My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
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
June 24th, 2015
Last week, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down that state's ban on doctors prescribing abortion-inducing pills to patients via video teleconferencing, the Associated Press reports. Iowa was the first state to allow doctors to dispense abortion-inducing medications through telemedicine.
The court ruled that it placed an undue burden on a woman's right to get an abortion. The Iowa Board of Medicine enacted a rule requiring a doctor be... Continue Reading
June 23rd, 2015
The Securities and Exchange Commission is defending its use of in-house courts to handle enforcement of financial regulations, The Wall Street Journal's Jean Eaglesham reports: "The SEC accused several defendants of 'judge shopping' by trying to get a case heard in a particular court and in another instance asked one of its own judges to submit a formal statement about whether he has ever felt pressure to favor the agency.... Continue Reading
June 23rd, 2015
The Rhode Island Supreme Court has ruled that attorneys can't ghostwrite court filings for pro se litigants unless they sign the documents and disclose how much they assisted with the documents, Nicole Benjamin blogs for JDSupra Business Advisor.
The Rhode Island Supreme Court addressed this issue of first impression regarding three attorneys who ghostwrote pleadings on behalf of pro se defendants in three separate debt collection cases... Continue Reading
June 21st, 2015
Theresa Amato, writing in an op-ed in The New York Times, questions why the demand of Americans for legal services for life-altering civil matters can't be met by all the lawyers who are unemployed (The U.S. ranks 65th for accessibility of its civil justice, she notes).
The reason that unemployed lawyers can't plunge in right away to address the civil justice gap is because 86 percent of lawyers have six-figure debts, she... Continue Reading
June 21st, 2015
A federal judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has determined that an expert isn't required to present an opposing view to the government on the newly minted USA Freedom Act if the legal conclusion is "obvious," The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima reports. This was the first time a judge examined when the USA Freedom Act requires that technical experts be appointed in a case involving a novel... Continue Reading
June 21st, 2015
A federal judge has ruled that Minnesota's civil-confinement program for sex offenders violates the constitution, The Star Tribune's Chris Serres reports. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank opined the civil-commitment program "'is a punitive system that segregates and indefinitely detains a class of potentially dangerous individuals without [legal] safeguards.'"
One issue is that there are no periodic... Continue Reading
June 20th, 2015
Investors of modest means are now going to be able to take a chance on startups the way that venture capitalists and angel investors can, The New York Times' Stacy Cowley reports. Companies seeking to raise up to $50 million--even though they are not yet publicly traded--will be able to advertise to investors online and through social media. Under the old regulations, companies that didn't want to have to file reports with the... Continue Reading
June 20th, 2015
The American Civil Liberties Union is planning a major political advocacy program, including pursuing ballot intiatives to try to enact criminal justice reform and protections for gays, lesbians and transgendered people, the Washington Post's James Hohmann reports. The ACLU will pick three states with high incarceration rates and then sponsor ballot initiatives with the goal of driving sentencing reform. The ACLU also has raised $5 million... Continue Reading
June 20th, 2015
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, HSBC, US Bank, Santander and EverBank are facing new restrictions on their mortgage-lending businesses for failing to clean up their foreclosure practices, The Washington Post's Danielle Douglas-Gabriel reports. The restrictions were announced this week by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The banks are being barred from servicing loans for which they handle payments on behalf of other... Continue Reading
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