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US court: Pa. school can't ban 'boobies' bracelets
Legal Topics |
2013/08/05 07:27
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A federal appeals court ruled Monday that a Pennsylvania school district cannot ban "I (heart) Boobies!" bracelets, rejecting the district's claim that the slogan _ designed to promote breast cancer awareness among young people _ is lewd.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also concluded that school officials didn't prove the bracelets were disruptive.
"Because the bracelets here are not plainly lewd and because they comment on a social issue, they may not be categorically banned," Judge D. Brooks Smith wrote in the 9-5 decision.
The ruling is a victory for two Easton Area School District girls who challenged the school rule in 2010 with help from the American Civil Liberties Union. Easton is one of several school districts around the country to ban the bracelets, which are distributed by the nonprofit Keep A Breast Foundation of Carlsbad, Calif.
ACLU lawyer Mary Catherine Roper said the ruling supports the rights of students to discuss important topics. |
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Judge denies class action for Wal-Mart bias suit
Areas of Focus |
2013/08/04 07:28
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A judge rejected on Friday an attempt to file a class action discrimination lawsuit on behalf of 150,000 Wal-Mart women employees in California who claimed their male colleagues were paid more and promoted faster than them.
The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court was a scaled-down version of an initial complaint filed in 2001 that sought to represent 1.6 million women nationwide. But the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out that class action lawsuit in 2011, ruling it found no convincing proof of companywide discrimination on pay and promotion policy. The court also said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit.
After that setback, the women's lawyers filed smaller class action lawsuits, alleging discrimination occurred in different states and Wal-Mart "regions."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the smaller suit on behalf of California women employees was still too disparate and wide ranging to qualify as a class action lawsuit. He also found that the lawyers failed to show statistical and anecdotal evidence of gender bias. |
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Supreme Court OKs early release plan for Calif. inmates
Areas of Focus |
2013/08/03 07:28
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Despite warnings from California officials, the nation's highest court is refusing to delay the early release of nearly 10,000 California inmates by year's end to ease overcrowding at 33 adult prisons.
In its decision Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed an emergency request by the Gov. Jerry Brown to halt a lower court's directive for the early release.
Law enforcement officials expressed concern about the ruling.
The justices ignored efforts already under way to reduce prison populations and "chose instead to allow for the release of more felons into already overburdened communities," said Covina Police Chief Kim Raney, president of the California Police Chiefs Association.
Brown's office referred a request for comment to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where Secretary Jeff Beard vowed that the state would press on with a still-pending appeal in hope of preventing the releases.
A panel of three federal judges had previously ordered the state to cut its prison population by nearly 8 percent to roughly 110,000 inmates by Dec. 31 to avoid conditions amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. That panel, responding to decades of lawsuits filed by inmates, repeatedly ordered early releases after finding inmates were needlessly dying and suffering because of inadequate medical and mental health care caused by overcrowding. |
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Court: No workers' comp in drunk dockworker case
Areas of Focus |
2013/08/02 07:28
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A federal appeals court says an Oregon longshoreman who got drunk on the job, urinated while standing on a dock and then fell 6 feet onto concrete should not get workers' compensation benefits for his injuries.
Gary Schwirse drank at least nine beers and half-pint of whiskey on Jan. 8, 2006. While standing on a dock, he urinated and fell over a railing. At the hospital, he registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.25 percent.
Schwirse sued for workers' compensation benefits and at first was victorious, when an administrative law judge ruled that workplace hazards had been a factor in his fall. But the judge later reversed his ruling when Schwirse backed off a claim that he tripped over an orange cone.
The worker appealed it to U.S. District Court, where he lost, and the case landed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied a petition for a review of claims this week. The court said his injuries were due solely to intoxication and his employers could not be held responsible.
Schwirse later tried to argue that the very concrete onto which he fell, and not his intoxication, was responsible for his injuries. That argument also lost.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge N. Randy Smith wrote in the opinion that if intoxication was the reason for the fall, then intoxication was also the reason for the injury. |
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Pitt schools segregation lawsuit in federal court
Areas of Focus |
2013/07/26 17:40
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Nearly 60 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial segregation in public schools, lawyers are set to square off in a federal courtroom in eastern North Carolina over whether the effects of that Jim Crow past still persist.
A trial was to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Greenville in the case of Everett v. Pitt County Board of Education.
A group of black parents represented by the UNC Center for Civil Rights will ask the court to reverse a 2011 student assignment plan they say effectively resegregated several schools in the district.
Lawyers for the Pitt schools will ask a judge to rule that the district has achieved "unitary status," meaning the "vestiges of past discrimination have been eliminated to the extent practicable." The designation would end federal oversight of the Pitt schools, in place since the 1960s.
This case is the first of its kind brought in North Carolina since 1999. More than 100 school districts across the South are still under federal court supervision. The decision in the Pitt case is expected to be widely followed by those other school systems.
Mark Dorosin, the managing attorney for the UNC Center for Civil Rights, said the case is a critical test of the continued viability of one of the most fundamental principles of school desegregation: That school districts still under court order must remedy the lasting vestiges of racial discrimination. |
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Arizona high court to hear school funding case
Legal Topics |
2013/07/23 17:34
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The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday hears arguments in an appeal of a lower court's ruling that requires the state Legislature to give schools an annual funding increase even in lean years to account for inflation.
The high court is reviewing a Court of Appeals decision. It said a voter-approved law requires the Legislature to provide an annual inflation adjustment for state funding to public schools.
School districts and education groups sued after the Legislature in 2010 instead only increased schools' transportation funding, eliminating a $61 million increase in general school spending.
The Supreme Court says it is considering is whether the Voter Protection Act allows voters to require the legislature to increase funding for schools.
The Voter Protection Act severely restricts the Legislature's to change voter-approved laws. |
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Court: Legal status can't be used in civil cases
Headline Legal News |
2013/07/18 03:21
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A person's legal status in the country can't be used in civil cases by attorneys to intimidate or coerce under a new rule approved by the Washington Supreme Court last week.
Since 2007, advocates have been working to make the change to the Rules of Professional conduct that attorneys licensed in the state must adhere to following. The lobbying began after members of the Latino/a Bar Association of Washington had seen attorneys and, in some cases, judges discuss a person's legal status in the country openly in court to intimidate.
"We thought it was unethical to do," said Lorena Gonzalez, who was president of the attorney association at the time. "We looked at the rules there was silence on the issue."
The rule does not affect criminal cases, but does cover civil matters, such as family disputes, personal injury claims, workplace cases, medical malpractice and other fields. |
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Headline Legal News for You to Reach America's Best Legal Professionals. The latest legal news and information - Law Firm, Lawyer and Legal Professional news in the Media. |
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