My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
June 18th, 2015
Federal Aviation Administration officials testified this week that they expect to finalize rules for commercial drone flights within the year, which is much faster than previous forecasts of the rules being finalized by the end of 2016 or the start of 2017, Reuters' David Morgan reports. He notes that American firms have been pressuring the FAA regulators to get the drone rules off the ground because of lost revenue. Continue Reading
June 17th, 2015
A divided West Virginia Supreme Court has reversed a court decision ordering a pit bull be put down, The Herald-Dispatch's Curtis Johnson reports. Pit bull Tinkerbell bit a boy as he was passing by, and the boy required 14 stiches on his face.
The trial judge found that one bite was sufficient evidence to deem Tinkerbell vicious. But the Supreme Court, 3-2, found that one bite did not meet the state code definition for dogs that display... Continue Reading
June 17th, 2015
The Legal Intelligencer's Lizzy McLellan has a piece analyzing the legal problems posed by wearable technology: "Lawyers in the technology space agreed that new capabilities provided by wearable devices like Google Glass and GoPro cameras, as well as nonwearable but portable devices, like smartphones and tablets, have created some questions of criminal and civil law that have yet to be answered, or are answered inconsistently in... Continue Reading
June 17th, 2015
MedicalResearch.com has an interview with Eric T. Roberts and Darrell Gaskin, who reported on their research finding that the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid is going to require 2,100 more primary care providers, especially in low-income areas. The good news is they think "that this need for additional providers is manageable, particularly if Congress fully funds key primary care workforce training programs, such... Continue Reading
June 14th, 2015
The Marshall Project's Beth Schwartzapfel has written a piece questioning the use of bite mark evidence in criminal cases. Bite mark comparison, which aims to match a bite wound on a victim with a suspect's teeth, is misleading, Schwartzapfel reports.
Fourteen men have been exonerated after being convicted of crime on the basis of bite mark analysis. The National Academy of Science has found that the field of "... Continue Reading
June 14th, 2015
Class actions will face a new test in the U.S. Supreme Court next year after the justices granted certiorari on two issues:
1) Can workers at an Iowa meatpacking plant rely on statistical sampling to establish liability and damages regarding wages?
2) Can a class be certified when it contains membesr who weren't injured and have no legal right to damages?
Reuters' Alison Frankel says in her analysis that class action... Continue Reading
June 14th, 2015
The Legal Intelligencer's Ben Seal reports about how the Philadelphia public interest legal community is going through a sea change in leadership. This also is happening nationally as a generational shift occurs at legal services agencies for low-income clients. Cathy Carr, the retiring leader of Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, attributes the "increase in national turnover to the aging of the baby-boom generation. Many... Continue Reading
June 13th, 2015
New York court officials are looking to expand the rules governing the use of cameras in the courtroom so they can be used to "'to the fullest extent permissible by the law,'" New York Law Journal's Andrew Keshner reports. The rules for the use of cameras in the courtroom haven't been updated since the 1990s.
The proposed new roles would insert new language saying "'in order to maintain the broadest... Continue Reading
June 11th, 2015
Arkansas has decided against imposing cost-sharing on people who are receiving Medicaid coverage under the Obamacare expansion if they are below the federal poverty level, Modern Healthcare's Virgil Dickson reports.
President Obama's administration has allowed Arkansas to mandate that beneficiaries make monthly contributions to "health independence accounts" if they enrolled in private plans on the new insurance exchange.... Continue Reading
June 8th, 2015
The New York Board of Parole has been held in contempt for failing to give an explanation as to why it denied parole for a convicted murderer, The New York Law Journal's Ben Bedell reports. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Sciortino had already vacated the 2013 denial of parole to convicted murderer Michael Cassidy. When the parole board denied Cassidy release a second time, Sciortino said their explanation of why restated "... Continue Reading
June 8th, 2015
Attempts by legislative leaders to use Alaska's budget to stop the governor from accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid are likely unconstitutional, the Alaska Dispatch's Pat Forgey reports.
The governor wants to expand healthcare coverage to 20,000 or more low-income Alaskans. Legislators included provisions in the operating budget aiming to stop Governor Bill Walker from unilaterally accepting $130 million in federal... Continue Reading
June 8th, 2015
Kansas has enacted a law that would strip the state courts of their funding if that state's Supreme Court rules against a separate law that removed some of its powers, The New York Times' John Eligon reports.
Gov. Sam Brownback signed a courts budget tying funding to a law that took the authority to appoint district court judges from the Supreme Court to the district courts themselves. The measure was promoted by the Kansas... Continue Reading
June 7th, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that homeowners who declare bankruptcy can't void second mortgages even if their homes aren't worth what they owe on their primary mortgages, the Associated Press reports. The court was unanimous in the decision.
The Floridian homeowners said their second loans were worthless. Continue Reading
June 7th, 2015
Even though a medical marijuana dispensary violates federal law, it still has the right to recover money stolen from it by an attorney, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled.
The San Francisco Chronicle's Bob Egelko reports that the now-defunct Northbay Wellness Group of Santa Rose can seek to reclaim its $25,000 stolen by now-disbarred attorney Michael Beyries. Beyries has declared bankruptcy, and the former... Continue Reading
June 5th, 2015
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the President Obama's nominees to serve on the circuit courts of appeal won't be confirmed anymore, The Huffington Post's Jen Bendery reports. McConnell said on a conservative radio show that "'so far, the only judges we’ve confirmed have been federal district judges that have been signed off on by Republican senators,” and he expects that to be the case... Continue Reading
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