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Appeals court rejects sanctuary policy lawsuit
Headline Court News |
2011/02/01 10:22
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pA state appeals court says San Francisco cannot be held responsible for the deaths of a father and two sons allegedly killed by a man who had been protected by the city's sanctuary policy.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the court ruled Monday that the city isn't liable for crimes committed by the alleged gunman, Edwin Ramos, who is a suspected illegal immigrant from El Salvador. The decision upholds a February 2010 court decision. /ppPolice believe Ramos mistook Tony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew, for gang members and then fatally shot them near their San Francisco home in June 2008. /ppRelatives say the victims might be alive if Ramos had been turned over to immigration authorities after earlier arrests when he was a juvenile. /p |
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91,000 Gulf oil spill claims, just 1 final payment
Headline Topics |
2011/02/01 10:21
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pBP's compensation fund for Gulf oil spill victims has issued a final settlement payment to just one of the thousands of people and businesses waiting for checks, records show, and that $10 million payout went to a company after the oil giant intervened on its behalf./ppBP won't identify the business, citing confidentiality, but acknowledges it lobbied for the settlement. The amount far exceeds smaller stopgap payments that some individuals and businesses have received while they wait for their own final settlements./ppThe Gulf Coast Claims Facility was set up in August to independently administer BP's $20 billion compensation fund in the aftermath of its April 20 oil well blowout off Louisiana./ppAs of this weekend, roughly 91,000 people and businesses had filed for final settlements, but the fund's administrator, Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, has said those checks won't start rolling out until February at the earliest. Thousands of people have received some money to tide them over until a final settlement amount is offered, but only one business listed as paid on the facility's website has so far received a check./ppA BP spokeswoman called it a unique situation in which an existing BP business partner and BP submitted a view on a specific claim to the facility.
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Prosecutors want judge to question Roger Clemens
Legal Business |
2011/01/31 10:22
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pThe Justice Department asked a federal judge on Thursday to question star pitcher Roger Clemens about his knowledge of a potential conflict of interest his attorney may have involving former teammate-turned-prosecution-witness Andy Pettitte./ppProsecutors filed a memo suggesting questions U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton should pose to Clemens and his attorneys at a hearing on the matter next Wednesday in federal court in Washington./ppThey say the judge should ask the seven-time Cy Young Award winner if he understands that lawyer Rusty Hardin has a potential conflict because he briefly advised Pettitte shortly before the release of a report in December 2007 that said both players had used human growth hormone. Prosecutors also want to make sure that Clemens' attorneys have not revealed to him any information regarding their representation of his former teammate and asked the judge to ensure that Clemens still wants Hardin and his Houston-based firm to represent him./ppClemens denies that he used any performance-enhancing drugs. Pettitte has admitted that he did and said Clemens admitted privately to him that he did as well.
/p
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Former Attorney Gen. Mike Cox will join Dykema Gossett
Lawyer News |
2011/01/12 09:02
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| pFormer Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox will join Detroit-based Dykema Gossett PLLC as a senior attorney in its litigation department, the law firm CEO confirmed today./ppCox, 49, who ended eight years as the state's chief law enforcement officer on Jan. 1, starts next Monday at Dykema's Detroit office. He will practice in health care fraud, white-collar criminal law and federal and state regulatory compliance, said Dykema Chairman and CEO Rex Schlaybaugh./ppSchlaybaugh said the firm leadership had talked with Cox for more than a month about his options upon leaving office. The attorney general seemed a good fit because of his involvement in health care transactions and the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, enacted last year./ppMike is someone with a great deal of experience with the complexities of implementing that law and a great interest in it, which will be very important to some of our strategic clients, Schlaybaugh said./ppMany federal and state government agencies are also involved in aspects of these laws, and navigating that will be a high-demand area. In that way, I think he dovetails with our firm's needs very nicely./p |
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Tax on medical residents upheld by Supreme Court
Headline Topics |
2011/01/12 08:59
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| pMedical residents are doctors, not students, when it comes to paying federal taxes, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday in a decision that disappointed the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic, who have been fighting the issue in court for years./ppAn opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts upholds an Internal Revenue Service requirement that medical residents pay Federal Insurance Contributions Act taxes./ppThe University of Minnesota and Mayo have argued that medical residents are students who qualify for a long-standing exemption from paying those taxes. Full-time students who work are generally exempt./ppBut the Supreme Court says medical residents -- who typically work 50 to 80 hours a week -- don't qualify./ppThe decision ends decades of legal back-and-forth and could cost medical schools $700 million in federal taxes annually. The employer and employee each pay half the tax. The University of Minnesota estimates that the U and its medical residents pay about $4.3 million a year./p |
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Judge approves $179M settlement for AK Steel retire
Headline Topics |
2011/01/12 08:02
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pU.S. District Judge Timothy Black has approved a previously disclosed $179 million settlement and entered a final judgment in a dispute between AK Steel and retirees at its Butler, Pa., steel plant./ppThe AK Steel retirees had filed a class-action lawsuit in June 2009 to stop the company from making changes to their health insurance benefits. It had started making retirees pay a portion of their premiums in January 2010./ppWest Chester-based AK Steel is the largest Dayton-area company, with more than $4 billion in revenue./ppUnder the terms of the settlement, AK Steel will continue to pay for the benefits through 2014 and also pay $91 million to two trusts to cover future benefits for hourly and salaries retirees./ppIn return, the company has been relieved of liability for any benefits after 2014, and the lawsuit was dismissed.
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MBIA Inc. Surged Higher Following Court Ruling
Court Watch News |
2011/01/12 05:00
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pMBIA Inc. announced Tuesday afternoon that the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision by a lower court and granted MBIA's motion to dismiss the plenary lawsuit brought by a group of banks challenging the Company's transformation./ppMBIA Inc. broke out sharply to the upside in the second half of the morning Tuesday and finished higher by 1.25 at $13.53, with volume at a 9-month high. The stock rose past resistance and set a new high for the year.
/p |
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