In 2015, a police sergeant from Cumming, GA, accepted money from a widower he’d previously arrested and who was apparently known for frequenting prostitutes. The money was a loan, given on condition that Sergeant Nathan Van Buren use the license plate database to find out if a girl the widower had... Read More »
When Bayer purchased Monsanto in 2018, they could not have predicted the legal hurricanes that would follow. Just weeks after the purchase, a jury in California awarded Dewayne Johnson, a groundskeeper at a school where he used Roundup, $289 million. They found that glyphosate in the product caused his non-Hodgkin’s... Read More »
November was a busy month for litigation against Johnson & Johnson (J&J); lawsuits are coming in all shapes and sizes, and so are the settlements and jury verdicts. Among the results are staggering million-dollar and billion-dollar awards, including individual cases and class-action lawsuits. According to a ruling last month, J&J... Read More »
Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, has brought a $75 million lawsuit against the Department of Justice, the FBI, former FBI director James B. Comey, former Assistant Director Andrew McCabe, ex-bureau lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, form FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa... Read More »
The Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery in the 11 states of the Confederacy and those areas not under Union control at the time of its signing. The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution was intended to abolish slavery in the rest of the nation. However, some problematic language remained which... Read More »
On November 13, 2020, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia blocked drilling on more than 300,000 acres in Wyoming for the second time in two years. In his decision, the judge took the Trump administration to task for failing to properly... Read More »
Judge Miranda Du approved and revealed a settlement between Tesla and Martin Tripp on Monday, November 30, 2020. The settlement stipulates that Tripp will pay $400,000 to Tesla. He was accused of leaking information to reporters. He admitted the charges of stealing trade secrets. Tripp was a process technician at... Read More »
On Wednesday, November 25, 2020, the Florida Supreme Court refused to reinstate death penalty sentences for two men whose death sentences were vacated pursuant to a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The men, Bessman Okafor and Michael James Jackson, had been convicted of murder and sentenced to be executed prior... Read More »
On October 19, 2020, Attorney General William Barr appointed Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham as special counsel under the same federal regulations that covered special counsel Robert Mueller in the original Russia probe undertaken in May 2017. The order authorizes Mr. Durham “to investigate whether any federal official, employee or any... Read More »
On Monday, November 23, 2020, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), ordered GM to recall and repair approximately seven million vehicles that contain Takata airbag inflators. Though GM strenuously insisted that the inflators in question do not pose a threat, they agreed to abide by NHTSA’s decision and make the... Read More »
Flint, Michigan residents, via their attorneys, filed a proposed settlement on November 24, 2020, for $641.2 million as a result of their suit for damages from contaminated water. The State of Michigan was the named defendant in the lawsuit. The City of Flint, McLaren Regional Medical Center, and Rowe Professional Services Company... Read More »
On Thursday, November 12, 2020, First Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Jeffrey R. Howard and Sandra L. Lynch upheld the 2019 district court ruling that Harvard University does not discriminate by race in its admission processes. Judge Juan R. Torruella, who died in October, had also been on the panel.... Read More »
On Monday, November 16, 2020, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act. This sports bill will allow U.S. officials to prosecute people involved in doping and doping conspiracies at international sporting competitions. This bill unanimously passed the House of Representatives on October 22, 2019, and now will need... Read More »
West Virginia’s Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey, filed a lawsuit in March of 2019 alleging that the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston was operating schools and camps in violation of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act. The AG’s allegations included that the Diocese failed to keep the public safe by not... Read More »
On Tuesday, November 17, 2020, Rudy Giuliani entered a courtroom for the first time since 1992 to attempt to prove that re-election was stolen from President Trump. His antics in the courtroom call his abilities into question, as he mistook one judge for another, was active on his Twitter account... Read More »
