My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
March 24th, 2015
The New York Times' Adam Liptak writes that corporations, rather than protesters and civil rights activists, are becoming the main beneficiaries of the First Amendment. Harvard law professor John C. Coates IV has conducted a study finding that "'corporations have begun to displace individuals as the direct beneficiaries of the First Amendment.'" Coates found that First Amendment cases involving businesses have risen... Continue Reading
March 21st, 2015
Legislation has been introduced in Delaware to open up that state's two public universities to public-records requests, The News Journal's Jon Offredo reports. A similar effort was made last year, but the bill was narrowed to only require the universities to supply documents related to contracts funded with taxpayer dollars. Delaware and Pennsylvania are the only states that exempt public universities from open records laws.
The... Continue Reading
March 21st, 2015
Utah has enacted a law that allows county clerks to opt out of performing same-sex marriage on religious grounds as long as somene else in their office is willing to perform them, reports Fox 13, the affiliate in Salt Lake City: "The bill was an attempt to address religious objections over same-sex marriage, while also guaranteeing what the courts had ordered when it legalized such unions last year." Continue Reading
March 21st, 2015
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White expressed concern this week about corporate bylaws that force shareholders to pick up legal bills if they lose their lawsuits against boards of directors, Reuters reports. The Delaware Supreme Court upheld that sort of bylaws in May, even though, under the "American rule," each litigant normally has to pay for its own legal costs. Continue Reading
March 21st, 2015
The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the airport-security practice known as behavioral detection in which officers send "suspicious passengers" for additional screening, the Washington Post's Josh Hicks reports. The ACLU has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit because the Transporation Secuirty Administration hasn't turned over any records about the practice, which advocates suspect leads to racial... Continue Reading
March 18th, 2015
Senate Republicans, which have been in charge of the legislative chamber since the start of the year, have not confirmed any of President Obama's 16 pending judicial nominees, Huffington Post's Jennifer Bendery reports. U.S. Attorney General nominees Loretta Lynch also has been waiting for a confirmation vote.
Eight of those nominees are for courts facing "judicial emergencies" because the number of cases per judge on... Continue Reading
March 12th, 2015
Current bankruptcy law mostly prohibits educational loans from being discharged in bankruptcy. But the White House is considering how to make it easier for student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy court, the Wall Street Journal's Josh Mitchell reports. President Barack Obama directed his administration to study whether bankruptcy should be expanded for all student loan borrowers.
Mitchell reports that only 713 lawsuits were filed to... Continue Reading
March 12th, 2015
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has conducted a study of mandatory arbitration for consumers, finding that less than 10 percent of consumers won awards in cases with American Arbitration Association neutrals, The National Law Journal's Jenna Greene reports. In contrast, consumers won 1,200 individual lawsuits in court, and consumers won $2.7 billion in cash, in-kind relief, expenses and fees through class actions... Continue Reading
March 10th, 2015
The New Mexico Supreme Court has ruled that mandated child reporters must report suspected child abuse and neglect no matter the circumstances, the Associated Press' Vik Jolly said. The court rejected an intermediate appellate court ruling finding that social workers are privileged against having to report child abuse and neglect when they learn information during counseling sessions. Continue Reading
March 10th, 2015
The Seventh Circuit has ruled that a $55 million cemetery trust fund isn't off limits from the creditors of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the Associated Press reports. Sex abuse victims and their lawyers argue that the trust fund was created to shield money from them. The archdiocese has filed for bankruptcy because hundreds of sex-abuse victims have filed claims against the archdiocese.
The archdiocese argued that the Religious Freedom... Continue Reading
March 10th, 2015
After Governor Chris Christie's administration failed to established new guidelines for affordable housing, the New Jersey Supreme Court put judges in charge instead, NJ.com's Brent Johnson reports. Under the court's order, courts will decided on a case-by-case basis how many homes in a town should be available to low-income and moderate-income residents. Over 30 years ago, the state Supreme Court ruled that New Jersey... Continue Reading
March 8th, 2015
The Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act was a landmark human rights law when it was enacted 25 years ago: mandating that federal agencies return American Indian remains and sacred objects collected during a long history of colonialism and mistreatment of American Indians. But the law has been "stymied by poorly curated collections, long-lost records and limited operating budgets," E&E Publishing's... Continue Reading
March 8th, 2015
In the 14 years since Oregon enacted a law to allow defendants to get DNA testing to show they might be innocent, only two have gotten judges to approve such testing. As a result, legislators in Oregon have introduced a bill to reform the state's DNA testing law for defendants, Oregon Public Broadcasting's Amelia Templeton reports.
Under current law, defendants have to show that DNA testing on specific pieces of evidence would... Continue Reading
March 7th, 2015
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has taken up a sealed case to consider whether a lawyer for a nonprofit corporation can break her duty of confidentiality and disclose her concerns to the Attorney General's Office that charitable assets are being unlawfully diverted, The Legal Intelligencer's Lizzy McLellan reports. The anonymous petitioner said the public charity had a fiduciary duty to the public and the charity's lawyer... Continue Reading
March 7th, 2015
The Sixth Circuit has ruled that a congressman wasn't defamed when an anti-abortion advocacy group falsely tied his vote in support of Obamacare to supporting abortion, Courthouse News' Kevin Koeninger reports. Steven Driehaus, a pro-life Democrat, lost reelection, and he filed a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission, alleging that the Susan B. Anthony List group falsely advertised that his vote in support of Obamacare supported... Continue Reading
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