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Appeals court in NYC hears nuclear plant arguments
Law News |
2013/01/16 22:30
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A dispute between the state of Vermont and a Louisiana-based power company moved to a federal appeals court Monday, when a panel of judges questioned lawyers but did not signal who they'll side with in the tussle over the future of Vermont's only nuclear plant.
David C. Frederick, a lawyer for Vermont officials, urged the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower-court judge who said last year that the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant can continue to operate after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave it a 20-year extension to operate. The judge, J. Garvan Murtha in Brattleboro, Vt., had ruled that the federal government controlled the plant's fate as it relates to safety issues. Vermont so far has refused to license the plant after a state permit expired last March.
Frederick insisted that the state had important non-safety reasons for seeking a fresh evaluation of the plant, including the "substantial costs" that would be incurred by taxpayers if the plant was decommissioned. Murtha had cited comments about safety that were made by legislators to show the state was primarily concerned with plant safety issues, which he found are solely the responsibility of federal regulators. |
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Lawyer questions handling of terror suspect
Law News |
2012/12/10 14:44
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The attorney of a Southern California terror suspect is questioning authorities' handling of his client, who had injuries to his face and head when he was turned over to the FBI by U.S. military officials in Afghanistan.
When Sohiel Omar Kabir arrived in California last week he had a broken facial bone, lacerations and was suffering from memory loss, according to Deputy Federal Public Defender Jeffrey Aaron.
"We think a lot of the injuries occurred during his arrest," Aaron told the Long Beach Press Telegram. "We're investigating what happened and why he wasn't hospitalized."
Kabir, 34, was captured Nov. 17 by U.S. special forces in Kabul, where he was staying with family members, and held for two weeks by the military before being turned over to the FBI.
FBI spokesman Laura Eimiller said Kabir suffered "combat-related injuries" during his capture. The injuries were treated by American medical personnel and he was cleared to be taken back to the U.S.
Kabir, a naturalized U.S. citizen, is the suspected ringleader of a plot to kill Americans and bomb military bases overseas.
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High Court to decide how logging roads regulated
Law News |
2012/12/03 19:05
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The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to switch gears on more than 30 years of regulating the muddy water running off logging roads into rivers.
At issue: Should the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency keep considering it the same as water running off a farm field, or start looking at it like a pipe coming out of a factory?
The case being heard Monday in Washington, D.C., was originated by a small environmental group in Portland, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center.
It sued the Oregon Department of Forestry over roads on the Tillamook State Forest that drain into salmon streams. The lawsuit argued that the Clean Water Act specifically says water running through the kinds of ditches and culverts built to handle storm water runoff from logging roads is a point source of pollution when it flows directly into a river, and requires the same sort of permit that a factory needs.
"We brought this out of a perceived sense of unfairness," said Mark Riskedahl, director of the center. "Every other industrial sector across the country had to get this sort of permit for stormwater discharge," and the process has been very effective at reducing pollution.
The pollution running off logging roads, most of them gravel or dirt, is primarily muddy water stirred up by trucks. Experts have long identified sediment dumped in streams as harmful to salmon and other fish.
The center lost in U.S. District Court in Portland, but won in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The Oregon Department of Forestry and Georgia Pacific-West appealed to the Supreme Court, and 31 states threw in with them. |
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Limits on class-action lawsuits at Supreme Court
Law News |
2012/11/06 10:51
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The Supreme Court appeared divided Monday in two cases in which businesses are trying to make it harder for customers or investors to band together to sue them.
The justices heard arguments in appeals from biotech company Amgen Inc. and cable provider Comcast Corp. that seek to shut down class-action lawsuits against the businesses.
Amgen is fighting securities fraud claims that misstatements about two of its drugs used to treat anemia artificially inflated its stock price. Comcast is facing a lawsuit from customers who say the company's monopoly in parts of the Philadelphia area allowed it to raise prices unfairly.
Last year, the Supreme Court raised the bar for some class-action suits when it sided with Wal-Mart against up to 1.6 million of its female employees who complained of sex discrimination. In the Wal-Mart case, the court said there were too many women in too many jobs at the nation's largest private employer to wrap into one lawsuit.
Class actions increase pressure on businesses to settle suits because of the cost of defending them and the potential for very large judgments. |
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Former Navy lawyer goes before Kan. Supreme Court
Law News |
2012/10/27 13:58
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A former Navy lawyer who was convicted during a court martial in 2007 for mailing secret information about Guantanamo Bay detainees is seeking to get his law license reinstated in Kansas.
Attorneys for Matthew Diaz will argue on Thursday before the Kansas Supreme Court to accept a recommendation from the Office of Judicial Administration to suspend his law license for three years effective 2008. Because of the timeline, Diaz would be reinstated with the Kansas bar.
The disciplinary hearing panel said Diaz warranted "significant discipline" for his actions, which included the act of printing and sending classified information and sending it to an unauthorized person. |
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