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US court: Pa. school can't ban 'boobies' bracelets
Court News |
2013/08/05 09:25
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A federal appeals court ruled Monday that a Pennsylvania school district cannot ban "I (heart) Boobies!" bracelets, rejecting the district's claim that the slogan _ designed to promote breast cancer awareness among young people _ is lewd.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also concluded that school officials didn't prove the bracelets were disruptive.
"Because the bracelets here are not plainly lewd and because they comment on a social issue, they may not be categorically banned," Judge D. Brooks Smith wrote in the 9-5 decision.
The ruling is a victory for two Easton Area School District girls who challenged the school rule in 2010 with help from the American Civil Liberties Union. Easton is one of several school districts around the country to ban the bracelets, which are distributed by the nonprofit Keep A Breast Foundation of Carlsbad, Calif.
ACLU lawyer Mary Catherine Roper said the ruling supports the rights of students to discuss important topics. |
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Judge denies class action for Wal-Mart bias suit
Court Watch |
2013/08/03 09:26
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A judge rejected on Friday an attempt to file a class action discrimination lawsuit on behalf of 150,000 Wal-Mart women employees in California who claimed their male colleagues were paid more and promoted faster than them.
The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court was a scaled-down version of an initial complaint filed in 2001 that sought to represent 1.6 million women nationwide. But the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out that class action lawsuit in 2011, ruling it found no convincing proof of companywide discrimination on pay and promotion policy. The court also said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit.
After that setback, the women's lawyers filed smaller class action lawsuits, alleging discrimination occurred in different states and Wal-Mart "regions."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the smaller suit on behalf of California women employees was still too disparate and wide ranging to qualify as a class action lawsuit. He also found that the lawyers failed to show statistical and anecdotal evidence of gender bias.
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Supreme Court OKs early release plan for Calif. inmates
Headline Legal News |
2013/08/02 09:26
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Despite warnings from California officials, the nation's highest court is refusing to delay the early release of nearly 10,000 California inmates by year's end to ease overcrowding at 33 adult prisons.
In its decision Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed an emergency request by the Gov. Jerry Brown to halt a lower court's directive for the early release.
Law enforcement officials expressed concern about the ruling.
The justices ignored efforts already under way to reduce prison populations and "chose instead to allow for the release of more felons into already overburdened communities," said Covina Police Chief Kim Raney, president of the California Police Chiefs Association.
Brown's office referred a request for comment to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where Secretary Jeff Beard vowed that the state would press on with a still-pending appeal in hope of preventing the releases.
A panel of three federal judges had previously ordered the state to cut its prison population by nearly 8 percent to roughly 110,000 inmates by Dec. 31 to avoid conditions amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. That panel, responding to decades of lawsuits filed by inmates, repeatedly ordered early releases after finding inmates were needlessly dying and suffering because of inadequate medical and mental health care caused by overcrowding.
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Court rules against Neb. county in wind-tax case
Court Watch |
2013/08/01 09:27
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A wind-energy company that paid $1.6 million in property taxes for 2009 can claim credit for that amount to avoid paying over the next several years, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Friday as it upheld a tax credit for wind companies.
The high court reversed a Lancaster County judge who struck down the 2010 tax credit as unconstitutional.
The law was intended to reduce start-up costs for wind companies, while allowing local governments to collect the same amount of revenue over a longer period.
Wind facilities were previously taxed as personal property over a 5-year period. The 2010 law swapped the property tax for a nameplate capacity tax a tax on the company's wind-generating power ? to be imposed at a lower rate, but spread over at least 20 years.
As they crafted the law, lawmakers included a tax credit for a wind-energy farm in Knox County that had already paid property taxes. Without the credit, the court said, Elkhorn Ridge Wind would have been only wind-energy firm in Nebraska to have to pay both taxes.
"The nameplate capacity tax was clearly intended to be instead of, and not in addition to, the personal property tax on wind energy generation equipment," the court said in its ruling. "But without the credit, Elkhorn Ridge would be required to pay both personal property tax and the nameplate capacity tax on the same equipment."
The Knox County Board of Supervisors challenged the law after Elkhorn Ridge claimed credit for taxes paid after the county had set its budget. The firm reported a nameplate tax liability of nearly $285,000 in 2010, according to the ruling. But the company argued that it was allowed to apply the property taxes already paid to that tax debt. |
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Court: No workers' comp in drunk dockworker case
Attorney News |
2013/08/01 09:26
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A federal appeals court says an Oregon longshoreman who got drunk on the job, urinated while standing on a dock and then fell 6 feet onto concrete should not get workers' compensation benefits for his injuries.
Gary Schwirse drank at least nine beers and half-pint of whiskey on Jan. 8, 2006. While standing on a dock, he urinated and fell over a railing. At the hospital, he registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.25 percent.
Schwirse sued for workers' compensation benefits and at first was victorious, when an administrative law judge ruled that workplace hazards had been a factor in his fall. But the judge later reversed his ruling when Schwirse backed off a claim that he tripped over an orange cone.
The worker appealed it to U.S. District Court, where he lost, and the case landed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied a petition for a review of claims this week. The court said his injuries were due solely to intoxication and his employers could not be held responsible.
Schwirse later tried to argue that the very concrete onto which he fell, and not his intoxication, was responsible for his injuries. That argument also lost.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge N. Randy Smith wrote in the opinion that if intoxication was the reason for the fall, then intoxication was also the reason for the injury.
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Investment Fraud Litigation |
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Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of the securities laws. Securities Arbitration. Generally speaking, securities fraud consists of deceptive practices in the stock and commodity markets, and occurs when investors are enticed to part with their money based on untrue statements.
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The content contained on the web site has been prepared by Securities Law News as a service to the internet community and is not intended to constitute legal advice or a substitute for consultation with a licensed legal professional in a particular case. | Affordable Law Firm Website Design by Law Promo |
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