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Lawyers claim cable TV and phone companies also responsible in Maui fires
Legal Business |
2023/09/06 15:40
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After a visit to a warehouse where Hawaiian Electric Company is housing power poles and electrical equipment that may be key to the investigation of last month’s devastating fires on Maui, lawyers for Lahaina residents and business owners told a court Tuesday that cable TV and telephone companies share responsibility for the disaster because they allegedly overloaded and destabilized some of the poles.
The lawyers said the cables were attached in a way that put too much tension on the poles, causing them to lean and break in the winds on Aug. 8 when flames burned down much of Lahaina, killing at least 115 people and destroying more than 2,000 structures.
LippSmith LLP has filed a proposed class action against Hawaii’s electric utility and Maui County in state court in Hawaii. Attorney Graham LippSmith is now asking the court to add multiple telecommunications companies and public and private landowners to the original suit.
“In a disaster of this magnitude, it takes some time for all the potentially responsible parties to come into focus and be brought into court. Our investigation thus far shows a constellation of many serious failures that together led to this horrible tragedy,” MaryBeth LippSmith, co-founder of the Hawaii- and California-based firm, said in an interview Tuesday.
Pacific Gas & Electric in California filed for bankruptcy in 2019 due to a succession of harrowing wildfires ignited by its long-neglected electrical grid in Northern California.
But LippSmith rejected the suggestion the firm is seeking extra defendants in the event that Hawaiian Electric declares bankruptcy. Rather it’s trying to get at the root of multiple failures in order to prevent this kind of tragedy in the future, she said. The lawsuit seeks damages and injunctive relief, including a court order to force the defendants to address fire risk. |
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Judge strikes down a Texas law requiring age verification to view adult websites
Headline Legal News |
2023/09/02 21:33
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A federal judge has struck down a Texas law requiring age verification and health warnings to view pornographic websites and blocked the state attorney general’s office from enforcing it.
In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Ezra agreed with claims that House Bill 1181, which was signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in June, violates free speech rights and is overbroad and vague.
The state attorney general’s office, which is defending the law, immediately filed notice of appeal to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 4 by the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry and a person identified as Jane Doe and described as an adult entertainer on various adult sites, including Pornhub.
Judge Ezra also said the law, which was to take effect Friday, raises privacy concerns because a permissible age verification is using a traceable government-issued identification and the government has access to and is not required to delete the data.
“People will be particularly concerned about accessing controversial speech when the state government can log and track that access,” Ezra wrote. “By verifying information through government identification, the law will allow the government to peer into the most intimate and personal aspects of people’s lives.”
Ezra said Texas has a legitimate goal of protecting children from online sexual material, but noted other measures, including blocking and filtering software, exist.
“These methods are more effective and less restrictive in terms of protecting minors from adult content,” Ezra wrote. The judge also found the law unconstitutionally compels speech by requiring adult sites to post health warnings they dispute — that pornography is addictive, impairs mental development and increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation and child sexual abuse images.
“The disclosures state scientific findings as a matter of fact, when in reality, they range from heavily contested to unsupported by the evidence,” Ezra wrote.
The Texas law is one of several similar age verification laws passed in other states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Louisiana.
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3M agrees to pay $6 billion to settle earplug lawsuits
Legal Topics |
2023/08/30 17:19
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Chemical and consumer product manufacturer 3M has agreed to pay $6 billion to settle numerous lawsuits from U.S. service members who say they experienced hearing loss or other serious injuries after using faulty earplugs made by the company.
The settlement, consisting of $5 billion in cash and $1 billion in 3M stock, will be made in payments that will run through 2029. The agreement announced by the Minnesota company on Tuesday marks a resolution to one of the largest mass torts in U.S. history.
Hundreds of thousands of veterans and current service members have reportedly sued 3M and Aearo Technologies, a company that 3M acquired in 2008, over their Combat Arms Earplug products. The service members alleged that a defective design allowed the products — which were intended to protect ears from close range firearms and other loud noises — to loosen slightly and allow hearing damage, according to Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis, & Overholtz PLLC, one of the law firms representing plaintiffs.
In an online summary about the Combat Arms Earlplug litigation, the Florida-based law firm notes that 3M previously agreed to pay $9.1 million to settle a lawsuit on behalf of the government alleging the company knowingly supplied defective earplugs to the U.S. military. And since 2019, the firm added, 3M has lost 10 of 16 cases that have gone to trial — awarding millions of dollars to plaintiffs to date.
In Tuesday’s announcement, 3M maintained that the agreement — which includes all claims in Florida’s multi-district litigation, coordinated state court action in Minnesota, and potential future claims — was not an admission of liability.
“The products at issue in this litigation are safe and effective when used properly,” the company wrote. “3M is prepared to continue to defend itself in the litigation if certain agreed terms of the settlement agreement are not fulfilled.”
3M has previously tried to reduce exposure to the earplug litigation through bankruptcy court, the Wall Street Journal reported. In 2022, Aearo filed for bankruptcy as a separate company, accepting responsibility for claims, but the filing was later dismissed in U.S. bankruptcy court.
Beyond the earplug litigation, 3M in June agreed to pay at least $10.3 billion to settle lawsuits over contamination of many U.S. public drinking water systems with potentially harmful compounds. The deal would compensate water providers for pollution with per- and polyfluorinated substances, also known as “forever chemicals.”
The agreement hasn’t been finalized yet. Last month, 22 attorneys general urged a federal court to reject the proposed settlement, saying it lets manufacturer 3M off too easily. |
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US sues SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and others
Legal Topics |
2023/08/27 22:38
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The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday sued SpaceX, the rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk, for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and people granted asylum.
The complaint, filed in an administrative court within the department, asserts that SpaceX wrongly claimed that federal export control laws barred it from hiring anyone but U.S. citizens and permanent residents. As a result, it discouraged refugees and asylum grantees from applying for jobs at the company, according to the complaint.
Export controls typically aim to protect U.S. national security and to further national trade objectives. They bar the shipment of specific technologies, weapons, information and software to specific non-U.S. nations and also limit the sharing or release of such items and information to “U.S. persons.” But the Justice Department noted that the term includes not only U.S. citizens, but also permanent U.S. residents, refugees, and those granted asylum.
The department charged that SpaceX also refused to “fairly” consider applications from this group of people or to hire them. The positions in question included both ones requiring advanced degrees and others such as welders, cooks and crane operators at the company.
The U.S. is seeking “fair consideration and back pay” for people who were deterred from or denied employment at SpaceX due to the company’s alleged discrimination, in addition to undetermined civil penalties.
SpaceX, which is based in Hawthorne, California, did not reply to a request for comment.
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After Roe v. Wade, the fight over abortion access moves to New Mexico
Legal Business |
2023/08/23 22:38
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The sanctuary in Grace Covenant Reformed Church was packed.
People stood shoulder to shoulder wherever they could — near the stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible, behind the neatly lined rows of chairs that serve as pews, against a wall covered in crosses made from painted wood, wire, glass and ceramic red chiles.
Bibles and hymnals rested under every seat, but they weren’t used that Monday night last September. There was no sermon, because this wasn’t a church service.
Residents of Clovis, a town of some 40,000 people a mere 20-minute drive to the Texas state line, crammed into this little brick building that night to discuss a plan of action to ban abortion.
Just three months earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that had legalized abortion in the U.S. for almost 50 years.
As trigger laws banning the procedure began going into effect across the nation — in places including neighboring Texas — abortion providers took up residence in New Mexico, which has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the U.S.
“As the laws in this country change before our very eyes,” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said on the day Roe was reversed, “I will continue to fight for the right to a safe, legal abortion in New Mexico and stand as a brick wall against those who seek to punish women and their doctors just because they seek the care they need and deserve.”
In the year since Dobbs, New Mexico has been a brick wall and a safe haven — for those who provide abortions and those who desire or need them.
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Some states reject federal money to find and replace dangerous lead pipes
Headline Legal News |
2023/08/22 16:43
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As the Biden administration makes billions of dollars available to remove millions of dangerous lead pipes that can contaminate drinking water and damage brain development in children, some states are turning down funds.
Washington, Oregon, Maine and Alaska declined all or most of their federal funds in the first of five years that the mix of grants and loans is available, The Associated Press found. Some states are less prepared to pay for lead removal projects because, in many cases, the lead must first be found, experts said. And communities are hesitant to take out loans to search for their lead pipes.
States shouldn’t “shrug their shoulders” and pass up funds, said Erik Olson, a health and food expert at the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s troubling that a state would decide to take a complete pass on the funding because part of the reason for the funding is to figure out whether you even have lead,” Olson said.
The Biden administration wants to remove all 9.2 million lead pipes carrying water to U.S. homes. Lead can lower IQ and create behavioral problems in children. The 2021 infrastructure law provides $15 billion to find and replace them. That money will help a lot, but it isn’t enough to get all the toxic pipes out of the ground. State programs distribute the federal funds to utilities.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it is reviewing state requests to decline funds but did not provide a full list of states that have said no so far. That information will be available in October, officials said. States that declined first-year funds can still accept them during the remaining four years.
“EPA has been working closely with our state partners on utilizing Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding that is available,” the agency said. Lead pipes are far more common in some states such as Michigan and Illinois, which each have hundreds of thousands. The harm there is clear. Flint’s lead crisis elevated lead in tap water to a national health issue. Residents of Benton Harbor, Michigan, drank water with too much lead for years until all their lead pipes were replaced. In response, however, Michigan is clamoring for as much money as it can get to remove lead.
The states that declined funds have fewer problematic pipes, but that doesn’t mean lead isn’t an issue. There’s concern about lead in some Maine schools. Portland, Oregon, has struggled with high lead levels for years, although recent tests have been better and officials say the issue isn’t lead pipes, but household plumbing. |
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Worker gets almost 3 years in prison for stealing $1M from employer
Legal Topics |
2023/08/20 23:43
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The former IT director of a Rhode Island metals fabrication company convicted of stealing more than $1 million from his employer and using the money for personal expenses was sentenced Monday to nearly three years in prison.
Juan Hicks, 47, of New Bedford, Massachusetts used his purchasing authority to bilk the company out of the money over a period of about 10 years, the U.S. attorney’s office in Rhode Island said in a statement.
While working at A.T. Wall Co. in Warwick, Hicks carried out his scheme in a variety of ways, prosecutors said.
He created false invoices and expense reports for purchases that were never made, and altered legitimate credit card statements to make purchases appear to be business expenses when they were really for personal expenses, authorities said.
He also issued company phones with wireless service to himself and six family members, and used company credit cards to buy airline and entertainment tickets for himself, as well as for retail purchases and auto repairs, prosecutors said.
His conduct came to light in March 2022 when his employer hired forensic analysts to determine the source of a cyberattack.
In addition to prison time he was also ordered to pay restitution. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud in March.
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