The Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request to block a judge's hearings into the health risks of a mentally impaired woman's pregnancy.
The court's unanimous ruling allowed Washoe County District Judge Egan Walker to resume the evidentiary hearings Tuesday morning in a case that has drawn the attention of national anti-abortion groups.
The 32-year-old woman's parental guardians asked the court Friday to halt the hearings, saying Walker lacks the authority to terminate the pregnancy of their daughter, who has the mental capacity of a 6-year-old.
They claim they have exclusive authority over her health care decisions, and they want their daughter to carry the baby to term in line with their Catholic religious beliefs.
But the high court sided with Walker, saying he has the authority to monitor the woman's welfare and hold the hearings.
Justices noted the guardians failed to file an annual report regarding their daughter's condition and their performance of duties as required by state law. They also said the court obtained information about concerns over the woman's medical condition.
"The purpose of the evidentiary hearings at this time is merely to obtain information in order to make well-reasoned and informed decisions regarding the ward's medical care," justices wrote. "Under these circumstances, we conclude that the district court has not exceeded its jurisdiction or arbitrarily or capriciously exercised its discretion."
Attorney Jason Guinasso, who represents the guardians, was tied up in Tuesday's hearing and unavailable for immediate comment, according to his secretary.
Guinasso has said he's aware of only one similar case in the country. It involved a Massachusetts judge who ordered a mentally ill 31-year-old woman to have an abortion and to be sterilized against her wishes. The state Appeals Court overturned the decision Jan. 17.
The Nevada couple said that while the pregnancy poses health risks to their daughter and the baby, medical experts back them in their decision to continue the pregnancy. The woman suffers from epilepsy and is on medication.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Progressive insurance on defense after court case
The Progressive Corp. insurance group is defending itself against an onslaught of negative publicity after it tried to avoid paying $75,000 to the family of a client killed in a car crash and sought to blame the wreck on her.
The criticism began Monday with a blog post from 33-year-old Matt Fisher of Brooklyn, whose sister Kaitlynn Fisher had Progressive insurance and was killed in a June 2010 car crash in Baltimore. In order to avoid the payout to Kaitlynn Fisher's family, Progressive interjected itself into a lawsuit the Fisher family filed against the other driver.
Last week, a jury found the other driver negligent, despite Progressive's efforts to persuade the jury otherwise.
Matt Fisher said Thursday that the deluge of online support his family has received is gratifying. The backlash against Progressive was strong enough that the Ohio-based company felt compelled to issue a public statement on the case. The statement denied Progressive was representing the driver who was ultimately found negligent. And it prompted even further backlash because it failed to acknowledge that, as a practical matter, Progressive's lawyer was indeed working in court as a third party to combat the Fisher family's claims.
While Fisher didn't quite anticipate the wave of support he received, he was sure others who learned about the case would be as shocked as he was that his sister's own insurance company was going to such lengths to cast the blame on her for the accident.
The criticism began Monday with a blog post from 33-year-old Matt Fisher of Brooklyn, whose sister Kaitlynn Fisher had Progressive insurance and was killed in a June 2010 car crash in Baltimore. In order to avoid the payout to Kaitlynn Fisher's family, Progressive interjected itself into a lawsuit the Fisher family filed against the other driver.
Last week, a jury found the other driver negligent, despite Progressive's efforts to persuade the jury otherwise.
Matt Fisher said Thursday that the deluge of online support his family has received is gratifying. The backlash against Progressive was strong enough that the Ohio-based company felt compelled to issue a public statement on the case. The statement denied Progressive was representing the driver who was ultimately found negligent. And it prompted even further backlash because it failed to acknowledge that, as a practical matter, Progressive's lawyer was indeed working in court as a third party to combat the Fisher family's claims.
While Fisher didn't quite anticipate the wave of support he received, he was sure others who learned about the case would be as shocked as he was that his sister's own insurance company was going to such lengths to cast the blame on her for the accident.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
New DC drunken driving law to take effect
A new law that toughens penalties for drunken driving in the nation's capital takes effect Wednesday, but the city's police department still is not using breath tests on suspected drunken drivers more than a year after the tests were suspended.
The new law, which was approved by the D.C. Council and signed by Mayor Vincent Gray earlier this summer. It doubles mandatory minimum jail terms for people with blood-alcohol concentrations of .20 percent or higher and establishes a blood-alcohol limit of .04 percent for commercial drivers, including taxi drivers.
The law also establishes new oversight for the district's breath-testing program. But there's still no timetable to the resumption of breath tests, which D.C. police stopped using in February 2011 in the wake of revelations that their breath-testing devices had produced inaccurate results. Police have been using urine and blood tests instead.
A year earlier, District of Columbia officials had notified defense lawyers about nearly 400 drunken-driving convictions that relied, at least party, on inaccurately calibrated blood-alcohol tests.
More than two dozen people sued the district over convictions based on those flawed tests, and the district Attorney General's office said Tuesday that all the outstanding lawsuits had been settled. The district paid a total of $136,000 to 17 plaintiffs, with individuals receiving between $2,000 and $42,000, said Jeffrey Rhodes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
The new law, which was approved by the D.C. Council and signed by Mayor Vincent Gray earlier this summer. It doubles mandatory minimum jail terms for people with blood-alcohol concentrations of .20 percent or higher and establishes a blood-alcohol limit of .04 percent for commercial drivers, including taxi drivers.
The law also establishes new oversight for the district's breath-testing program. But there's still no timetable to the resumption of breath tests, which D.C. police stopped using in February 2011 in the wake of revelations that their breath-testing devices had produced inaccurate results. Police have been using urine and blood tests instead.
A year earlier, District of Columbia officials had notified defense lawyers about nearly 400 drunken-driving convictions that relied, at least party, on inaccurately calibrated blood-alcohol tests.
More than two dozen people sued the district over convictions based on those flawed tests, and the district Attorney General's office said Tuesday that all the outstanding lawsuits had been settled. The district paid a total of $136,000 to 17 plaintiffs, with individuals receiving between $2,000 and $42,000, said Jeffrey Rhodes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
UnitedHealth plans to keep overhaul elements
Insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc. sees some parts of the health care overhaul as sound medicine and plans to keep them regardless of whether the law survives an upcoming Supreme Court ruling.
The nation's largest health insurer said Monday that it will still cover preventive care like immunizations without charging a co-payment, which is the fee usually paid at the doctor's office, and it will continue other popular, initial provisions of the law.
The overhaul, which aims to provide coverage for millions of uninsured people, started unfolding in 2010 after health insurers fought bitterly to block its passage. Challenges to the law from states and other groups opposed to it wound their way through the court system to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments on the law's constitutionality in March.
The court is expected to issue a ruling later this month that could strike down the entire law or parts of it or uphold it.
Despite deep divisions about President Barack Obama's law, UnitedHealth's announcement underscores the staying power of some of its reforms.
The nation's largest health insurer said Monday that it will still cover preventive care like immunizations without charging a co-payment, which is the fee usually paid at the doctor's office, and it will continue other popular, initial provisions of the law.
The overhaul, which aims to provide coverage for millions of uninsured people, started unfolding in 2010 after health insurers fought bitterly to block its passage. Challenges to the law from states and other groups opposed to it wound their way through the court system to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments on the law's constitutionality in March.
The court is expected to issue a ruling later this month that could strike down the entire law or parts of it or uphold it.
Despite deep divisions about President Barack Obama's law, UnitedHealth's announcement underscores the staying power of some of its reforms.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Court: Families cannot sue over loan discount fee
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that three families cannot sue a mortgage company for allegedly charging them a loan discount fee without giving them a lower interest rate.
The high court's decision tosses out lawsuits filed in 2008 against Quicken Loans, Inc., in Louisiana by three families who claimed they paid the fees without receiving anything in return. The Freeman family paid $980 and the Bennett family $1,100 in loan discount fees but allegedly did not get lower interest rates in return. The Smith family allegations focus partly on a loan origination fee of $5,100, which they claim was a mislabeled loan discount fee.
A federal judge threw the lawsuit out, saying the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act made the lawsuit improper. That decision, which was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, was appealed to the Supreme Court.
The law says no "person shall give and no person shall accept any portion, split, or percentage of any charge made or received for the rendering of a real estate settlement service in connection with a transaction involving a federally related mortgage loan other than for services actually performed."
The argument is over whether that law "prohibits the collection of an unearned charge by a single settlement provider, or whether it covers only transactions in which a provider shares part of a settlement-service charge with one or more other persons who did nothing to earn it," said Justice Antonia Scalia, who wrote the opinion.
The high court's decision tosses out lawsuits filed in 2008 against Quicken Loans, Inc., in Louisiana by three families who claimed they paid the fees without receiving anything in return. The Freeman family paid $980 and the Bennett family $1,100 in loan discount fees but allegedly did not get lower interest rates in return. The Smith family allegations focus partly on a loan origination fee of $5,100, which they claim was a mislabeled loan discount fee.
A federal judge threw the lawsuit out, saying the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act made the lawsuit improper. That decision, which was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, was appealed to the Supreme Court.
The law says no "person shall give and no person shall accept any portion, split, or percentage of any charge made or received for the rendering of a real estate settlement service in connection with a transaction involving a federally related mortgage loan other than for services actually performed."
The argument is over whether that law "prohibits the collection of an unearned charge by a single settlement provider, or whether it covers only transactions in which a provider shares part of a settlement-service charge with one or more other persons who did nothing to earn it," said Justice Antonia Scalia, who wrote the opinion.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
School vouchers prompt court fights in US
Students like Delano Coffy are at the heart of brewing political fights and court battles over whether public dollars should go to school vouchers to help make private schools more affordable.
He was failing in his neighborhood public elementary school in Indianapolis until his mother enrolled him in a Roman Catholic school. Heather Coffy has scraped by for years to pay the tuition for Delano, now 16 and in a Catholic high school, and his two younger siblings, who attend the same Catholic elementary school as their brother did. She's getting help today from a voucher program, passed last year at the urging of GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels, that allows her to use state money for her children's education.
"I can't even tell you how easy I can breathe now knowing that for at least for this year my kids can stay at the school," said the single mother, who filed a petition in court in support of the law. The state Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to the law, which provides vouchers worth on average more than $4,000 a year to low- and middle-income families. A family of four making about $60,000 a year qualifies.
For all the arguments in favor of vouchers, there are opponents who say vouchers erode public schools by taking away money, violate the separation of church and state by giving public dollars to religious-based private schools, and aren't a proven way to improve test scores.
He was failing in his neighborhood public elementary school in Indianapolis until his mother enrolled him in a Roman Catholic school. Heather Coffy has scraped by for years to pay the tuition for Delano, now 16 and in a Catholic high school, and his two younger siblings, who attend the same Catholic elementary school as their brother did. She's getting help today from a voucher program, passed last year at the urging of GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels, that allows her to use state money for her children's education.
"I can't even tell you how easy I can breathe now knowing that for at least for this year my kids can stay at the school," said the single mother, who filed a petition in court in support of the law. The state Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to the law, which provides vouchers worth on average more than $4,000 a year to low- and middle-income families. A family of four making about $60,000 a year qualifies.
For all the arguments in favor of vouchers, there are opponents who say vouchers erode public schools by taking away money, violate the separation of church and state by giving public dollars to religious-based private schools, and aren't a proven way to improve test scores.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Law Offices of Howard G. Smith Announces Class Action
Law Offices of Howard G. Smith announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, on behalf of purchasers of the common stock of Nevsun Resources Ltd. between March 31, 2011 and February 6, 2012, inclusive, seeking to pursue remedies under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Nevsun mines and explores for gold and base metals, such as copper and zinc. The Complaint alleges that defendants misrepresented or failed to disclose that: (a) Nevsun’s mining activities at the Bisha mine in Eritrea, Africa, produced a material amount of waste rock, rather than gold ore; (b) gold and gold ore from Bisha were materially less than estimated, and defendants knew or had reason to know this, based on data routinely collected from the mine; (c) Nevsun was progressing through the ore body at Bisha more quickly than planned, to maintain production at a rate that would not reveal to investors that the amount of gold was materially less than the Company’s estimate; (d) the Company was aware its resource model was materially defective because actual amounts of gold mined at Bisha did not reconcile with the Company’s previously disseminated estimate; and (e) Nevsun materially overstated its gold reserves at the Bisha mine.
No class has yet been certified in the above action. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. If you purchased Nevsun common stock between March 31, 2011 and February 6, 2012, you have certain rights, and have 60 days from March 13, 2012 to move for lead plaintiff status. To be a member of the class you need not take any action at this time, and you may retain counsel of your choice.
www.howardsmithlaw.com
Nevsun mines and explores for gold and base metals, such as copper and zinc. The Complaint alleges that defendants misrepresented or failed to disclose that: (a) Nevsun’s mining activities at the Bisha mine in Eritrea, Africa, produced a material amount of waste rock, rather than gold ore; (b) gold and gold ore from Bisha were materially less than estimated, and defendants knew or had reason to know this, based on data routinely collected from the mine; (c) Nevsun was progressing through the ore body at Bisha more quickly than planned, to maintain production at a rate that would not reveal to investors that the amount of gold was materially less than the Company’s estimate; (d) the Company was aware its resource model was materially defective because actual amounts of gold mined at Bisha did not reconcile with the Company’s previously disseminated estimate; and (e) Nevsun materially overstated its gold reserves at the Bisha mine.
No class has yet been certified in the above action. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. If you purchased Nevsun common stock between March 31, 2011 and February 6, 2012, you have certain rights, and have 60 days from March 13, 2012 to move for lead plaintiff status. To be a member of the class you need not take any action at this time, and you may retain counsel of your choice.
www.howardsmithlaw.com
Pa. criminal courts all now taking online payments
Pennsylvania criminal courts are all now accepting credit and debit card payments online, with daily collections currently reaching about $140,000.
The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts said Monday that lower-level magisterial district courts had all linked in to the "e-Pay" system as of December. The system was installed for county common pleas courts in 2010.
It allows people to pay court-ordered fines, costs and restitution. There's a transaction fee of $2.75.
The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts said Monday that lower-level magisterial district courts had all linked in to the "e-Pay" system as of December. The system was installed for county common pleas courts in 2010.
It allows people to pay court-ordered fines, costs and restitution. There's a transaction fee of $2.75.
Chinese man gets 13 years for palace art theft
A Beijing court sentenced a Chinese farmer to 13 years in jail on Monday for stealing art pieces from the Forbidden City, the heavily guarded former imperial palace in China's capital.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Shi Baikui, 27, was also fined $2,100 for taking the nine items made of gold and jewels in May 2011. It said six were recovered but three pieces worth an estimated $23,800 remain missing.
The stolen pieces were small Western-style gold purses and mirrored compacts covered with jewels.
Xinhua said Shi told the court the theft was a "spur-of-the-moment" act. The incident sparked public concern about security loopholes in the Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum.
Xinhua said officials began a four-year security upgrade in 2009 to equip the museum with advanced security equipment and technology.
Court questions life without parole for juveniles
The Supreme Court is debating whether young teenagers convicted of killing someone may be locked up for life with no chance of parole, the latest in a line of cases seeking a second chance for young people.
The justices are looking at two cases Tuesday involving teenagers serving life sentences. In one, a 14-year-old in Alabama beat a man, then set fire to his home. In the other, a 14-year-old in Arkansas didn't pull the trigger, but was in on an attempted robbery in which another boy shot and killed a store clerk.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote earlier opinions ruling out the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole sentences for young people whose crimes did not involve killing. He seemed to be the pivotal justice in Tuesday's arguments.
The justices are looking at two cases Tuesday involving teenagers serving life sentences. In one, a 14-year-old in Alabama beat a man, then set fire to his home. In the other, a 14-year-old in Arkansas didn't pull the trigger, but was in on an attempted robbery in which another boy shot and killed a store clerk.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote earlier opinions ruling out the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole sentences for young people whose crimes did not involve killing. He seemed to be the pivotal justice in Tuesday's arguments.
Court says state can't be sued over sick leave
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states cannot be sued under the Family and Medical Leave Act for refusing to give an employee time off to recover from an illness. One justice said the decision "dilutes the force" of the law that allows millions of working Americans time off to take care of sick family members or to have children.
The high court refused to let Daniel Coleman sue the Maryland state Court of Appeals for damages for firing him after he asked for sick leave, blaming Congress for not equating family care and self-care when lawmakers wrote the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the controlling opinion, said Congress did not investigate self-care the way it did family care when it passed the FMLA, leaving little "widespread evidence of sex discrimination or sex stereotyping in the administration of sick leave."
"Documented discrimination against women in the general workplace is a persistent unfortunate reality, and we must assume, a still prevalent wrong. An explicit purpose of the Congress in adopting the FMLA was to improve workplace conditions for women. But states may not be subject to suits for damages based on violations of a comprehensive statute unless Congress has identified a specific pattern of constitutional violations by state employers," said Kennedy, who was joined in his opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
The high court refused to let Daniel Coleman sue the Maryland state Court of Appeals for damages for firing him after he asked for sick leave, blaming Congress for not equating family care and self-care when lawmakers wrote the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the controlling opinion, said Congress did not investigate self-care the way it did family care when it passed the FMLA, leaving little "widespread evidence of sex discrimination or sex stereotyping in the administration of sick leave."
"Documented discrimination against women in the general workplace is a persistent unfortunate reality, and we must assume, a still prevalent wrong. An explicit purpose of the Congress in adopting the FMLA was to improve workplace conditions for women. But states may not be subject to suits for damages based on violations of a comprehensive statute unless Congress has identified a specific pattern of constitutional violations by state employers," said Kennedy, who was joined in his opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
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