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Court: Ark. can't stop desegregation funds
Court Feed News |
2011/12/28 18:26
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A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Arkansas can't cut off funding for desegregation programs in Little Rock-area school districts without a separate hearing and judge's order.
The ruling from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes months after U.S. District Judge Brian Miller ordered an end to most of the payments, calling them counterproductive. The appeals court heard the case in September.
The state has been spending about $38 million per year to help finance magnet schools that help keep a racial balance in the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County school districts, according to Wednesday's ruling, which keeps the money flowing until the matter is resolved in a separate court proceeding.
The state is required by a 1989 settlement to fund magnet schools, transfers between districts and other programs to support desegregation. Lawmakers have long wanted to end the payments, but the districts say they're still necessary.
Battles over school desegregation in Little Rock date back to 1957, when nine black children needed the protection of federal troops to integrate Central High School. Little Rock sued the state and its two neighboring districts in 1982. Two years later, a judge agreed that the districts hadn't done enough to help the city schools desegregate. |
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Request by WVU to dismiss Big East suit denied
Legal Career News |
2011/12/28 18:26
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A Rhode Island judge on Tuesday denied a request by West Virginia University to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Big East Conference over the university's bid to make a quick exit for the Big 12.
Providence County Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein rejected all of the university's arguments for dismissal.
The school had argued the Rhode Island courts did not have the authority to decide the matter and should defer to the courts in West Virginia, where the first civil suit was filed in this dispute.
The university also claimed it can't be sued in Rhode Island because it has sovereign immunity as an agency of the state of West Virginia and was not properly notified by the Big East of its lawsuit.
Court spokesman Craig Berke said the timetable for future legal proceedings in Rhode Island has not been determined.
The Big East's lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order that West Virginia stay in the conference for 27 months.
West Virginia accepted an invitation from the Big 12 in October and hopes to join in time for the 2012 football season.
Since then the school and Big East have each sued the other and filed motions to dismiss the other's lawsuits. A West Virginia judge earlier this month refused to dismiss a university lawsuit against the Big East. |
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Suit in Mass. bullying case was settled for $225K
Headline News |
2011/12/28 08:20
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A lawsuit brought by the parents of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old Irish immigrant in Massachusetts who committed suicide after relentless bullying, was settled for $225,000, according to documents made public Tuesday. The settlement with the town of South Hadley and its school department was reached more than a year ago, but the details were kept under wraps until a journalist won a court order for the release of the information. The documents show that Prince's parents settled claims against the town and its school department for $225,000. In return, the parents promised to release the plaintiffs from any further claims. The documents were released by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which represented Slate reporter Emily Bazelon in her bid to for the disclosure of the settlement. "This is a victory for the public's right to know and for transparency in government," said Bill Newman, an attorney with the ACLU's legal office in western Massachusetts. Prince hanged herself in January 2010 after classmates taunted her after she dated a popular boy. She had recently moved from Ireland to South Hadley, a rural town about 100 miles west of Boston. Five students later accepted plea deals in criminal cases connected with bullying that preceded her death. None involved prison time. Prince's death drew international attention and was among several high-profile teen suicides that prompted new laws aimed at cracking down on bullying in schools. All school districts in Massachusetts are now required to develop bullying prevention plans. |
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Appeals court says Anschutz owes $17.3M in taxes
Legal Career News |
2011/12/27 19:19
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A federal appeals on Tuesday agreed with a tax court that determined Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz owed at least $17.3 million in taxes.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the tax court's 2010 ruling. The court said the Anschutz Co., which Anschutz owns, is also liable for at least $77 million in taxes.
Anschutz spokesman Jim Monaghan said Anschutz already paid the taxes but appealed that he owed them. Anschutz's wife, Nancy, was also named in the case because they file tax returns jointly.
The taxes are from stock transactions in 2000 and 2001.
At issue were stock deals that were structured to spread the tax liability out over several years. Judges agreed with tax regulators that that the transactions were sales, and not pending transactions as Anschutz argued.
Such transactions executed through so called variable prepaid forward contracts and share-lending agreements are a fairly common practice by large shareholders hoping to raise money while deferring taxes, according to Robert Willens, a former Lehman Brothers director who now heads a Wall Street tax and accounting firm.
According to the court documents, the Internal Revenue Service in 2003 issued guidance on how the transactions should be structured to avoid taxes, but Willens said the IRS in 2006 issued another letter warning that the arrangements could result in taxable income. In a friend-of-the-court filing in the case, Liberty Media Corp. argued the transactions amount to loans, not sales, and that they provide an important way for companies to raise money and create jobs. |
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Budget woes squeeze federal courts in NYC
U.S. Legal News |
2011/12/27 18:20
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An annual holiday show at the federal courthouse in Manhattan drew laughs, but no one is laughing now over the possibility of unfilled jobs and draconian budget cuts that court administrators say threatens the public's safety.
"Their secret plan is to ax the federal judiciary," one character said of Washington Republicans in the fictional story line during the 2011 Courthouse Follies.
By the end of the show, Republicans promised to restore "every penny" of the funding and even increase it when they realized they needed to turn to the courts to sue President Barack Obama over his policies.
A real-life ending to the budget crisis may be far less likely to entertain at Manhattan's U.S. District Court, where 39 trial judges — the largest group of federal judges in the country — preside over some of the nation's biggest criminal cases and wade through more than 12,000 lawsuits annually.
The courthouse has hosted nearly a dozen major terrorism trials, numerous mob cases and a slew of white collar prosecutions from lifestyle maven Martha Stewart to Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff. |
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Federal judge ends BP's probation for Alaska spill
Court Feed News |
2011/12/27 17:18
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A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed prosecutors' argument that a BP subsidiary violated its probation after an oil spill because of another spill on Alaska's North Slope. Judge Ralph Beistline also lifted BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.'s probation altogether. BP had been convicted of negligent discharge of oil in 2007 for a 200,000-gallon (757,000-liter) spill on the North Slope a year earlier. There was another spill of 13,500 gallons (51,100 liters) in 2009. Last month, government lawyers sought to have BP's probation revoked for the latest spill, meaning the probation period could have been lengthened or the company could have faced additional penalties. In his ruling, Beistline said the government failed to prove the company committed criminal negligence. "We are pleased with the decision and appreciate the court's attention," BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said in an email to The Associated Press. "We know that the privilege of working in Alaska comes with a responsibility to maintain high standards. We will continue our commitment to running safe and compliant operations." Emails seeking comment from the U.S. attorney's office in Anchorage were not immediately returned. Prosecutors said BP's history of environmental crimes in Alaska began in February 2001 when it pleaded guilty to releasing hazardous materials at its Endicott facility on the North Slope. The company was fined $500,000, placed on probation for five years and ordered to create a nationwide environmental management program, prosecutors said. |
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