A major class action lawsuit filed by Flint, Mich., residents over how the state handles changes in the city’s water that led to the lead-contamination crisis was dismissed by a federal judge Thursday. The Detroit News reports that U.S. District Judge John Corbett O’Meara dismissed the case brought by Flint activist and resident Melissa Mays and several other Flint families because “allowing …
A lawsuit filed Monday in Louisiana alleges the state is negligent in guaranteeing Constitutional rights of poor people by not properly funding or maintaining the public defender system. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and two other law firms filed a class action suit Monday in Baton Rouge against Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards …
A federal judge in Baton Rouge this week expressed sympathy for the funding plight of New Orleans’ public defenders, but dismissed a lawsuit brought against the office by the American Civil Liberties Union that hoped to force the state to rectify budget inadequacies for indigent defense under court order. U.S. District Judge James J. Brady of the Middle District of Louisiana ruled Tuesday (Jan. …
A recently-filed federal lawsuit aims to loosen the restrictions placed on registered sex offenders in North Carolina, claiming the state’s laws go too far, and do little to actually make children safer. The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws filed the federal civil rights action, challenging North Carolina’s sex offender registration requirements. The organization and two unnamed plaintiffs allege that the restrictions placed on sex offenders have expanded continuously over the past decade and are now crippling. North Carolina’s laws restrict …
A new lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation claims a longstanding public school program in Mercer County, West Virginia, violates separation of church and state provisions of the federal and state constitutions. Mercer’s “Bible in Schools” program offers weekly instruction in the Bible during the school day to elementary and middle school students. The …
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, walked back a legal fight to clean up rivers polluted by chicken manure after accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions linked to the poultry industry, campaign and court records show. A report by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group …
Volkswagen AG and former Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn must defend an investor lawsuit in California over the company’s diesel emissions cheating scandal, a U.S. judge has ruled. The plaintiffs, mostly U.S. municipal pension funds, have accused VW of not having informed the market in a timely fashion about the issue as well as understating possible financial liabilities, according …
NEW JERSEY (CBS) — Two newborns died last summer after a MRSA outbreak in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Cooper Hospital sickened 8 infants. But only now is the incident coming to light, and it’s because of a lawsuit. A nurse employed by Cooper for one month filed suit in Middlesex County last month.
The Ohio Supreme Court dismissed a public information lawsuit Tuesday without ruling on its argument that video from police body cameras are public record and should be released on request. In not taking up the issue, the court noted that the video had already been released — two days after news organizations requested the footage in the July 19, 2015, traffic stop and fatal shooting of a black …
The Lake Oswego School District is facing a possible class action suit over its sports program. Ten current and former female athletes at Lake Oswego High School allege violations of federal protections, known as Title IX. The complaint stemmed from girls and young women who had played on the LOHS softball team.