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Court says Chuck Yeager can sue Utah gun safe company
Court News |
2015/02/16 12:33
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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.
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Court nixes faith-based birth control mandate challenge
Court News |
2015/02/16 12:33
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An appeals court has ruled that the birth control coverage required by federal health care reforms does not violate the rights of several religious groups because they can seek reasonable accommodations.
Two western Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses and a private Christian college had challenged the birth control coverage mandates and won lower-court decisions. However, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court ruling Wednesday said the reforms place "no substantial burden" on the religious groups and therefore don't violate their First Amendment rights.
All three groups — the college and the Pittsburgh and Erie dioceses — are mulling whether to appeal to the entire 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Such a ruling should cause deep concern for anyone who cares about any First Amendment rights, especially the right to teach and practice a religious faith," Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said in a statement. "This decision says that the church is no longer free to practice what we preach."
At issue is an "accommodation" written into the Affordable Care Act that says religious organizations can opt out of directly providing and paying to cover medical services such groups would consider morally objectionable. In this case, that refers to all contraceptive and abortion services for the Catholic plaintiffs, and contraceptive services like the "week-after" pill and other medical coverage that Geneva College contends violate its anti-abortion teachings. The school in Beaver Falls is affiliated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Justice Department lawyers have argued the accommodation solves the problem because it allows religious groups to opt out of directly providing such coverage. But the plaintiffs contend that merely filing the one-page form, which puts a religious group's objections on record with the government, violates their rights because it still "facilitates" or "triggers" a process that then enables third-party insurers to provide the kind of coverage to which they object. |
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Court hearing could speed way for Revel casino sale
Attorney News |
2015/02/09 15:39
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The Florida developer buying Atlantic City's former Revel Casino Hotel could find out by the end of the day Monday how much longer he'll have to wait for it.Glenn Straub agreed late Sunday night to extend the deadline for his $95.4 million purchase to be completed.
The sale was supposed to close on Monday.Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Jerome Simandle will hold a hearing at 3 p.m. to hear from former tenants at Revel, including the popular HQ nightclub and celebrity restaurants, as well as the building's sole utility service provider.
The tenants say their $16 million investment should be considered before the court lets Straub buy Revel free and clear of their leases. And the power plant is seeking assurances its unpaid bills and debt from its construction will be paid.
Though much of the urgency of Monday's hearing has been avoided by Straub's willingness to wait, it still has the potential to resolve the most contentious issues standing in the way of Revel's sale.
ACR Energy Partners is threatening to cut off electricity, heat, air conditioning and water to the building if its debts are not paid.
They intended to pull the plug last Thursday, but agreed to keep the power flowing at least until Wednesday when a bankruptcy court judge will consider the issue.Revel and ACR say they are working toward a resolution that could eliminate the need for Wednesday's hearing. |
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Alabama begins issuing marriage licenses to gay couples
Court News |
2015/02/09 15:39
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Alabama began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples Monday despite an 11th-hour attempt from the state's chief justice - an outspoken opponent - to block the weddings.
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday morning that it wouldn't stop the marriages, and shortly after, probate judges began granting the licenses to couples, some of whom had been lined up for hours and exited courthouses to applause from supporters.
"It's about time," said Shante Wolfe, 21. She and Tori Sisson of Tuskegee had camped out in a blue and white tent and became the first in the county given a license.
Most probate judges issued the licenses despite Chief Justice Roy Moore's Sunday night order that they refuse. It was a dramatic return to defiance Moore, who was removed from the post in 2003 for refusing to obey a federal court order to remove a washing machine-sized Ten Commandments from the state judicial building. Critics lashed out that Moore had no authority to tell county probate judges to enforce a law that a federal judge already ruled unconstitutional.
Susan Watson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said she has heard of four counties where judges have refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. |
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Anxiety over Supreme Court's latest dive into health care
Attorney News |
2015/02/04 10:17
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Nearly five years after President Barack Obama signed his health care overhaul into law, its fate is yet again in the hands of the Supreme Court.
This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states.
Obama's law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to it on the job. Without financial assistance with their premiums, millions of those consumers would drop coverage.
And disruptions in the affected states don't end there. If droves of healthy people bail out of HealthCare.gov, residents buying individual policies outside the government market would face a jump in premiums. That's because self-pay customers are in the same insurance pool as the subsidized ones.
Health insurers spent millions to defeat the law as it was being debated. But the industry told the court last month that the subsidies are a key to making the insurance overhaul work. Withdrawing them would "make the situation worse than it was before" Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
The debate over "Obamacare" was messy enough when just politics and ideology were involved. It gets really dicey with the well-being of millions of people in the balance. "It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary.
The legal issues involve the leeway accorded to federal agencies in applying complex legislation. Opponents argue that the precise wording of the law only allows subsidies in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges. That would leave out most beneficiaries, who live in states where the federal government runs the exchanges. The administration and Democratic lawmakers who wrote the law say Congress' clear intent was to provide subsidies to people in every state. |
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