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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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Court asked to safeguard NM mental health audit
Court News |
2013/07/26 10:48
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The attorney general's office says an agreement has been reached for State Auditor Hector Balderas to have access to an audit that identified potential overbillings and fraud by behavioral health providers.
Chief Deputy Attorney General Al Lama said Thursday a state district judge in Santa Fe has been asked to issue an order making clear the audit report will be protected from public disclosure once it's provided to Balderas.
The auditor and Human Services Department support the request.
Balderas said his office needs the information in auditing the department's finances. He obtained a subpoena to try to force the department to provide him with the audit done for the agency.
Lama said public disclosure of the audit could jeopardize the attorney general's investigation of allegations against the behavioral health providers. |
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Pitt schools segregation lawsuit in federal court
Topics in Legal News |
2013/07/23 10:38
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Nearly 60 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial segregation in public schools, lawyers are set to square off in a federal courtroom in eastern North Carolina over whether the effects of that Jim Crow past still persist.
A trial was to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Greenville in the case of Everett v. Pitt County Board of Education.
A group of black parents represented by the UNC Center for Civil Rights will ask the court to reverse a 2011 student assignment plan they say effectively resegregated several schools in the district.
Lawyers for the Pitt schools will ask a judge to rule that the district has achieved "unitary status," meaning the "vestiges of past discrimination have been eliminated to the extent practicable." The designation would end federal oversight of the Pitt schools, in place since the 1960s.
This case is the first of its kind brought in North Carolina since 1999. More than 100 school districts across the South are still under federal court supervision. The decision in the Pitt case is expected to be widely followed by those other school systems.
Mark Dorosin, the managing attorney for the UNC Center for Civil Rights, said the case is a critical test of the continued viability of one of the most fundamental principles of school desegregation: That school districts still under court order must remedy the lasting vestiges of racial discrimination.
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Arizona high court to hear school funding case
Court News |
2013/07/23 10:38
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The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday hears arguments in an appeal of a lower court's ruling that requires the state Legislature to give schools an annual funding increase even in lean years to account for inflation.
The high court is reviewing a Court of Appeals decision. It said a voter-approved law requires the Legislature to provide an annual inflation adjustment for state funding to public schools.
School districts and education groups sued after the Legislature in 2010 instead only increased schools' transportation funding, eliminating a $61 million increase in general school spending.
The Supreme Court says it is considering is whether the Voter Protection Act allows voters to require the legislature to increase funding for schools.
The Voter Protection Act severely restricts the Legislature's to change voter-approved laws.
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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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