5/26/2015 Perhaps no industry besides investment banks has been hit as hard by the federal court system than tobacco over the past several years. A pair of recent appeals rulings, however, indicates a substantial turn in the industry’s decades-long financial flogging. On Friday, the D.C. Court of Appeals delivered a mixed-ruling, in which some
5/25/2015 A lawsuit will continue in U.S. District Court in Minnesota regarding Target’s widespread 2013 pre-holiday data breach as banks rejected a $19 million settlement proposed last month. Over 40 million debit and credit cards were compromised during the breach, putting millions of cardholders’ information at risk. The settlement set aside by Target would have
5/19/2015 Many people were caught off-guard in 2010 by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. FEC ruling that in many ways equated the amount of political speech one was able to express by the amount of money the speaker was able to spend. The New York Times, however, notes that the Court made a similar
5/18/15 If there were any doubts about whether or not many banks broke the law while selling bad mortgages to investors or if their clients were merely victims of bad timing, Manhattan Federal Court Judge, Denise L. Cote, would like to eliminate them. Finding Japanese bank, Nomura Holdings and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)
5/11/2015 In a decision that turns a bad situation even worse for the state of Illinois, the state’s Supreme Court unanimously declared a law to reduce the amount of pension benefits for state workers to be unconstitutional. The controversial law titled SB 1, signed in December, 2013 by then-Governor; Pat Quinn, reduced compounded cost-of-living increases
5/8/2015 Contrary to yesterday’s post regarding the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that warrantless access to phone records is not an invasion of privacy; a 3-judge panel from the 2nd Circuit ruled unanimously on Thursday, May 07th that the National Security Agency (NSA) spying program is illegal. Although both programs base their justification on
5/7/2015 A panel of judges ruled 9-2 in the 11th District U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta that cell phone customers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning searches of phone records. The Tuesday, May 5th ruling concerns the case of Miami resident, Quartavious Davis, who was convicted of several felonies, including robbery
4/30/2015 In what has been initially hailed as both a small victory for companies as well as for employees, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday, April 29th, that proper Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) procedures may be subjected to court oversight. More specifically, the Court mandated that the EEOC must make an attempt at
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted unanimously on Thursday, April 9th to issue the largest fine for a utility company in state history, and the largest fine in U.S. history for a natural gas utility. The $1.6 billion fine against PG&E was issued in response to a 2010 pipeline explosion in the San Francisco
Pelvic mesh litigation now comprises over 60,000 cases in the federal MDL, proceeding in the Southern District of West Virginia, and notable developments in the MDL and in cases proceeding in state and federal courts continue as cases prepare for bellwether trials. Judge Goodwin issued a fascinating opinion on the application of the learned intermediary