|
|
|
Justices to consider case involving fishing boat monitor pay
Business Law Info |
2023/05/01 07:59
|
The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the subject of who pays for workers who gather valuable data aboard commercial fishing boats.
Justices announced Monday that they will take the case, which stems from a lawsuit by a group of fishermen who want to stop the federal government from making them pay for the workers. The workers are tasked with collecting data on board fishing vessels to help inform rules and regulations.
The fishermen involved in the lawsuit harvest Atlantic herring, which is a major fishery off the East Coast that supplies both food and bait. Lead plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey and other fishing groups have said federal rules unfairly require them to pay hundreds of dollars per day to contractors.
“Our way of life is in the hands of these justices, and we hope they will keep our families and our community in mind as they weigh their decision,” said Bill Bright, a New Jersey fisherman and plaintiff in the case.
The high court announced its decision to take the case via an order list that made no comment on the merits of the lawsuit. The fishermen previously lost in lower court rulings. Their lawsuit over fishing monitors is part of a long-standing fight between commercial fishing groups and the federal government over who pays for data collection and regulatory compliance.
Fishermen have argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the expense of paying for monitors.
Fisheries in the U.S. are regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A representative for NOAA declined to comment on the case. The agency does not typically comment on pending litigation. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
German court: naked landlord doesn’t justify lower rent
Law & Politics |
2023/04/26 23:29
|
A German court said Wednesday that a landlord sunbathing naked in the courtyard of his building wasn’t a reason for his tenants to reduce their rental payments.
The case involved a building in an upmarket residential district of Frankfurt, which included an office floor, rented by a human resources company. The company withheld rent because it objected, among other things, to the landlord’s naked sunbathing. In response, the landlord sued.
The Frankfurt state court rejected the company’s reasoning, finding that “the usability of the rented property was not impaired by the plaintiff sunning himself naked in the courtyard.”
It said in a statement that it couldn’t see an “inadmissible, deliberately improper effect on the property.”
Judges were ruling on an appeal against a lower court decision that went in the landlord’s favor, and the tenant had only limited success overall. They found that the tenant had been entitled to reduce rental payments for three months only because of noisy construction work in the neighborhood.
The court said that the spot where the landlord sunbathed could only be seen from the rented office by leaning far out of the window.
It also said the tenant failed to prove that he took the stairs to the courtyard unclothed. “On the contrary, the plaintiff stated credibly that he always wore a bathrobe which he only took off just before the sun lounger,” it said. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Supreme Court asked to preserve abortion pill access rules
Legal Career News |
2023/04/16 05:46
|
The Biden administration and a drug manufacturer asked the Supreme Court on Friday to preserve access to an abortion drug free from restrictions imposed by lower court rulings, while a legal fight continues.
The Justice Department and Danco Laboratories both warned of “regulatory chaos” and harm to women if the high court doesn’t block an appeals court ruling in a case from Texas that had the effect of tightening Food and Drug Administration rules under which the drug, mifepristone, can be prescribed and dispensed.
The new limits would take effect Saturday unless the court acts before then.
“This application concerns unprecedented lower court orders countermanding FDA’s scientific judgment and unleashing regulatory chaos by suspending the existing FDA-approved conditions of use for mifepristone,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote Friday, less than two days after the appellate ruling.
A lawyer for the anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations suing over mifepristone said the justices should reject the drugmaker’s and the administration’s pleas and allow the appeals court-ordered changes to take effect.
The fight over mifepristone lands at the Supreme Court less than a year after conservative justices reversed Roe v. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Democratic senators urge chief justice to probe Thomas trips
Court Feed News |
2023/04/11 12:45
|
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called on U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday to open an investigation into the undisclosed acceptance of luxury trips taken by Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife that were paid for by a Republican megadonor.
The letter said the committee plans to hold a hearing in coming days regarding the “need to restore confidence in the Supreme Court’s ethical standards.” And if the Supreme Court does not deal with the issue on its own, the committee will consider voting on legislation. Such a measure would also need support from the Republican-led House to become law.
“But you do not need to wait for Congress to act to undertake your own investigation into the reported conduct and to ensure that it cannot happen again,” the 11 Democratic senators wrote to Roberts. “We urge you to do so.”
The nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica reported Thursday that Thomas, who has been a justice for more than 31 years, has for more than two decades accepted luxury trips from Republican donor Harlan Crow nearly every year.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court rules documents in Sanford case must be unsealed
Business Law Info |
2023/04/08 01:16
|
The South Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday that affidavits from an investigation into child pornography allegations against billionaire philanthropist T. Denny Sanford must be unsealed.
In 2019, South Dakota investigators searched his email account, as well as his cellular and internet service providers, for evidence of possession of child pornography, after his accounts were flagged by a technology firm.
Sanford, the state’s richest man, was not charged after the South Dakota attorney general’s office said its investigation into the allegations found no prosecutable offenses within the state’s jurisdiction.
Sanford had sought to bar affidavits used to issue search warrants in the case. But the Sioux Falls Argus Leader and ProPublica argued in court that the documents should be made public.
After the decision not to file charges, Judge James Power ordered in June 2022 that South Dakota law required the affidavits to be unsealed. They were kept sealed while Sanford’s attorneys appealed, sending the case to the state Supreme Court. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wisconsin Supreme Court control, abortion access at stake
Class Action News |
2023/04/04 11:07
|
Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and likely the future of abortion access, Republican-drawn legislative maps and years of GOP policies in the key swing state rests with the outcome an election Tuesday that has seen record campaign spending.
The winner of the high-stakes contest between Republican-backed Dan Kelly and Democratic-supported Janet Protasiewicz will determine majority control of the court headed into the 2024 presidential election. The court came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s narrow win in 2020, and both sides expect another close race in 2024.
It’s the latest election where abortion rights has been the central issue since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June. It’s also an example of how officially nonpartisan court races have grown into political battles as major legal fights play out at the state level.
All of it has fueled spending that will double, and likely triple or more, the previous high of $15.4 million spent on a state court race in Illinois in 2004. Democrats have spent heavily for Protasiewicz and Republicans for Kelly.
Democrats are trying to flip control of the court, which has had a majority of conservative justices the past 15 years. That has allowed the court to uphold an array of Republican priorities, including banning absentee ballot drop boxes last year and affirming the 2011 law all-but ending collective bargaining for most public workers. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recent Lawyer News Updates |
|
|
Lawyer News RSS
