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Ex-Harvard student due in court in 2009 shooting
Topics in Legal News |
2011/08/13 09:26
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A former Harvard student accused of hiding the gun used in a fatal shooting inside a university dormitory is due in court.
Brittany Smith is one of four people who were charged in connection with the shooting of 21-year-old Justin Cosby of Cambridge.
Smith's former boyfriend, Jabrai (juh-BRY') Jordan Copney, of New York City, was convicted of murder in Cosby's death and is serving a life sentence.
During Copney's trial, prosecutors said Cosby, a local drug dealer, was shot during an attempted robbery by Copney and two other New York City men in May 2009.
Smith is accused of giving the men her Harvard electronic keycard to enter the building, hiding the gun used in the shooting and helping the men flee.
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Layoffs loom in Ala. court clerks' offices
Topics in Legal News |
2011/08/01 01:59
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A month-long notice has begun for massive layoffs in state court clerks' offices.
The Birmingham News reports that court officials say about one-third of the 750 employees in clerks' offices statewide will be laid off effective Aug. 31.
The officials say the layoffs are timed so the 255 workers will be off the state payroll before the court system's new, leaner budget takes effect Oct. 1.
The Jefferson County clerk's offices, which handle more than 75,000 filings per year, will be down to 48 full-time clerks and three temporary workers after the layoffs.
Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb has ordered clerks' offices statewide to be closed to the public for 10 hours weekly starting in August to give the workers time to catch up on processing court documents.
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Court upholds Chinese journalist's jail sentence
Topics in Legal News |
2011/08/01 01:01
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The lawyer for a Chinese journalist behind bars after writing about suspected corruption says a court has rejected an appeal against a new sentence ordered just before the reporter was to be released.
Beijing attorney Wang Quanzhang says he received on Monday the decision on the case of reporter Qi Chonghuai by a court in Shandong province.
Wang says the case sets a dangerous precedent because Qi was being tried a second time in June on similar charges to those which he faced in 2008. Qi was near the end of a four-year jail term when the second trial resulted in another eight years' imprisonment.
Rights groups say Qi was arrested in 2007 after he wrote about a local official who had beaten a woman for coming late to work.
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Conn. court: church can't be sued by ex-principal
Topics in Legal News |
2011/07/25 09:04
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The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Monday that a former Catholic school principal cannot sue the Archdiocese of Hartford on claims she was wrongly fired for not retaliating against a student, who complained about sexual remarks allegedly made by a priest now accused of abusing children.
The high court unanimously overturned a lower court ruling in favor of Patricia Dayner, former principal of St. Hedwig's School in Naugatuck. Justices said Dayner's lawsuit against the archdiocese was barred under the "ministerial exception" to state courts' authority to decide employment cases. The exception is based on the First Amendment right to freedom of religion, and the right of religious organizations to control their own internal affairs.
But the state Supreme Court, in its first ruling on the issue, didn't ban all labor-related lawsuits against religious institutions. Justices adopted the view of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, which ruled in 2008 that courts can decide to step into church employment disputes based on the nature of the complaints and whether court action would intrude on churches' right to decide issues related to doctrine or internal governance.
Federal appeal courts have issued conflicting rulings in ministerial exception cases. The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue later this year, when it hears a case involving a teacher at a church-run school in Michigan and decides whether ministerial exception applies to the Americans with Disabilities Act in cases where church workers are deemed secular, and not religious, employees.
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Indiana Court of Appeals Disagrees Over Effect of Admissions
Topics in Legal News |
2011/07/21 09:05
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Today, the Indiana Court of Appeals issued a memorandum decision, uncitable as authority under App. R. 65(D), in which the Court disagreed over the extent to which admissions could be used against a party in a motion for summary judgment in Clark v. Clark, Cause No. 01A02-1007-CT-759. While the decision itself cannot be used as precedent, the disagreement is informative.
In this case, a father and son traveled in a car together to the home of another person. When they arrived, the son got out of the car to help the father parallel park. The son positioned himself in front of his father's vehicle, between it and another vehicle parked in the alley. When the father's vehicle was in the appropriate position, the son signaled for the father to stop by putting his hand up. The father hit the gas pedal instead of the brake, and the son was pinned between his father's vehicle and the parked vehicle. The son sustained serious injuries to his leg. He brought suit against his father for his injuries and the father asserted the Indiana Guest Statute as an affirmative defense.
The Indiana Guest Statute provides that people with certain types of relationships, such as father-son, cannot sue each other for injuries arising out of the operation of a motor vehicle if the person is "in or upon" the vehicle at the time of the injuries. During the course of the litigation, the son sent requests for admissions to the father. Two of those requests and responses are reproduced below.
19. On September 5, 2007, at the time of the collision, Robert L. Clark, Jr. was not in the Chevrolet.
RESPONSE: At the moment of impact the plaintiff was not in the Chevrolet, whether he was a pedestrian is genuine issue for trial and therefore denied.
20. On September 5, 2007, at the time of the collision, Robert L. Clark, Jr. was not upon the Chevrolet.
RESPONSE: At the moment of impact the plaintiff was not upon the Chevrolet, whether he was a pedestrian is genuine issue for trial and therefore denied.
Based on those responses, the son moved for summary judgment. The father filed a cross-motion and the trial court granted the father's motion.
On appeal, the father argued that the admissions were not dispositive of whether the son was in or upon the vehicle at the time of his injuries because that is a legal conclusion that the Court would have to make after applying the law to the facts. The Court disagreed, holding that admissions can be directed to legal conclusions, not merely facts.
The dissent found the admissions ambiguous, because of the qualification about whether the son was a pedestrian and because there were questions concerning whether "in" and "upon" have the same generic meaning as they do as a legal term of art.
The lesson here is that requests for admissions can be powerful litigation tools and we lawyers must be careful when responding to them. You may find out that you have admitted something inadvertently.
Lesson:
1.Even a qualified response to a request for admission can count as an admission.
Brad A. Catlin
Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC
http://www.indianalawupdate.com/entry/Indiana-Court-of-Appeals-Disagrees-Over-Effect-of-Admissions |
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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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