My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
April 15th, 2014
Premiums for health insurance sold on the Obamacare's exchanges are going to be lower than expected, the Congressional Budget Office projects, according to the Wall Street Journal. The federal government is expected to spend $165 billion less than projected on subsidizing health-insurance plans, the WSJ further reports. Continue Reading
April 15th, 2014
Information technology is changing health care. Federal regulators are looking to draft rules to protect patient safety in this new landscape.
The Food and Drug Administration is trying to draw up a framework for the FDA, the Federal Communications Commission and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to regulate information technology related to medical devices, electronic health records, and other... Continue Reading
April 14th, 2014
Three judges are going to be added temporarily to the Philadelphia family court in order to address a severe backlog in custody cases, The Legal Intelligencer's P.J. D'Annunzio reports. Frank Cervone, executive director of the Support Center for Child Advocates in Philadelphia, told The Legal that the current state of affairs in custody cases is "upsetting" and said the court should add more judges. "The... Continue Reading
April 14th, 2014
U.S. District Judge Timothy Black ordered Ohio to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, calling the ban "arbitrary discrimination," WKSU Public Radio reports. The order is a global one in comparison to an order in Indiana from late last week that allowed for recognition of an out-of-state same-sex marriage because one spouse has stage 4 ovarian cancer. Continue Reading
April 14th, 2014
A federal judge has ordered Indiana to recognize the out-of-state marriage of a same-sex couple because one of the women has stage 4 ovarian cancer, the Associated Press reports. The court issued a temporary restraining order specific to just that couple. One of the couple's concerns is being able to access the safety net "available to a surviving spouse and the children of the person who has died," the AP reports. Continue Reading
April 13th, 2014
Alabama blogger Roger Shuler was released last month after he spent five months in jail for refusing to delete allegedly defamatory posts about a lawyer and the son of a former Alabama governor, Reporters Without Borders reports. Shuler finally asked his wife to remove the articles in order to get out jail, but his release is conditional.
Reporters Without Border said that the court order "'constitutes prior censorship. It is... Continue Reading
April 10th, 2014
The first appellate court to hear arguments in one of the cases striking down same-sex marriage bans was heard today.
The three-judge panel on the Tenth Circuit appeared split during oral argument on a lower-court ruling striking down Utah's ban on same-sex marraiage, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The state is arguing that children do better if they are parented by a mother and father, not same-sex parents, the Tribune further... Continue Reading
April 10th, 2014
The Fifth Circuit has rejected a newspaper's appeal against revealing identifying information about people who posted anonymous comments on its website, The National Law Journal's Mike Scarcella reports. The Times-Picayune has to disclose the information to a federal magistrate judge to review confidentially. The issue has arisen in the prosecution of a former New Orleans official. The defense alleges that the two anonymous... Continue Reading
April 9th, 2014
Many more people are eligible for Medicaid under the Obamacare expansion: adults with incomes under 133 percent of the poverty level. Can the government recover the expenses paid out for these new Medicaid enrollees through liens on their properties and recoveries from their estates?
The Health Affairs blog reports on how the Centers on Medicare and Medicaid Services is advising states on applying liens to consumers who are... Continue Reading
April 9th, 2014
Intellectual property law doesn't protect the traditional knowledge and folklore of people, including indigenous peoples like American Indians. The problems vary: Who is the identifiable author or inventor if it's part of a group's culture? When did the work come into being if it's part of an oral tradition that changes? How can localized knowledge about the healing benefits of particular plants be patented... Continue Reading
April 9th, 2014
The Federal Trade Commission has the authority to sue companies that neglect to secure their customers' data, U.S. District Judge Esther Sales of New Jersey ruled this week, according to a report in the National Journal. " If the court had sided with Wyndham [Hotels], it would have stripped the federal government of oversight of data security practices just as hackers begin to pull off more and more high-profile attacks,... Continue Reading
April 8th, 2014
Hearings are being held in Philadelphia federal court this week on the admissibility of the testimony of plaintiffs' expert witnesses in litigation over whether Zoloft caused birth defects. The Legal Intelligencer's Sara Spencer (my former colleague) reports that drugmaker Pfizer is seeking to winnow out some of those experts. Both sides focused on a general causation expert, Dr. Anick Berard, The Legal reports. One defense lawyer said... Continue Reading
April 8th, 2014
A federal jury awarded a $9 billion verdict in the first bellwether trial over whether Actos increases the risk of getting bladder cancer, The National Law Journal's Amanda Bronstad (and my current colleague) reports. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Doherty presided over the Louisiana federal trial. Eli Lilly & Co., which was found 25 percent liable, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., which was found 75 percent liable, are the... Continue Reading
April 8th, 2014
Clay Clavert, a communications professor at the University of Florida in Gainsville, argues in a Huffington Post piece that the U.S. Supreme Court should take up a Pennsylvania case in which rap lyrics were used as evidence in a criminal conviction. Anthony Elonis was convicted in federal court in Philadelphia for posting rap lyrics containing threats of violence on Facebook.
True threats are not protected by the First... Continue Reading
April 7th, 2014
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted last week not to recommend a posthumous pardon for Cameron Todd Willingham, who was put to death after being convicted of killing his daughters in a housefire, the Texas Tribune reports. The Innocence Project argued new evidence showed the prosecutor who convicted Willingham might have made a deal with a jailhouse informant who testified against Willingham, even though the informant testified... Continue Reading
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