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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November 28th, 2013
The Associated Press reports on a new lawsuit in Texas federal court challenging that state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. They want a court-ordered injunction against the enforcement of state law. The plaintiffs argue that the ban on same-sex marriage cannot even survive the lowest level of constitutional scrutiny: whether the government has a rational basis for the ban. Continue Reading
November 28th, 2013
While the American economy has been officially out of recession for four years, social service providers told me for a piece I did for the Stamford Advocate that the need for assistance for the least well-off has not slackened. On this day of Thanksgiving, the need for social services is a reminder to give if you have the means to do so and to be grateful for the means that you do have... Continue Reading
November 27th, 2013
The New York Times reports on plaintiffs who are frustrated with a proposed $2.5 billion settlement for an estimated 8,000 lawsuits involving the all-metal hip device known as the Articular Surface Replacement or A.S.R., including that lawyers are set to receive one-third of the settlement, or $800 million.
November 27th, 2013
Reuters reports on a trial that ended this week in which Chevron is seeking injunctive relief against a plaintiff's lawyer and some of his clients. Chevron accuses "U.S. lawyer Steven Donziger of orchestrating an international criminal conspiracy by using bribery and fraud in Ecuador to secure a multibillion-dollar pollution judgment against the oil company," according to Reuters. The case resulted in a $18 billion judgment.... Continue Reading
November 27th, 2013
A legislative task force "created under a hastily-passed law intended to prevent the disclosure of crime scene photographs and certain audio recordings collected by police following the Sandy Hook shooting and other homicides" has agreed to a compromise in which there would be limited access to crime scene photos and videos involving child crime victims, CT News Junkie reports. A central location would be created where the records... Continue Reading
November 27th, 2013
The Connecticut Mirror reports that Superior Court Judge Eliot D. Prescott ordered the release of 911 calls made after Adam Lanza opened fire at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., unless he is overturned on appeal.
'"Delaying the release of the audio recordings, particularly where the legal justification to keep them confidential is lacking, only serves to fuel speculation about and undermines confidence in our law... Continue Reading
November 27th, 2013
FilmOn X was not able to use a Boston-area federal judge's ruling that FilmOn X's competitor, Aereo, is not violating copyright law by streaming broadcast TV programming on its on-line service to get relief from a nationwide temporary restraining order blocking FilmOn X's similar streaming service everywhere in the United States except in the Second Circuit, TheWrap reported. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer Collyer "... Continue Reading
November 27th, 2013
The Atlantic reports on the release of the new version of the Creative Commons copyright license yesterday. The new license addresses how the Creative Commons license interacts with database rights. In the European Union and other jurisdictions, compilers of databases have rights over who copies and uses their databases for 15 years, but those database rights aren't protected by copyright in the United States, The Atlantic also reports.... Continue Reading
November 27th, 2013
A United Nations committee has advanced a resolution sponsored by Brazil and Germany to make the right to privacy against unlawful surveillance applicable to anyone in the world, The Washington Post reported. The two countries sponsored the measure after revelations of monitoring by the United States of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The resolution is expected to pass the United Nations General... Continue Reading
November 27th, 2013
Reuters' Alison Frankel reports on a D.C. Circuit ruling that a spoof blog posting by Esquire about a birther book questioning President Barack Obama's American birthright was not defamatory.
“Where’s the Birth Certificate: The Case that Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to be President” was published three weeks after President Obama released the long-form version of his American birth certificate, according to Reuters... Continue Reading
November 25th, 2013
The Roanoke Times has this profile on Timothy Bostic and Tony London, who are suing to challenge Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage. They told the newspaper they decided to challenge the ban because they want to get married in the state in which they live: "When other states began changing their marriage laws, London and Bostic briefly considered getting married out of state. 'We did discuss it, but why would we go to Iowa to get... Continue Reading
November 25th, 2013
The New York Times' Adam Liptak writes that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide tomorrow if it will hear a lower court decision that mandating a corporation provide contraceptive coverage for its employees violates freedom of religion. Continue Reading
November 25th, 2013
President Obama's administration is still reeling from the failure to have the federal health-insurance exchange up and running for consumers to shop for health insurance (ahead of the deadline for when the insurance mandate kicks in). There could be further repurcussions if the Internal Revenue Service is not ready to enforce the requirement that all Americans secure health insurance, The Washington Post reports.
The issues include,... Continue Reading
November 24th, 2013
IC Magazine asks if the Maori, or the indigenous people of New Zealand, could have their traditional knowledge and cultural customs copyrighted by multinational corporations under a trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Parntership. A draft of the TPP was released by Wikileaks.
The government of New Zealand "clearly opposes the 'informed consent or approval and involvement of the indigenous or local community holding such knowledge... Continue Reading
November 24th, 2013
The New York Times reports that the most recent United Nations talks on climate change made some progress: "Delegates agreed to the broad outlines of a proposed system for pledging emissions cuts and gave their support for a new treaty mechanism to tackle the human cost of rising seas, floods, stronger storms and other expected effects of global warming." However, while these climate-change negotiations weren't a Copenhagen... Continue Reading
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