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Court says Halliburton lawsuit can go forward
Court News |
2011/06/13 20:28
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The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Halliburton Co. shareholders can pursue a class-action lawsuit claiming the oil services company inflated its stock price.
The high court overturned a lower court ruling against the shareholders, who want to represent all investors who bought Halliburton stock between June 1999 and December 2001.
The lawsuit argues that Halliburton deliberately understated the company's liability in asbestos litigation, inflated how much money its construction and engineering units would bring in and overstated the benefits of a merger with Dresser Industries. When Halliburton made corrective disclosures, it made the stock price drop and caused investors to lose money, the lawsuit said.
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Toyota class action suit to start with Utah case
Court News |
2011/06/10 23:50
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The first lawsuit to go to trial in a massive class action against Toyota Motor Corp. over acceleration problems that led the company to recall 14 million cars will involve a crash that killed two people in western Utah, a federal judge said Friday.
U.S. District Judge James Selna told attorneys the case of 38-year-old Charlene Jones Lloyd and 66-year-old Paul Van Alfen, whose Toyota Camry slammed into a wall in Utah in 2010, is scheduled to go to trial in February 2013.
The case — Van Alfen v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. — will be the first of several bellwether lawsuits, intended to determine how the rest of the litigation will proceed.
Selna wrote in a tentative order that he hoped the selection would "markedly advance these proceedings."
"The Court believes that selection of a personal injury/wrongful death case is most likely the type of case to meet that goal," Selna said.
Toyota said it welcomes the Utah case as the first suit to reach court.
"We are pleased that the initial bellwether will address plaintiffs' central allegation of an unnamed, unproven defect in Toyota vehicles, as every claim in the multi-district litigation rests upon this pivotal technical issue," the company said in a statement.
Toyota has previously argued the plaintiffs have been unable to prove that a design defect in its electronic throttle control system is responsible for vehicles surging unexpectedly. It has instead blamed driver error, faulty floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals.
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Judge: Texas foster care lawsuit can proceed
Court News |
2011/05/27 13:43
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A judge says she will allow a lawsuit challenging Texas' foster care system to proceed as a class action.
U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack said during a hearing Thursday that she will grant class certification for the suit initiated by the advocacy group Children's Rights.
The suit contends that the Texas system is unconstitutional and should be reformed. It was filed in March on behalf of nine children between the ages of nine and 16.
A spokesman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says the state will determine its next course of action when the judge issues a written order.
The suit is the 12th of its kind initiated by the New York-based advocacy group seeking to reform child welfare systems administered by state or municipal governments. |
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Lawyers for USS Cole bomb suspect file court case
Court News |
2011/05/09 09:23
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Lawyers for the suspected al-Qaida mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole said Tuesday they have filed a case against Poland at Europe's court of human rights over alleged abuse against him at a CIA-run site in that country about eight years ago.
The Open Society Justice Initiative, a New York-based human rights group, and lawyers for Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri are challenging Poland for "active complicity" in the extraordinary rendition program carried out under then-President George W. Bush.
The case filed with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, seeks in part to press Poland to help block an "imminent risk" that al-Nashiri could face the death penalty.
The 46-year-old Saudi national was held at a secret CIA site in Poland between December 2002 and June 2003, and is now being held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
U.S. military prosecutors re-filed terrorism and murder charges last month and requested the death penalty against al-Nashiri over the alleged planning and preparation for the attack that killed 17 sailors and injured 41.
The filing alleges that Poland's government violated the European Convention of Human Rights by enabling al-Nashiri's to face torture and helping his transfer, despite risks he faced in U.S. custody: further abuse, "a flagrantly unfair trial" and the death penalty, the group said. |
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Court in Va. to hear US health care law challenges
Court News |
2011/05/07 09:22
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President Barack Obama's health care overhaul will get its first oral arguments in federal appeals court Tuesday when a three-judge panel hears two Virginia cases — one that upheld the law and another that struck down its key provision.
Nine lawsuits challenging the law are pending on appeal, but the Virginia cases before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are the first to reach the oral argument stage. Thirteen cases have been dismissed with no appeal filed, and nine are pending in district courts, according to federal officials.
In the most prominent of the two Virginia cases, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson struck down the health care law's key provision: a requirement that individuals buy health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014. Thirty-one lawsuits challenging the law have been filed nationally, and Hudson — a 2002 appointee of President George W. Bush — was the first judge to strike down any of its provisions. Hudson left the rest of the law intact.
"An individual's personal decision to purchase — or decline to purchase — health insurance from a private provider is beyond the historical reach of the Commerce Clause," Hudson wrote in the Dec. 13 opinion, which the U.S. Justice Department promptly appealed.
U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon in Lynchburg reached the opposite conclusion in a lawsuit filed by Liberty University, the conservative Christian school founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Two weeks before Hudson's ruling, the 1997 appointee of President Bill Clinton ruled that the mandate is a proper exercise of congressional authority under the Commerce Clause.
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