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Court nixes class-action status for TGI Friday's drink suit
Court News |
2017/10/07 23:18
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A lawsuit accusing restaurant chain TGI Friday's violated consumer fraud laws with its drink pricing can't go ahead as a class action that could have included millions of members, but a similar case involving Carrabba's Italian Grill restaurants can, New Jersey's state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
Debra Dugan sued TGI Friday's after she was charged one price for a drink at the bar and a higher price at a table in 2008. The restaurant didn't list drink prices on its menus, according to the lawsuit.
A lower court in 2012 granted class-action status to anyone who ordered unpriced drinks at 14 of the company's restaurants in New Jersey from 2004 through 2014. TGI Friday's had estimated that could have amounted to as many as 14 million customers, according to court filings. But the plaintiffs disputed that figure.
According to the lawsuit, TGI Friday's conducted research that showed that customers spent an average of $1.72 less on drinks if the prices were displayed than if the prices weren't displayed. The lawsuit sought to prove that that amount could be considered a loss for anyone who had ordered a drink at the restaurants. Wednesday's 5-1 ruling rejected that argument, but said individual claims could still proceed. |
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Indiana courts see changes with new e-filing system
Headline Legal News |
2017/10/06 23:19
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Electronic filing is transforming the way Indiana's judicial system works.
Fifty-five of the state's 92 counties have adopted mandatory electronic filing for most new criminal and civil lawsuits over the past 15 months, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported. The state's appellate division has also adopted the electronic system.
The Supreme Court's Office of Court Technology says more than 2.1 million documents have been electronically filed in the state since July 1, 2016.
E-filing makes judges and lawyers more efficient and improves court services for Indiana residents, said Justice Steven David. Non-confidential court documents are also available online.
E-filing has been adopted quickly through the state because may counties are using the same case management system called Odyssey, said Justice Mark Massa.
The system is paid for by a $20 automated record keeping fee that's attached to every case filed in Indiana court.
"It's the best deal for counties," Massa said. "It carries with it state funding of that technology and that support, and we're getting closer and closer to that complete statewide coverage with each passing year."
The system also allows the judicial branch to generate comprehensive data about crimes, courts, dispositions, children in need of services, protection orders and other information that the legislative and executive branches need when enacting new laws, David said.
"In the old days, you might get data from one court and try to extrapolate, or determine if that court is representative of the rest of the state or not, and that's no longer the case," David said. |
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DC house party the subject of Supreme Court argument
Attorney News |
2017/10/05 16:00
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A late-night party at a vacant home in Washington with strippers and the scent of marijuana. Don't forget the hostess — partygoers said she was called Peaches.
Justices heard arguments Wednesday, and some of them brought up their own party experiences in discussing the case.
At issue are arrests that police made at the party years ago. When responding to neighbors' complaints, they found the home had been turned into something resembling a strip club, with scantily clad women wearing cash-stuffed garter belts.
Partygoers told conflicting stories about what was going on. In the end, police arrested 21 people for trespassing. |
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Threats to Supreme Court test Israel's democracy
Areas of Focus |
2017/10/04 23:00
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Israel's Supreme Court, widely seen as a guardian of the country's founding democratic principles, is facing fierce pressure from political hard-liners who are challenging what they see as the court's overreach and liberal slant.
The stepped-up rhetoric and attempts to shackle the court are testing Israel's fragile democracy at a time when members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nationalist government have led an onslaught of attacks against the country's liberal institutions, stirring up populist sentiment and deepening a rift with the country's moderates.
The court's critics want it to tone down what they see as its overt activism and demand a rethink of the institution's role in society. But some observers see the campaign against the court as crossing a line.
"The attacks, the incitement is very worrying," said Dalia Dorner, a former Supreme Court judge. "Without an independent court there is no democracy."
In Israel, a country with a robust press and rowdy politics, criticism of the court isn't unusual, but its opponents rarely seek to curb its authority. It also comes as Netanyahu's hawkish coalition government, dominated by religious and nationalist parties, has escalated criticism of many of Israel's liberal bastions in the arts, media and civil society and pledged or carried out legislative action against them.
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Supreme Court says Alabama execution can proceed
Legal Topics |
2017/10/03 23:00
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled Alabama can proceed with the execution of a man convicted of killing his estranged wife and father-in-law in 1993.
Jeffery Lynn Borden is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday at a south Alabama prison. A divided court overturned a stay issued by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled this month that a judge had prematurely dismissed Borden’s challenge to the humanness of the state’s lethal injection procedure.
Three justices— Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor — indicated they would keep the execution on hold.
Borden, 56, was convicted of killing his wife, Cheryl Borden, and her father, Roland Harris, during a Christmas Eve gathering in Jefferson County in 1993. The state attorney general’s office wrote that trial testimony showed Borden, who was separated from his wife, brought their three children to the gathering at Harris’ house after a weeklong visit, and then shot her in the back of the head as she was helping to move the children’s belongings. He then shot Harris.
The 11th Circuit on Friday temporarily blocked the execution after ruling a judge had prematurely dismissed inmates’ lawsuits that argued the use of the sedative midazolam at the start of the procedure would not reliably render them unconscious before subsequent drugs stop their lungs and heart.
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European Court Asked to Rule on Facebook Data Transfers
Attorney News |
2017/10/02 23:01
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The European Court of Justice has been asked to consider whether Facebook's Dublin-based subsidiary can legally transfer users' personal data to its U.S. parent, after Ireland's top court said Tuesday that there are "well-founded concerns" the practice violates European law.
In a case brought after former U.S. defense contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of electronic surveillance by American security agencies, the Irish court found that Facebook's transfers may compromise the data of European citizens.
The case has far-reaching implications for social media companies and others who move large amounts of data via the internet. Facebook's European subsidiary regularly does so.
Ireland's data commissioner had already issued a preliminary decision that such transfers may be illegal because agreements between Facebook and its Irish subsidiary don't adequately protect the privacy of European citizens. The Irish High Court is referring the case to the European Court of Justice because the data sharing agreements had been approved by the European Union's executive Commission.
Ireland's data commissioner "has raised well-founded concerns that there is an absence of an effective remedy in U.S. law . for an EU citizen whose data are transferred to the U.S. where they may be at risk of being accessed and processed by U.S. state agencies for national security purposes in a manner incompatible" with the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Irish High Court said Tuesday.
Austrian privacy campaigner Maximillian Schrems, who has a Facebook account, had challenged this practice through the Irish courts because of concerns that his data was being illegally accessed by U.S security agencies. |
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Supreme Court declines Michigan emergency manager law case
Legal Business |
2017/10/01 23:01
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The Supreme Court won't take up a challenge to a Michigan law that allows the state to temporarily take away local officials' authority during financial crises and appoint an emergency manager.
The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear the case. Voters and elected officials were challenging a state law that says that to rescue financially stressed cities and school districts the state can reassign the governing powers of local officials to a state-appointed emergency manager. An emergency manager was in place during the water crisis in Flint.
Those bringing the lawsuit said emergency managers have been appointed in a high number of areas with large African-American populations but not in similar areas with majority white populations.
Lower courts said lawsuit was brought under a federal law that didn't apply. |
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