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
July 6th, 2015
Both Rhode Island and Oregon recently expanded their laws allowing for DNA testing by people trying to prove they were wrongfully convicted.
Both states have enacted laws to expand access to DNA testing for people convicted of a crime who are no longer in prison, The Oregonian's Maxine Bernstein and The Providence Journal's Katie Mulvaney respectively report.
Steve T. Wax, legal director of Oregon's Innocence Project, told... Continue Reading
July 5th, 2015
Florida's rule providing protection for the honest errors of attorneys in their judgment about a debatable point of law has shielded a law firm facing a malpractice suit for its choice not to use a particular expert witness in support of hurricane damage claim, Harris Martin reports. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit found that Florida's judgmental immunity doctrine applied to the law firm's decision.
Law 360's... Continue Reading
July 5th, 2015
The Economist opines that lawsuits over what it means to be an employee should shape the future of several industries.
For example, ride-sharing service Uber is facing cases, including a ruling by the California Labor Commissioner, that its drivers are employees, not independent contractors. McDonald's is being treated as a joint employer, together with franchisees, by the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel.
The... Continue Reading
July 5th, 2015
The American Lawyer's Susan Beck reports that big law firms are failing legal aid nonprofits representing people too poor to afford their own lawyers. Even the most generous firms are contributing little more than one-tenth of 1 percent of their gross revenue.
She profiles the need for legal services in Cleveland, noting that "a lack of adequate public funds and private donations means that, as in Cleveland, more than half of those... Continue Reading
July 5th, 2015
Ohio Governor John Kasich has signed a state budget that continues the expansion of Medicaid, the Associated Press reports. The plan would require about 1 million low-income Ohio residents to pay a monthly charge for Medicaid health coverage.
However, federal regulators would have to approve requiring some adults to pay into a health savings account regardless of their income: "Beneficiaries, except pregnant women, could be cut from... Continue Reading
July 1st, 2015
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's power plant regulations, environmental groups say that the decision was narrow and temporary, The Washington Post's Steven Overly report.
The court ruled that the EPA should have considered the financial burden on power plant operators when crafting the regulations of emissions of mercury by power plants. The case has been remanded to the U.S.... Continue Reading
July 1st, 2015
As of this morning, U.S. District Judge Callie Granade has ordered all probate judges in Alabama to issue same-sex marriage licenses, NBC News' Pete Williams and Kathryn Robinson report.
Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Friday that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is a constitutional violation, there was back-and-forth in Alabama on whether to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Granade overturned Alabama's ban... Continue Reading
July 1st, 2015
The Second Circuit, 2-1, has upheld a finding that Apple violated antitrust laws with its e-book pricing, Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports.
The majority found that the Sherman Antitrust Act was violated if a conspiracy results in higher prices to consumers--no matter other factors, he notes. Dissenting Judge Dennis Jacobs argued that market conditions like competitor Amazon's e-book monpoly and Apple's status as a book... Continue Reading
June 29th, 2015
There have been a lot of headlines about a Canadian truth and reconciliation commission taking that country to task for how it has treated its indigenous peoples.
The Truth and Reconcilaition Commission has called for Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration On the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, The Toronto Globe and Mail's Kim Mackrael reports. But critics are raising the concern that the declaration isn't compatible with... Continue Reading
June 29th, 2015
The Connecticut Supreme Court has upheld a 2002 state law that expanded the statute of limitations for bringing sex abuse claims, the Associated Press reports. The court also upheld a $1 million jury verdict against the Archdiocse of Hartford, ruling that the retroactive application of the law did not violate the archdiocese's due process rights.
A jury determined that the archdiocese was reckless and negligent in letting a priest work... Continue Reading
June 29th, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court, voting 5-4, has upheld the use of a drug in Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol that has been criticized as likely to cause inmates cruel and unusual punishment, The Huffington Post's Kim Bellware reports. Lawyers for the inmates on Oklahoma's death row aruged that midazolam "can't reliably render an inmate unconscious and free of pain while the second and third drugs paralyze him and stop his... Continue Reading
June 28th, 2015
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the use of tax subsidies for people buying health insurance on the federal exchange in King v. Burwell, business groups are going to press Congress to modify elements of the Affordable Care Act, Hospitals & Health Networks Daily's Marty Stempniak reports: "Trade groups representing employers — such as the National Retail Federation and American Benefits Council — urged... Continue Reading
June 28th, 2015
The next frontier in civil rights for LGBT Americans will be fighting bias in jobs and housing, The New York Times' Erik Eckholm reports. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the right to marry as a civil right for gays and lesbians, many gay civil rights leaders are turning their attention to getting legal protections from discrimination by employers and in housing. The majority of states don't bar discrimination on the basis of... Continue Reading
June 27th, 2015
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has reached a historical decision finding that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, the next fight for LGBT rights will be when they conflict with religious rights, CNN's Daniel Burke writes.
The dissenting justices in the U.S. Supreme Court chided Justice Anthony Kennedy, author of the majority opinion recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, for not mentioning the First... Continue Reading
June 26th, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government can provide tax subsidies to help low-income and midde-class Americans buy health insurance, whether they buy their policies on the federally-run exchange or state-run exchanges, The New York Times' Adam Liptak reports. The decision was 6-3 with only Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissenting.
At issue was whether subsidies were only available... Continue Reading
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