California Joins Solitary Confinement Prison Reform Trend

As per terms of the agreement, those who have been in solitary due to gang-affiliations will have to undergo a two-year program that allows for some privileges before entering the general population. The agreement also calls for restructuring of the SHU facilities for those who are deemed too dangerous to return to the general population. These include prisoners with histories of extreme violence including murder, narcotics possession, attempted escape, and those with severe mental health problems.


Will Class-Action Lawsuit against Uber Remain in California?

I was involved in the exact same type of class-action litigation as a contractor for UPS Supply Chain Solutions, who withheld payments from me in a very similar fashion that Uber drivers are accusing their company, only instead of tips, it was a fuel surcharge. Our case also began in Northern Californa, only to have competing attorneys recruit additional plaintiffs to sue in Florida, which led to the case becoming consolidated and transferred to South Florida District Court. The case I was involved with, Dunakin vs. UPS Supply Chain Solutions, ended up being dismissed with Judge Joan Leonard ruling that individual driver’s cases were too different to be considered part of the same class.


Appeals Court Rules Supreme Court Plaza off-Limits for Demonstrations

The appeals ruling involved the civil rights of protestor Harold Hodge of Southern Maryland. In January 2011 after ignoring three warnings by Supreme Court police, Hodge was arrested while wearing a sign inside of the plaza near the front of the Court’s entrance that read, “The U.S. Gov. Allows Police to Illegally Murder and Brutalize African Americans and Hispanic People.”


9th Circuit to Debate California’s Death Penalty

The hearing also comes as California begins resuming executions this fall, introducing a new single-drug lethal injection procedure. The state had issued a defacto suspension of executions since 2006, joining many states’ concerns over the effectiveness and pain level of the established injection substances. It also comes just weeks after Connecticut’s Supreme Court commuted all of its condemned prisoners’ death sentences to life without parole. Voters in that state abolished the death penalty in 2012; however the law that was adopted only abolished it for future crimes, not for those already sentenced.


Will Lexmark’s ‘Ink War’ Reach the Supreme Court?

Lexmark added Impression products to the list of over two dozen defendants in a patent infringement lawsuit filed in U.S. Court for the Southern District of Ohio, a suit that began by the company in 2010. Although all of the other defendants buckled to Lexmark’s clout, either choosing to settle, or with the court granting Lexmark default judgments against absentee defendants, Smith and his attorney stood their ground electing to fight the lawsuit.



Dole Executives Fined $148 Million for Valuation Fraud

Laster believed that the executives fraudulently created grim sales forecasts, as well as drove the stock price down by understating the cost savings of Dole’s 2012 sale of its Asian operations, as well as cancelling a planned stock buyback. These activities led to Murdock purchasing the remaining shares for $13.50 each in a $1.2 billion purchase. Laster ruled that the executives undervalued the shares by $2.74 apiece, ordering that they pay the difference, a total of $148.2 million to the investors, many of them pension funds, that filed the class-action lawsuit.



Appeals Court Strikes Down New Jersey’s Sports Betting Law…Again

Governor Chris Christie, along with state politicians and residents, has been hoping to revive the industry through sports wagering. Judge Rendell acknowledged the local sentiment, writing in the majority opinion, “While PASPA’s provisions and its reach are controversial and, some might say, unwise, we are not asked to judge the wisdom of PASPA and it is not our place to usurp Congress’ role simply because PASPA may have become an unpopular law.”


Judge Dismisses Part of Plavix Multidistrict False Claims Lawsuit

Judge Freda Wolfson of the U.S. District of New Jersey has granted some relief for drugmakers Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis in a complicated multidistrict whistleblower lawsuit against the two companies over marketing claims involving the blood-thinning medication Plavix. Wolfson granted motions to dismiss several claims made by former Sanofi sales representative Elisa Dickson, alleging that