Cultivated Compendium is my personal website with the occasional link to my reporting and to important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news.
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News and Reporting
September 28th, 2013
The Record (Bergen County) reports that Friday's ruling by a trial judge that same-sex marriage violates that state's constitution is a "blessing and curse" for proponents. "While Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson’s 53-page opinion Friday was hailed as a landmark, a 'tipping point' in the decadelong crusade, some advocates worried it could hinder their main objective — getting the Legislature to... Continue Reading
September 27th, 2013
Bloomberg reports that an Illinois judge has found that 25 same-sex couples seeking to able to get married in Illinois are going to be able to proceed with their lawsuits. "Cook County Circuit Judge Sophia Hall announced her ruling today from the bench at the courthouse in downtown Chicago," Bloomberg also reported. Continue Reading
September 27th, 2013
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that a Ninth Circuit opinion "is the latest in a debate about whether multiple lawsuits alleging harm to patients from the same pharmaceutical product should be heard in state courts or federal courts."
According to the opinion in Romo v. Teva Pharmaceuticals, at issue was whether it was appropriate to remove mass torts to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act's provisions for... Continue Reading
September 27th, 2013
A California federal judge found Google "may have breached federal and California wiretapping laws for machine-scanning Gmail messages as part of its business model to create user profiles and provide targeted advertising," Wired reports. This putative class action is still at the early stage; the judge denied most of Google's motion to dismiss with leave for the plaintiffs to file an amended claim on the two claims she did... Continue Reading
September 27th, 2013
California has beautiful weather and environs, which has led the growth of destination facilities for people seeking treatment for alcohol and other drug addictions. But that also has led to California localities enacting zoning rules to clamp down on such facilities. Last week, the Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment in favor of Newport Beach over that locality's zoning rules designed to inhibit those facilities, the OC... Continue Reading
September 27th, 2013
An Illinois judge is expected to rule today on a motion to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to establish same-sex marriage in that state, WREX out of Rockford, Illinois, reports.
September 27th, 2013
When Sri Srinivasan was sworn in as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Thursday, he became the first South-Asian American to sit as a federal appellate judge, the Washington Post reports. He may even become a future U.S. Supreme Court nominee: he "joins a court that is often referred to as the nation’s second-highest court because of its rulings on regulatory and separation-of-powers... Continue Reading
September 26th, 2013
In December, two Pittsburgh attorneys, as well as a doctor they hired to read X-rays, were found liable by a federal civil jury in West Virginia for violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and for state-law fraud over 11 fraudulent asbestos claims by railroad employees against CSX Transportation, I reported for The Legal Intelligencer in a story picked up by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Now the presiding judge... Continue Reading
September 26th, 2013
With the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, one UN event looked at the role the United Nations could have, if any, regarding ensuring privacy on the Internet from governmental spying.
A blogger for Ars Technica who was on the panel and who wrote about the event "pointed out that while anti-democratic countries may want legitimacy, their policies are already well in place. Surveillance capabilities are already... Continue Reading
September 26th, 2013
The U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments December 2 in the case of an off-reservation casino in Michigan that is opposed by the state, the Petoskey News reported. The justices will consider whether a state can challenge a tribe’s right to open a casino if the state contends the gaming facility is on land that doesn't qualify as tribal land, Indian Country Today reported this summer: http://... Continue Reading
September 26th, 2013
The Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission ruled that the 911 phone calls related to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., should be released, the Associated Press reported. The commission rejected a prosecutor's argument that there was still some law enforcement purpose for the records to remain undisclosed. An appeal is promised by law enforcement, the AP reported. The AP also said it requested the... Continue Reading
September 26th, 2013
The Associated Press reports two developments regarding same-sex marriage litigation in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
One, a lawsuit was filed in Pennsylvania state court to challenge the constitutionality of the ban on same-sex marriage under the state constitution. A federal lawsuit has already been filed. The litigants were issued marriage licenses in Montgomery County, Pa., after PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane rejected the legality of the... Continue Reading
September 25th, 2013
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in remarks today that the judiciary will ultimately decide the legality of wiretapping by the National Security Agency, but that is not necessarily a good thing, the Associated Press reported. Further, Scalia said that the Supreme Court held in the 1920s that there was no constitutioanl bar to wiretaps "because conversations were not explicitly granted privacy protection under the Fourth... Continue Reading
September 25th, 2013
ProPublica and This American Life put together a pretty amazing reporting project about how 150 Americans die every year by taking too much acetaminophen, Tylenol's active ingredient, and that there were decades-long delays in providing updated consumer warnings that using too much of over-the-counter painkillers with acetaminophen could lead to liver toxicity and even death. This spring, I reported for The Legal... Continue Reading
September 25th, 2013
The Los Angeles Times has a clearly written summary of the tangled history of the little Cherokee girl who has been the subject of a cross-state, cross-sovereign nation custody dispute between her biological American Indian father and her adoptive white parents. The post begins: "Was justice served Monday when a little girl called Veronica was taken from her biological father, a Cherokee, and returned to the white South Carolina couple... Continue Reading
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