|
|
|
Supreme Court says 1 state can’t be sued in another’s courts
Lawyer News |
2019/05/09 08:51
|
The Supreme Court decided Monday that one state cannot unwillingly be sued in the courts of another, overruling a 40-year precedent and perhaps, foreshadowing an argument over the viability of other high court decisions.
The outcome left one dissenting justice wondering “which cases the court will overrule next.”
The justices divided 5-4 to end a long-running dispute between California officials and Nevada inventor Gilbert Hyatt.
Hyatt is a former California resident who sued California’s tax agency for being too zealous in seeking back taxes from him. Hyatt won a judgment in Nevada courts.
But Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court’s conservative justices that the Constitution forbids states from opening the doors of their courts to a private citizen’s lawsuit against another state. In 1979, the high court concluded otherwise.
The four liberal justices dissented, saying they would have left alone the court’s decision in Nevada v. Hall. Justice Stephen Breyer said there are good reasons to overrule an earlier case, including that it is no longer workable or a vestige of an otherwise abandoned legal doctrine.
But Breyer said that justices should otherwise adhere to the principle of stare decisis, Latin for to stand by things decided.
“It is far more dangerous to overrule a decision only because five members of a later court come to agree with earlier dissenters on a difficult legal question,” Breyer wrote. He included a reference to the court’s 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey that reaffirmed the right to abortion the court declared in Roe v. Wade in 1973.
The future of abortion rights at the court is a matter of intense interest as several states have enacted increasingly restrictive abortion laws in the hope that a more conservative Supreme Court majority will uphold them.
In his majority opinion, Thomas cited other Supreme Court precedent that held “stare decisis is not an inexorable command.”
The Hyatt case had been to the Supreme Court twice before. In 2016, the justices split 4-4 over the same question that was finally answered on Monday. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
News attorneys: Opioid distribution data should be public
Lawyer News |
2019/05/06 10:13
|
Attorneys for news organizations argued Thursday that the U.S. public should be allowed to see federal data about how prescription opioids were distributed as the nation’s overdose crisis was worsening.
They urged a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to overturn a lower court judge’s denial of access to the information. The judges will rule later.
“The value of transparency here is great,” said Karen C. Lefton, an Akron, Ohio, attorney representing The Washington Post. The data concerns “a public health crisis” that affects many more people than a typical case, she said.
The data is a key piece of evidence in hundreds of lawsuits filed by state and local governments against companies that make and distribute the drugs. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration database details the flow of prescription painkillers to pharmacies, showing the number and doses of pills.
A Justice Department attorney told the judges releasing the data would compromise investigations.
“This is an issue of really critical importance to the United States and DEA,” said government attorney Sarah Carroll. Making the information public, she said, “would tip defendants off to the scope of DEA investigations.”
Cleveland-based U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, who is overseeing more than 1,500 of the lawsuits, had ruled in July 2018 that the information cannot be made public. He said that doing so would reveal trade secrets. The Post and the HD Media newspaper chain, which had asked the court for the data, then appealed to the federal circuit.
The appellate judges raised a number of questions about Polster’s orders keeping the data secret and hundreds of filings in the case that are under seal.
Judge Eric Clay said it seemed that the secrecy in the case had “just gone overboard.” He told Carroll, of the Justice Department, that “just saying” cases would be compromised seems inadequate. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Trump, GOP states ask appeals court to kill ‘Obamacare’
Lawyer News |
2019/05/04 10:12
|
Taking a harder line on health care, the Trump administration joined a coalition of Republican-led states Wednesday in asking a federal appeals court to entirely overturn former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law — a decision that could leave millions uninsured.
Congress rendered the Affordable Care Act completely unconstitutional in 2017 by eliminating an unpopular tax penalty for not having insurance, the administration and GOP states told the court.
The “Obamacare” opponents hope to persuade the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to uphold U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling late last year striking down the law.
If the ruling is allowed to stand, more than 20 million Americans would be at risk of losing their health insurance, re-igniting a winning political issue for Democrats heading into the 2020 elections. President Donald Trump, who never produced a health insurance plan to replace “Obamacare,” is now promising one after the elections.
The Trump administration acknowledged it had changed positions in the case. Early on, the administration argued that only certain key parts of the ACA, such as protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions, should be invalidated. But it said other important provisions such as Medicaid expansion, subsidies for premiums and health insurance markets could continue to stand.
Wednesday, the administration said it had reconsidered in light of O’Connor’s ruling. “The remaining provisions of the ACA should not be allowed to remain in effect — again, even if the government might support some individual positions as a policy matter,” the administration wrote in its court filing.
The Justice Department’s legal brief also seemed to be trying to carve out some exceptions. For example, the administration said the ACA’s anti-fraud provisions should remain in effect. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Arizona court says Costco can be sued over ED drug disclosure
Lawyer News |
2019/05/02 10:11
|
The Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled that the Costco warehouse store chain can be sued for privacy violations by a Phoenix-area man because a pharmacist joked with his ex-wife about an erectile dysfunction prescription he had never picked up.
The ruling issued Tuesday revived the lawsuit the man filed after the pharmacist told his ex-wife about the prescription when she went to pick up another prescription with his approval. The man had called Costco twice to cancel the prescription before his ex-wife went to the north Phoenix store in early 2016, but the pharmacist did not do so, according to the ruling.
Attorney Joshua Carden filed the lawsuit for the man alleging a variety of violations, but it was dismissed by a trial-court judge. The Court of Appeals revived sections alleging negligence under federal health care privacy law commonly called HIPAA. The ruling potentially allows him to seek punitive damages.
The ruling is the first to say that negligence claims under HIPAA can be brought in Arizona courts, Carden said.
“If there is a big deal in the case it’s that the court went ahead and said yes to negligence claims based on HIPAA violations,” Carden said. “That’s not ever been announced in Arizona before.”
The federal health privacy law doesn’t allow individuals to sue for violations in federal court, he said, and state courts haven’t always been clear about that right. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Texas man accused in fatal I-70 pileup appears in court
Lawyer News |
2019/04/25 14:57
|
Court documents say that a speeding semitruck passed a runaway truck ramp before plowing into other vehicles on a crowded highway near Denver, killing four people and injuring at least six others.
The truck driver, 23-year-old Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, of Houston, made his first court appearance Saturday after being arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide.
State District Judge Chris Zenisek set $400,000 bond. Aguilera-Mederos, who suffered minor injuries in the crash, didn't speak during the hearing. He was represented by Denver attorney Robert Corry, who couldn't be reached for comment afterward.
His next court hearing is set for May 3 when prosecutors are expected to file charges against Aguilera-Mederos, who remains in the Jefferson County jail.
The crash happened Thursday on Interstate 70 where the highway descends from the Rocky Mountains.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ohio top court to hear arguments in TV news defamation case
Lawyer News |
2019/04/23 09:03
|
Ohio's Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in an appeal involving a defamation lawsuit that alleged a television station falsely labeled three siblings as "robbers."
A Columbus family sued WBNS-TV in 2016 after the station reported on a hover board robbery at Fort Rapids Indoor Waterpark in Columbus and included a surveillance photo showing the faces of three unnamed individuals. Police had released the photo, asking for the public's help in identifying the three individuals they said may have been involved.
The television's website story was headlined, "Robbers Put Gun to Child's Head and Steal Hoverboard," and underneath was the photo of the three individuals.
Nanita Williams saw the broadcast story and realized it was her three children in the photo, the family's lawsuit said. She took them to a Columbus police station where they told investigators they had gone to the park that day to deliver Thanksgiving dinner to someone who worked there.
Columbus police then issued a second news release saying the three individuals in the surveillance photo weren't the robbery suspects and asked news outlets to stop using the photo. WBNS stopped broadcasting stories about the robbery and removed the photo from its website, but kept the story about the incident online. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court case threatens to take gloss off Ostersund's rise
Lawyer News |
2019/04/22 09:09
|
It was one of European soccer's most heartwarming stories, an unconventional club from a sleepy city in central Sweden making an eight-year journey from the amateur ranks to beating Arsenal in the Europa League.
But was the remarkable rise of Ostersund built on illegal foundations?
In a case that has rocked Swedish sport in recent months, Daniel Kindberg, the larger-than-life former chairman of Ostersund who is regarded as the mastermind behind the team's success, is heading to court for a trial in which he is accused of serious financial crimes.
The basic premise? Kindberg is alleged to have helped funnel 11.8 million kronor ($1.3 million) of taxpayers' money into the club in an elaborate scheme that involved two other men and three companies — one being the municipality's housing corporation for which Kindberg was chief executive.
Kindberg could go to jail for a maximum of six years, according to the Swedish Economic Crime Authority. Ostersund could lose its place in the top league in Sweden. A small soccer club's great achievement, which was celebrated and enjoyed across the continent, might be tainted.
"As good as it was for the Ostersund brand with this fairy tale of the OFK team going into Europe," Ostersund's mayor, Bosse Svensson, told The Associated Press, "this is just as bad."
Kindberg, who denies the charges, was arrested a year ago and has stood down from his role as Ostersund chairman.
The case has both shocked and polarized the natives of this remote city — located 300 miles (480 kilometers) northwest of Stockholm and with a population of around 50,000 — that is better known for its winter sports than its soccer. |
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
