had been a casually dressed white teenager.
This isn't a legal argument, however. Bloom and Yankah are both writing from the legal perspective, but what they are writing about isn't legal. It's sociological, a condemnation of a society that is still racist despite having a black president. Anyone who thinks it's "problem solved" is delusional.
But Yankah contends that it is "the simplest of truths: that race and law cannot be cleanly separated." Cleanly? No, it probably can't be cleanly separated, though it's similarly unclear that this constitutes "the simplest of truths." There is nothing simple about it.
It gives rise to a troubling question, that Yankah fails to adequately address and is way over Bloom's head.
What is reasonable to do, especially in the dark of night, is defined by preconceived social roles that paint young black men as potential criminals and predators. Black men, the narrative dictates, are dangerous, to be watched and put down at the first false move. This pain is one all black men know; putting away the tie you wear to the office means peeling off the assumption that you are owed equal respect. Mr. Martin’s hoodie struck the deepest chord because we know that daring to wear jeans and a hooded sweatshirt too often means that the police or other citizens are judged to be reasonable in fearing you.Being fully willing to accept that race factored into Zimmerman's perception, based on my own personal bias, the question that remains unanswered is what should the law have done about it?We know this, yet every time a case like this offers a chance for the country to tackle the evil of racial discrimination in our criminal law, courts have deliberately silenced our ability to expose it. The Supreme Court has held that even if your race is what makes your actions suspicious to the police, their suspicions are reasonable so long as an officer can later construct a race-neutral narrative.
Does the introduction of race by the prosecution into Zimmerman's perceptions alter the rule of self-defense? Does it render his subsequent conduct unlawful, even if it would have been lawful otherwise? Should there be two rules of law, one for interactions between people of different races where perceptions of the significance of conduct is assumed to be racially related, if not motivated?
To point out that we still live in a society where race remains a pervasive unresolved issue is to state the obvious. To suggest that the criminal law should accommodate it is to present an intractable problem. Atticus Finch didn't hesitate to put his life on the line for his client, a black man accused of raping a white woman. But he didn't do enough because he didn't confront the racist society in defending Tom Robinson?
If the prosecution had been allowed, and inclined, to argue that George Zimmerman's conduct was racially motivated, and that his ultimate decision to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin was, at least in the tiniest of ways, based upon his race, would that have rendered his belief that he was about to suffer death or serious injury unreasonable? If his head was being beaten against concrete by a white youth, as opposed to a black youth, would the harm have been different?
The argument that this scenario would never have commenced had Trayvon Martin been a white youth in a sports jacket and khakis is likely true. It's pure speculation no matter how much your head screams "yes, yes, yes," of course, but still. Yet how would the law have been any different at the point where a shot was fired?
If we are to have a nation of laws to guide ourselves, how do we draw these vague, fuzzy lines where the law ceases to apply, where it's a free for all, where there is no longer a fixed right and wrong and everything becomes a matter of feelings, assumptions and personal perspective? Yankah may be right that race and law cannot be cleanly separated in our collective consciousness, but then we cease to be a nation of laws when we ignore one for the other.
You might prefer that to happen here, but will you feel the same when you sit in the defendant's chair? So what would Atticus Finch have done? He would have defended George Zimmerman based on the law, even if he failed to meet Monroe Freedman's expectation that he not be morally ambiguous. Atticus Finch would have still been the paragon of honor, even in the face of societal condemnation. That's what criminal defense lawyers do. That's what we are sworn to do.
© 2007-13 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.
Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/07/16/what-would-atticus-have-done.aspx?ref=rss
Facial Recognition Technology: Security vs. Privacy Concerns
Imagine a computer thousands of miles away recognizing you in a camera at an intersection. Furthermore, consider being tracked and monitored from your home to your place of work every day. Facial recognition technology makes this type of identification possible and it is being rapidly developed for country defense and law enforcement purposes. On this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, host J. Craig Williams interviews Ed Tivol from EWA, Government Systems, Inc. and Jennifer Lynch from Electronic Frontier Foundation. Together, they discuss the paradox of security vs. privacy when it comes to biometric modes of identification. In addition, they deliberate on how this data is being collected, who is collecting it, and for what purpose. Tune in to hear about your evolving First and Fourth Amendment Rights in the face of national security, crime prevention, and the private sector.
Jennifer Lynch is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and works on open government, transparency, and privacy issues as part of EFF's Transparency Project. She is a writer and frequent speaker on government surveillance programs, domestic drones, intelligence community misconduct, and biometrics. Lynch has testified about facial recognition before Senate Subcommittees and prior to joining EFF, she was the Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law.
Ed Tivol is the Vice President of the Intelligence and Operations Division for EWA, Government Systems, Inc. a defense contractor actively developing facial recognition technology for the Federal Government. He is a 1964 graduate of The Citadel and served in the Army's Military Intelligence branch for 24 years. Tivol completed two tours in Vietnam and retired with the rank of Colonel in 1990. In the same year, he began his work with EWA and has been there ever since. Ed holds master's degrees from University of Maryland and the Army War College. Today Mr. Tivol and his wife raise racehorses and Angus cattle outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.
Jennifer Lynch is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and works on open government, transparency, and privacy issues as part of EFF's Transparency Project. She is a writer and frequent speaker on government surveillance programs, domestic drones, intelligence community misconduct, and biometrics. Lynch has testified about facial recognition before Senate Subcommittees and prior to joining EFF, she was the Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law.
Ed Tivol is the Vice President of the Intelligence and Operations Division for EWA, Government Systems, Inc. a defense contractor actively developing facial recognition technology for the Federal Government. He is a 1964 graduate of The Citadel and served in the Army's Military Intelligence branch for 24 years. Tivol completed two tours in Vietnam and retired with the rank of Colonel in 1990. In the same year, he began his work with EWA and has been there ever since. Ed holds master's degrees from University of Maryland and the Army War College. Today Mr. Tivol and his wife raise racehorses and Angus cattle outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.
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NLRB's recent significant decisions
The NLRB this week made public a number of significant decisions, most reached in the final days of the term of Member Brian Hayes, which ended on December 16. The Board continues with three members, Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce and Members Richard F. Griffin, Jr. and Sharon Block.
The decisions touch on a variety of issues including social media postings, charter school jurisdiction, backpay awards, the chargeability of certain union lobbying expenses, and an employer’s responsibility to continue dues collection after the expiration of a contract.
Hispanics United of Buffalo
The Board found that the employer unlawfully fired five employees because of their Facebook posts and comments about a coworker who intended to complain to management about their work performance. In its analysis, the Board majority applied settled Board law to the new world of social media, finding that the Facebook conversation was concerted activity and was protected by the National Labor Relations Act. Member Hayes dissented.
Alan Ritchey, Inc.
In a unanimous decision that resolved the last of the two-member cases returned following the 2010 Supreme Court decision in New Process Steel, the Board found that where there is no collectively-bargained grievance-arbitration system in place, employers generally must give the union notice and an opportunity to bargain before imposing discipline such as a discharge or suspension on employees. Member Hayes was recused.
Latino Express
In a decision that will affect most cases in which backpay is awarded, the Board decided to require respondents to compensate employees for any extra taxes they have to pay as a result of receiving the backpay in a lump sum. The Board will also require an employer ordered to pay back wages to file with the Social Security Administration a report allocating the back wages to the years in which they were or would have been earned. The Board requested briefs in this case in July 2012. Member Hayes did not participate in the case.
Chicago Mathematics & Science Academy
Rejecting the position of a teachers’ union, the Board found that it had jurisdiction over an Illinois non-profit corporation that operates a public charter school in Chicago. The non-profit was not the sort of government entity exempt from the National Labor Relations Act, the Board majority concluded, and there was no reason for the Board to decline jurisdiction. Member Hayes dissented in part.
United Nurses & Allied Professionals (Kent Hospital)
The Board, with Member Hayes dissenting, addressed several issues involving the rights of nonmember dues objectors under the Supreme Court’s Beck decision. On the main issue, the majority held that, like all other union expenses, lobbying expenses are chargeable to objectors, to the extent that they are germane to collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment. The Board invited further briefing from interested parties on the how it should define and apply the germaneness standard in the context of lobbying activities.
WKYC-TV, Gannet Co.
Applying the general rule against unilateral employer changes in terms and conditions of employment, the Board found that an employer’s obligation to collect union dues under a check-off agreement will continue after the contract expires and before a bargaining impasse occurs or a new contract is reached. Member Hayes dissented.
Source: http://www.lawmemo.com/blog/2012/12/nlrbs_recent_si.html
Federal Court Rules Against Utah's Ban On Gay Marriage
A federal appeals court in Denver struck down Utah's ban on gay marriage. It's the first appeals court decision in the nation to date, and paves the way for a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the issue.
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