|
|
|
Justices pepper health care law opponents with questions
Attorney News |
2015/03/05 16:09
|
Supreme Court justices peppered opponents of President Barack Obama's health care law with skeptical questions during oral arguments Wednesday on the latest challenge to the sweeping legislation.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote is seen as pivotal, suggested that the plaintiffs' argument raises a "serious" constitutional problem affecting the relationship between states and the federal government.
The plaintiffs argue that only residents of states that set up their own insurance markets can get federal subsidies to help pay their premiums.
Millions of people could be affected by the court's decision. The justices are trying to determine whether the law makes people in all 50 states eligible for federal tax subsidies to cut the cost of insurance premiums. Or, does it limit tax credits only to people who live in states that created their own health insurance marketplaces?
During oral arguments, the courts' liberal justices also expressed doubts. In an earlier case involving the law, however, Kennedy was on the opposite side, voting to strike down a key requirement.
A ruling that limits where subsidies are available would have dramatic consequences because roughly three dozen states opted against their own marketplace, or exchange, and instead rely on the U.S. Health and Human Services Department's healthcare.gov. Independent studies estimate that 8 million people could lose insurance coverage.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bankrupt Caesars unit gets court's OK to use cash, for now
Attorney News |
2015/03/05 16:09
|
A federal judge in Chicago ruled Wednesday that a bankrupt division of Caesars Entertainment Corp. can tap some of the $847 million in cash it has on hand for at least five weeks.
Judge Benjamin Goldgar said Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. could access its cash in the interim despite objections from some of the company's creditors.
A budget the company submitted to the court indicated it plans to spend $334 million through April 3. The documents showed revenue is expected to offset spending and leave the company with $834 million in cash at the end of five weeks.
Goldgar scheduled a hearing to reconsider the motion on March 26.
Several other motions, including requests for an examiner to investigate the company's pre-bankruptcy transactions, were delayed until March 25.
The company was also seeking to get out from under several contracts that would save it $675,000 a month.
Among the contracts is a suite for Kansas City Chiefs football games, a sponsorship with the New York Mets, an advertising agreement with The Forum in Los Angeles, and deals with a tour bus operator to support its Horseshoe Bossier City casino in Louisiana and a nearby Springhill Suites hotel operator where the company regularly reserved a block of rooms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NC Appeals Court says DOT must pay landowners
Court News |
2015/02/25 10:50
|
The North Carolina Court of Appeals says the state transportation department must pay some landowners whose property is in the path of a proposed road in Forsyth County.
Multiple media outlets reported that a three-judge panel of the court ruled Tuesday that a lower court was wrong to refuse to hear a lawsuit by 11 landowners who said the state's designation of their land in the proposed road's path hurt their property values.
There is no indication when the road might be built.
The 11 landowners say the state's designation of their property in the path of the planned road limits what they can do with the land.
The state attorney general's office is consulting with transportation officials on the ruling. They could appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court: Not disclosing HIV before sex is a misdemeanor
Court Watch |
2015/02/25 10:50
|
An HIV-positive man who told a partner that they could safely have unprotected sex should face a misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge, not a felony, New York's highest court ruled Thursday.
The Court of Appeals said Terrance Williams didn't expose his partner "out of any malevolent desire" to give him the virus that causes AIDS, though he lied about having the infection and his partner did get sick. The court said the Syracuse man didn't show "depraved indifference," which is necessary to support the felony charge.
The judges declined to decide whether HIV infection no longer "creates a grave and unjustifiable risk of death" because of advances in medical treatment. Two lower courts had reached that conclusion while knocking down the felony indictment to the lesser charge.
The felony could have sent Williams to prison for seven years. He still faces the misdemeanor and a possible year in jail if convicted. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court says Chuck Yeager can sue Utah gun safe company
Court News |
2015/02/16 12:33
|
A federal appeals court says record-setting test pilot Chuck Yeager can sue a Utah gun safe company that named a line of safes after him.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled Tuesday that the 91-year-old can sue Fort Knox Security Products over an oral agreement from the 1980s that allowed the use of his name and picture in exchange for free safes.
The decision says the arrangement ended around 2008, after Yeager's wife started asking questions about it.
The court dismissed some claims but ruled that Yeager can sue over claims that the company kept using his likeness after the agreement ended. The company disputes that accusation.
Yeager served during World War II and became the first person to break the sound barrier in 1947.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
