Feb 1, 2017

Environmental Group Files Lawsuit Against Trump Administration Over Bees

An environmental group filed suit in federal court this week against the Trump administration saying that a freeze on an ‘endangered species’ designation for the rusty patched bumblebee is illegal. Officials with the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service say the bumblebee has disappeared from ninety percent of its habitat. It used to be in Michigan – but has rarely been seen in recent years.


House Republicans Vote to Shield Dangerous Corporations From Consumer Lawsuits

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have passed a resolution that would limit class action lawsuits against companies who kill, poison, or cripple American citizens. This is a massive payoff to the GOP’s corporate donors and a huge setback for American consumers. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.


Feds Join Whistleblower Lawsuit Claiming UnitedHealth Overcharged Medicare

Reuters is reporting that the U.S. Justice Department has joined a whistleblower lawsuit against Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group that claims the country’s largest health insurer and its units and affiliates overcharged Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars, a law firm representing the whistleblower said on Thursday. “We reject these more than five-year-old claims and will contest them …


Federal Judge Sanctions Texas in Voter Registration Lawsuit

A federal judge has ordered sanctions against the state of Texas for blowing past deadlines and ignoring a court order to hand over thousands of pages of documents in a lawsuit challenging its voter registration practices. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office’s “months-long delay” in producing the documents “has been disruptive, time consuming, cost consuming” and has burdened plaintiffs …


Buzzfeed Has a List of Reasons Why It Shouldn’t Lose Lawsuit Over “Bullsh*t News”

On Thursday, in a court of law, BuzzFeed fought for the right to verify what’s true and what’s fake. The digital news hub, partly owned by NBCUniversal, is defending an $11 million defamation lawsuit over an Aug. 24, 2015 story headlined, “The King of Bullsh*t News.” The subject of that story was the wacky reports from Michael Leidig’s Central European News, including a story about a woman in …


Magic Leap Ensnared in Lawsuit That Accuses Company of Sexism and Misleading Marketing

Magic Leap, the mysterious augmented reality company with no actual product, continues to self-destruct. A new lawsuit filed today in Southern Florida District Court accuses the company of creating a hostile workplace for women and of using misleading marketing materials to depict the product’s capabilities. In the lawsuit, former vice president of marketing Tannen Campbell claims she was hired …


Judge Rules in Favour of ’60s Scoop Victims

“Whether we succeeded or didn’t succeed, the exercise now is for Canadians, all Canadians, to engage in a healing process to examine the harm that was done, not just to First Nations, but to a good number of caring, non-First Nations people who took on the adoption of Indian children or permanent guardianship, and who also were deprived of information that would help them in their care,” the …


Black North Carolina Residents Face Racial Bias When Voting, New Lawsuit Says

A civil rights committee and two law firms filed a lawsuit Monday seeking voting rights for Black residents in North Carolina, reports USA Today. From USA Today: In a bid to create a better chance for black residents of rural areas to get elected to local office, a team of civil rights and private lawyers has filed what one prominent civil rights organization calls the first major voting rights …



Miners Near Settlement in WARN Violation Class Action

The terms of a settlement between Mechel Bluestone Inc. and miners who allege they were laid off unlawfully from a Wyoming County mine in 2013 have been reached. Before the class action settlement is finalized, federal Judge Irene Berger, Southern District Court, must approve the agreement. If she approves the settlement, 64 miners laid off at the Double-Bonus Mine No.