By: Editor
Source: ABA Journal Top Stories
If you believe Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David T. Prosser Jr., he just wanted to get out a press release. It was June 13, and the justice wanted to announce a decision involving Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial 2011 budget bill eliminating most government employee collective bargaining rights. What followed was a donnybrook among the justices. Before it was over, Prosser stood accused of putting fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in a choke hold. Bradley was accused of putting her fist in Prosser’s face. And the Dane County Sheriff’s Office was placed in the uncomfortable position of having to investigate. In…
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By: Editor
Source: ABA Journal Top Stories
A judge brought in to hear a lawyer's petition for removal of a North Carolina district attorney has suspended her from office, finding probable cause that she should be permanently removed from her elected office. A hearing on whether Durham DA Tracey Cline should be permanently removed will be held Feb. 13, the News & Observer reports. Three other judges had previously taken a dim view of Cline's campaign against Judge Orlando Hudson, the senior jurist in Durham, the newspaper notes, and one admonished her that she must take care to be accurate in court filings. Then attorney Kerry Sutton…
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By: Editor
Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
Aluminum maker Alcoa asked a federal judge Friday to toss a long-running civil racketeering lawsuit accusing the company of paying bribes in Bahrain to win business with its state-owned aluminum company.
The case, as we’ve detailed here, is proceeding alongside a criminal investigation of Alcoa over possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars companies from paying bribes to foreign officials.
To recap, the civil lawsuit alleges Alcoa paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes, through an agent, to officials at the state-owned company, Aluminum Bahrain, in return for inflated contracts. Aluminum Bahrain, also known as Alba, filed the lawsuit in 2008 in Pittsburgh federal court. Alba alleges that Alcoa reaped $400 million in illegal profits through the scheme and is seeking more than $1 billion in damages.
An Alcoa spokeswoman said that “Alba’s claims are not supported ...
By: Editor
Source: ABA Journal Top Stories
At the top of his game as Florida's unchallenged foreclosure king, David J. Stern had perhaps 100,000 cases and a back-office legal processing support operation that he sold for $60 million in 2010. Then came allegations of slipshod work and the firm's sudden collapse last year, after Fannie Mae pulled its files. Judges reportedly were left to deal with abandoned cases because the firm lacked the staff or funds to move to withdraw, and now-former employees sued for termination pay. Earlier this month, the purchasers who paid Stern $60 million for DJSP Enterprises sued him as well as an accountant…
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By: Editor
Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
A federal appeals court has revived a three-year old lawsuit involving a former Eastern Michigan University student that addresses whether counselors who refuse to work with gays and lesbians on religious grounds are in breach of professional ethics.
In 2009, the university expelled Julea Ward (pictured) from its graduate counseling program after she refused for religious reasons to counsel a gay student about relationship problems, according to court documents.
Ward sued university officials, claiming her First Amendment guarantees to free speech and free practice of religion were violated.
Her case was tossed out by a lower court in 2010. Eastern Michigan’s lawyers had argued successfully that the school expelled Ward because she violated American Counseling Association rules barring practitioners from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and from “imposing values that are inconsistent with counseling goals.” ...
By: Editor
Source: Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog
Gov. Scott Walker’s job performance is drawing strong disapproval—in the city of Milwaukee. Gov. Scott Walker’s job performance is drawing strong approval—in the rest of the Milwaukee media market.
A big thumbs up for Walker across most of the state of Wisconsin. A big thumbs down in Madison.
The two half-states of Wisconsin—one with clear Democratic majorities, one with clear Republican majorities—can be seen in the results of the Marquette Law School Poll released this week. Political contests in either of the half-states alone would be bring few surprises and little drama because they would be one-sided. But combine the two halves into the one Wisconsin we actually have, and you get a polarized, evenly split state that has become a center of passionate partisanship, attracting high levels of national attention.
You can see the two half-Wisconsins ...
By: Editor
Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
There’s a new battle brewing in America’s classrooms, and while it doesn’t have the religious implications of the evolution vs. creationism debate, it has prompted several state legislatures and local school boards to get involved.
Climate change — that topic that makes you bang your head against the wall when talking to your obstinate brother-in-law — is the new battleground in science education in middle and high schools in the U.S., Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.
State boards of education in Texas and Louisiana have established standards to require the presentation of climate change denial as a valid scientific position, while legislators in Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Kentucky have introduced bills to mandate equal time for climate change skeptics’ views in the classroom, according to OPB. Earlier this week, we told you about an Oklahoma bill that ...
