Archive for the ‘Lawsuits’ Category
After questioning that touched on religious beliefs, celebrity and the public’s perception of preachers and televangelists, a jury was seated Wednesday in a civil lawsuit alleging the wife of nationally known pastor Joel Osteen assaulted a flight attendant.
A jury panel of seven men and five women was set to hear opening statements in the trial on Thursday.
In the lawsuit, Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown accuses Victoria Osteen of assaulting her before the start of a 2005 flight from Houston to Vail, Colo. Brown alleges Victoria Osteen, co-pastor of Houston’s popular Lakewood Church, threw her against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the left breast during an angry outburst over a stain on her first-class seat.
More at Yahoo News
Congress will set whatever rules King Shit For Brains tells them to set………
From CNN:
“Although the Supreme Court settled the constitutional question of whether the Guantanamo detainees have the right to habeas corpus, the court stopped well short of detailing how the … proceedings must be conducted,” Mukasey said.
“In other words, the Supreme Court left many significant questions open, and it is well within the historic role and competence of Congress and the executive branch to attempt to resolve them.”
The family vacation cruise that Janice Langbehn, her partner Lisa Marie Pond and three of their four children set out to take in February 2007 was designed to be a celebration of the lesbian couple’s 18 years together.
But when Pond suffered a massive stroke onboard before the ship left port and was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, administrators refused to let Langbehn into the Pond’s hospital room. A social worker told them they were in an “anti-gay city and state.”
Langbehn filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday charging the Miami hospital with negligence and “anti-gay animus” in refusing to recognize her and the children as Pond’s family, even after a power of attorney was faxed to the hospital within an hour of their arrival.
More at the Sun Sentinel
Nail his ass to the cross Yoko! 
Yoko Ono is suing the producers of a movie that challenges the concept of Darwinian evolution, saying they used the song “Imagine” without her permission and led the blogosphere to accuse her of “selling out.”
“Expelled,” which stars Ben Stein, challenges Darwinian theories.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Ono accuses the producers of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” of suggesting to viewers that those who guard John Lennon’s legacy somehow authorized or sponsored the film.
More at CNN
The Democratic Party on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Federal Elections Commission seeking to force the group to investigate whether Sen. John McCain has violated federal spending limits for his primary campaign.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court in Washington, is the latest move by the Democratic National Committee that seeks to prove the Arizona senator locked himself into campaign spending limits earlier this year.
The DNC claims McCain did so when he used the prospect of $6 million in federal matching funds as collateral for a December bank loan to his campaign.
But after it became apparent he would be the Republican presidential nominee, McCain notified the FEC in early February that he was not claiming federal matching funds. Claiming those funds would limit his spending on the primary campaign to $54 million.
The DNC then filed a complaint with the FEC in February, arguing that McCain should be forced to accept the matching funds — and the spending limits that come with it.
More at CNN News
This is one of my favorite cities. (born there) It is heartbreaking to see what was once a great city in the state it is today. It was on it’s way down prior to the subprime meltdown and I can’t imagine the negative effect that’s had on it.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson took aim at Wall Street on Thursday with a lawsuit against 21 major investment banks that he said have enabled the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis here.
The one-of-a-kind suit, filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, accuses venerable institutions such as Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo of creating a public nuisance.
Jackson contends the companies irresponsibly bought and sold high-interest home loans. The result: widespread defaults that depleted the city’s tax base and left entire neighborhoods in ruins.
City officials hope to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, including lost taxes from devalued property and money spent demolishing and boarding up thousands of abandoned houses.
“To me, this is no different than organized crime or drugs,” Jackson said in an interview with Plain Dealer reporters and editors. “It has the same effect as drug activity in neighborhoods. It’s a form of organized crime that happens to be legal in many respects.”
More at Cleveland.com
Yah, this will happen……… good try, though.
A federal magistrate ordered the White House on Tuesday to reveal whether copies of possibly millions of missing e-mails are stored on computer backup tapes.
The order by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola comes amid an effort by the White House to scuttle two lawsuits that could force the Executive Office of the President to recover any e-mail that has disappeared from computer servers where electronic documents are automatically archived.
Two federal laws require the White House to preserve all records, including e-mail.
More at MSNBC
This is one of the reasons I am against the death penalty. Kudos again to the Innocence Project. This man has lost 27 years of his life. There’s no changing that, but I hope he sues and gets a huge settlement and is able to live the remainder of his life comfortably!!!
From CNN:
DALLAS, Texas (AP) — – Charles Chatman said throughout his 26 years in prison that he never raped the woman who lived five houses down from him.
Now 47, Chatman is expected to win his freedom Thursday on the basis of new DNA testing that lawyers say proves his innocence and adds to Dallas County’s nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates.
“I’m bitter. I’m angry,” Chatman told The Associated Press during what was expected to be his last night in jail Wednesday. “But I’m not angry or bitter to the point where I want to hurt anyone or get revenge.”
If released on bond at a Thursday court hearing as expected, Chatman will become the 15th inmate from Dallas County since 2001 to be freed by DNA testing. That is more than any other county nationwide, said Natalie Roetzel of the Innocence Project of Texas, an organization of volunteers who investigate claims of wrongful conviction.
Texas leads the country in prisoners freed by DNA testing. Including Chatman, the state will have released at least 30 wrongfully convicted inmates since 2001, according to the Innocence Project.
Read more »
If you haven’t heard Natalne Sarkisyan’s story, you can catch it here.
Cigna’s statement:
The family’s “loss is immeasurable, and our thoughts and prayers are with them,” Cigna said in a news release Friday. “We deeply hope that the outpouring of concern, care and love that are being expressed for Nataline’s family help them at this time.”
Gee, what would of helped them is if you had done the right thing in the first place and let her have the liver she needed in order to live. I realize no amount of money will bring back their daughter, but I hope they get millions in this lawsuit.
From YahooNews:
A federal judge ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against.
U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy on Monday directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law.
In response, the White House said it has been taking steps to preserve copies of all e-mails and will continue to do so. The administration is seeking dismissal of the lawsuits brought by two private groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive.
The organizations allege the disappearance of 5 million White House e-mails. The court order issued by Kennedy, an appointee of President Clinton, is directed at maintaining backup tapes which contain copies of White House e-mails.
Interesting they felt the need to report that the judge was a Clinton appointee. I’m surprised there are any left.
I’ve wondered what was happening with this case. You never hear anything about it. I’m not real knowledgeable about legal matters. If the spies attorneys are the ones issuing the subpoenas, does this mean Rice and Hadley will be testifying in their behalf??
From Africasia.com:
A US judge ruled Friday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and other top officials can be subpoenaed to testify in a spying case against lobbyists for Israel.
Alexandria, Virginia federal court judge T.S. Ellis ruled to allow the request by lawyers for Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to subpoena Rice, Hadley and 13 other current and former top government officials to testify in the case, according to court documents.
Lawdy, lawdy! Just how many bathrooms across the US has Larry done the toe-tap shuffle?
Before arrest, Craig hired lawyer to fight newspaper
 Sen. Larry Craig hired a lawyer in a possible suit against The Idaho Statesman newspaper, a spokesman says. WASHINGTON (AP) – Months before his arrest at a Minnesota airport, Sen. Larry Craig was considering a lawsuit against an Idaho newspaper and hired an attorney he later retained to represent him in the sex sting case.
Craig, who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct following his arrest in a June 11 police sting at an airport men’s room, hired Washington lawyer Billy Martin and public relations executive Judy Smith in late January or early February, spokesman Dan Whiting said Wednesday.
Craig hired Martin and Smith because he was thinking of suing The Idaho Statesman newspaper for “harassment” over its investigation into Craig’s sexual orientation, Whiting said.
Whiting said the pair stopped working for Craig on June 7 — four days before Craig’s arrest at a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Martin and Smith ended their work June 7 because the dispute with the newspaper had “certainly died down by that point,” Whiting said.
Associated Press
CNNPolitics.com
This judge is a 2003 Bush appointee. From Oct. 2005: U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer has accepted the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) contention that every single word of a 50-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq must be kept secret, according to a September 30 Memorandum Opinion in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive against the CIA. It’s a terrible thing. Since the politicizing of our court systems by Bush, you just have to wonder at every case what the motive is. I’m not a big Murtha fan……but I can’t disagree with his statement that the Haditha killings were cold blooded murder. These guys gunned down 5 innocent men and then went house to house and killed elderly, women and children. Is that cold blooded murder? I think it is. War sucks.
A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a defamation case against Rep. John P. Murtha and ordered the Pennsylvania Democrat to give a sworn deposition in the case.
A Marine Corps sergeant is suing the 18-term congressman for alleging ”cold-blooded murder and war crimes” by unnamed soldiers in connection with the deaths of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha.
The deaths became prominent in May 2006 when Murtha, who opposes the Iraq war, said at a Capitol Hill news conference that a Pentagon war crimes investigation will show Marines killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians in the town in 2005.
Murtha’s office declined to comment on the ruling. Murtha, a Vietnam veteran and retired Marine Reserves colonel, has said his intention was to draw attention to the pressure put on troops in Iraq and efforts to cover-up the incident.
The Justice Department wanted the case dismissed because Murtha was acting in his official role as a lawmaker. Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Henault said the comments were made as part of the debate over the war in Iraq.
More at the New York Times
I heard this was a good show……Parts I II and III
Dan Rather on Larry King
From CNN:
Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit Wednesday against CBS, alleging that the network made him a “scapegoat” for a discredited story about President Bush’s National Guard service.
The 75-year-old Rather, whose final months were clouded by controversy over the report, says the complaint stems from “CBS’ intentional mishandling” of the aftermath of the story.
The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, also names CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves, Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone, and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward.
CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said: “These complains are old news, and this lawsuit is without merit.”
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