March 2022 Archives

Former US President Donald J. Trump Thursday sued Hilary R. Clinton, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and others for conspiring "to vilify Donald J. Trump" through nefarious "political stratagems," claiming damages in excess of $24,000,000.

A Rhode Island lawyer who mistakenly thought he was successful in electronically filing a slip-and-fall lawsuit was granted a reprieve last week when the state's top court reinstated the complaint.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled for Cranston lawyer Christopher Petrarca in a March 16 order. The Providence Journal has coverage, noted by How Appealing.

The court said Petrarca "was confronted with a series of logistical and computer-related issues" at a time when the "pandemic was raging," resulting in a missed filing deadline.

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The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has inquired whether New York's " 'special duty' requirement" applies "to claims of injury inflicted through municipal negligence" or if it applies only to claims premised upon a municipality's negligent "failure to protect the plaintiff from an injury inflicted other than by a municipal employee" (975 F3d 255, 291 [2d Cir 2020]). Consistent with our precedent and the purpose of the special duty rule, we reiterate that plaintiffs must establish that a municipality owed them a special duty when they assert a negligence claim based on actions taken by a municipality acting in a governmental capacity. We further clarify that plaintiffs may establish a special duty when a municipality, acting through its police force, plans and executes a no-knock search warrant at a person's home, and that such a duty runs to the individuals within the targeted premises at the time the warrant is executed.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A prosecutor who had been leading a criminal investigation into Donald Trump before quitting last month said in his resignation letter that he believes the former president is "guilty of numerous felony violations" and he disagreed with the Manhattan district attorney's decision not to seek an indictment.

In the letter, published Wednesday by The New York Times, Mark Pomerantz told District Attorney Alvin Bragg there was "evidence sufficient to establish Mr. Trump's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" of allegations he falsified financial statements to secure loans and burnish his image as a wealthy businessman.

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"I feel safe in Belarus. I'm calm, I like it in the country," the refugee reportedly said, per BELTA. "Today I have mixed feelings. I'm glad because Belarus took care of me. I'm upset because I found myself in such a situation that problems arose in my native country."

Some of those "problems" are the 14 criminal counts Neumann's been indicted on, which include assaulting police officers and engaging in violence with a deadly or dangerous weapon, after he and the rest of the pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year.

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The rarely enforced Neutrality Act could pose risks for Americans who decide to join the fight against Russia in Ukraine.

The law bars people who are in the United States from joining foreign armies or launching their own wars against nations that are at peace with the United States, Just Security reports in an article by Dakota S. Rudesill, a professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

"The United States today is not in an armed conflict with Russia," Rudesill wrote. "The risk remains that well-intentioned Americans could blunder into committing a crime."

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The US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled Tuesday that Major League Baseball (MLB) violated Arizona and Florida state minimum wage laws when not paying minor leaguers during spring training, instructional leagues, or extended spring training. Chief Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero found that the MLB is liable for $1,882,650 in penalties to plaintiffs. 

The suit originally was filed by first baseman/outfielder Aaron Senne, a 10th-round pick of the Florida Marlins in 2009 who retired in 2013, and two other retired players who had been lower-round selections: Kansas City infielder Michael Liberto and San Francisco pitcher Oliver Odle. Through their attorney, Senne, Liberto, and Odle argued that the MLB violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and state minimum wage and overtime requirements for a workweek they estimated to be 50 to 60 hours. 

North Carolina authorities launched an investigation into former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Thursday, following a report earlier this month that revealed a questionable address Meadows registered under to vote in the 2020 election.

Nazneen Ahmed, spokeswoman for North Carolina attorney general Josh Stein's office, confirmed to The News & Observer newspaper that the State Bureau of Investigation is looking into allegations of voter fraud against Meadows.

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Germany's BSI federal cybersecurity agency has warned the country's citizens not to install Russian-owned Kaspersky antivirus, saying it has "doubts about the reliability of the manufacturer."

n America's case, however, an NSA hacker's carelessness proved to be Kaspersky's undoing. Nghia Hoang Pho, who worked in the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit, was in the habit of taking his work home with him. When he uploaded an exploit onto his home laptop in 2015, his Kaspersky antivirus functioned exactly as intended: it recognized the malware and uploaded a copy to Kaspersky's servers.

Enraged, the US said Kaspersky had handed the exploit to Russia's FSB spy agency, jailed Pho, and banned the use of Kaspersky across its entire government.

Days after the Pho story first broke, however, rumors (started by the New York Times newspaper) began swirling that Israeli spies had hacked Kaspersky only to discover (so the story went) the infosec firm was working hand-in-glove with Russian spy agencies. This explosive allegation served its evident purpose: Kaspersky was, as far as the US government was concerned, kaput, and its denials of espionage collusion fell on deaf ears.

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At the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City, at least 91 people had been waiting for March 1 to roll around. On that date, most aspects of New York state's new parole reform law went into full effect, and those who had been held on warrants issued by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), which runs the state's parole system, were expecting a shot at freedom.

Among other provisions, the new law, known as the Less Is More Act, makes it significantly more difficult for DOCCS to jail people after they commit certain parole violations, and it mandates a hearing within 24 hours to give people whom the parole agency has ordered jailed a chance to argue for their release.

But March 1 came and went, and the 91 people--as well as dozens or hundreds more across the state--remain in jail. According to DOCCS, because they were jailed on alleged parole violations before that date, they aren't grandfathered into Less Is More's protections, so the department didn't go about releasing them.

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Judges weighing in on this debate have come to varied conclusions. In one decision in December, a Bronx judge characterized DOCCS's interpretation as "no more than an adherence to a scrivener's numerical error," and thus ordered the person who brought the lawsuit, who was jailed on a technical violation, released. But the following month, a judge in Binghamton wrote that he "disagrees with that analysis," and concluded that, if the legislature wanted "sweeping, substantive changes" to parole law to take effect immediately, it would have asserted it more clearly than by a perplexing reference to one subparagraph.

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Read more...extensive article...

A Texas judge on Friday night temporarily blocked Gov. Greg Abbott's (R) order to investigate gender-affirming care for transgender youth as "child abuse," following a ruling earlier this month that barred the state from investigating the parents of a transgender teen.

On Friday night, Judge Amy Clark Meachum in Travis County ruled that Abbott's order is "beyond the scope of his authority and unconstitutional." In the order, Meachum said the statewide injunction will remain in effect until "this court, and potentially the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of Texas" hear the case.

Meachum also ruled that Abbott's order had the effect of a new law or agency rule "despite no new legislation, regulation or even stated agency policy."

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Far-right One America News is suing DirecTV and its parent company AT&T for breach of contract, after the TV provider announced it would drop the channel from its lineup.

Herring Networks, which owns OAN, filed a 36-page lawsuit in the Superior Court of California in San Diego this week.

The lawsuit targets DirecTV, AT&T and company board chair William Kennard.

April 29 - 30, 2022

This two-day online symposium will feature panels on legal protections for wild animals, community advocacy, international wildlife treaties, aquatic life, and more.

This event is free and open to the public.

Attorneys will be eligible for CLE credits, pending approval from the Oregon State Bar Association. Most states will accept credits from other mandatory CLE states such as Oregon, but please check with your local bar association to confirm.

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Register...

On March 1, 2022, the EEOC updated its guidance on religious accommodations to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. While the guidance states that job applicants and employees have a right to request a religious accommodation from an employer's COVID-19 vaccination requirement under Title VII, the new guidance answers many questions specific to COVID-19 vaccination requirements and specifically addresses how employers should evaluate an employee's religious objection to the vaccine.

The full updated guidance is available here.

As Russia began its attack on Ukraine in late February, the Ukrainian Bar Association also leaped into action, issuing statements condemning the violence, calling on international leaders to impose sanctions on the Russian government, and mobilizing its members to assist refugees fleeing to nearby countries.

UBA President Anna Ogrenchuk and CEO Inna Liniova, who first spoke with ABA President Reginald Turner ahead of the invasion about how the two organizations could work together, also began sharing what was happening on the ground in Ukraine with other bar associations and their members.

Ogrenchuk and Liniova talked about recent developments and their ongoing efforts with the ABA Journal this week. They responded to these questions, which were provided by email, Friday. Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

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The UBA leaders shared an open letter that they wrote Thursday to the U.S. government and European governments, which outlines the measures they think are necessary to restore the rule of law. They are also asking their colleagues around the world to sign a petition seeking the establishment of a dedicated tribunal for high-level officials of Russia and Belarus.

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The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungaryon 5 December 1994 to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.^[1]

The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.^[2]

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Trilateral Statement

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WASHINGTON -- The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said on Wednesday that there was enough evidence to conclude that former President Donald J. Trump and some of his allies might have conspired to commit fraud and obstruction by misleading Americans about the outcome of the 2020 election and attempting to overturn the result.

In a court filing in a civil case in California, the committee's lawyers for the first time laid out their theory of a potential criminal case against the former president. They said they had accumulated evidence demonstrating that Mr. Trump, the conservative lawyer John Eastman and other allies could potentially be charged with criminal violations including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the American people.

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