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Tag: Lawsuits

  • Writer who accused Trump of 1990s rape files new lawsuit

    Writer who accused Trump of 1990s rape files new lawsuit

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    NEW YORK — A writer who accused former President Donald Trump of rape filed an upgraded lawsuit against him Thursday in New York, minutes after a new state law took effect allowing victims of sexual violence to sue over attacks that occurred decades ago.

    E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer filed the legal papers electronically as the Adult Survivor’s Act temporarily lifted the state’s usual deadlines for suing over sexual assault. She sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for pain and suffering, psychological harms, dignity loss and reputation damage.

    Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, first made the claim in a 2019 book, saying Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1995 or 1996.

    Trump responded to the book’s allegations by saying it could never have happened because Carroll was “not my type.”

    His remarks led Carroll to file a defamation lawsuit against him, but that lawsuit has been tied up in appeals courts as judges decide whether he is protected from legal claims for comments made while he was president.

    Previously, Carroll had been barred by state law from suing over the alleged rape because too many years had passed since the incident.

    New York’s new law, however, gives sex crime victims who missed deadlines associated with statute of limitations a second chance to file a lawsuit. A window for such suits will open for one year, after which the usual time limits will be reinstated.

    At least hundreds of lawsuits are expected, including many filed by women who say they were assaulted by co-workers, prison guards, medical providers or others.

    In her new claims, Carroll maintains that Trump committed battery “when he forcibly raped and groped her” and that he defamed her when he denied raping her last month.

    Trump said in his statement that Carroll “completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years.”

    Carroll’s new ability to sue Trump for rape could help her sidestep a potentially fatal legal flaw in her original defamation case.

    If the courts ultimately hold that Trump’s original disparaging comments about Carroll’s rape allegation were part of his job duties, as president, she would be barred from suing him over those remarks, as federal employees are protected from defamation claims. No such protection would cover things he did prior to becoming president.

    Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who presides over the defamation lawsuit Carroll filed three years ago, may decide to include the new claims in a trial likely to occur in the spring.

    Trump’s current lawyers said this week that they do not yet know whether they will represent him against the new allegations.

    Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said at a court hearing this week that the new claims should not require much additional gathering of evidence. She already put a copy of the new claims in the original case file last week. Trump and Carroll also have already been deposed.

    In a statement regarding the new lawsuit, Kaplan said her client “intends to hold Donald Trump accountable not only for defaming her, but also for sexually assaulting her, which he did years ago in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman.”

    “Thanksgiving Day was the very first day Ms. Carroll could file under New York law so our complaint was filed with the court shortly after midnight,” she added.

    Attorney Michael Madaio, a lawyer for Trump, said at the hearing that the new allegations are significantly different than the original defamation lawsuit and would require “an entirely new set” of evidence gathering.

    A lawyer for Trump did not respond to a message seeking comment on Wednesday. Another message seeking comment was sent to the lawyer after the lawsuit was filed less than 10 minutes into the new day.

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  • Lawsuit looms over tiny rare fish in drought-stricken West

    Lawsuit looms over tiny rare fish in drought-stricken West

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    RENO, Nev. — Conservationists have notified U.S. wildlife officials that they will sue over delinquent decisions related to protections for two rare fish species that are threatened by groundwater pumping in the drought-stricken West.

    The Center for Biological Diversity sent a formal notice of intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service last week over the Fish Lake Valley tui chub near the California-Nevada line and the least chub in southwest Utah.

    Utah and Nevada are the driest states in the country, and the planned lawsuits are among the many fronts on which conservationists are battling water districts and the users they cater to over plans to siphon water to either maintain or expand consumption.

    The outcome of the court fights will likely have major implications for states’ parched valleys and the people and species that inhabit them.

    The group seeking federal listings under the Endangered Species Act says the high-desert springs where the minnows live are threatened by water allocations for traditional agricultural use as well as urban development plans.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service belatedly concluded in August there was enough evidence the tui chub in Nevada was at risk of extinction — primarily due to over-pumping of water for farms and ranches — to warrant a yearlong review to determine if it should be listed.

    The so-called 90-day finding had been due in June 2021, three months after the center petitioned for the listing. The center also noted in its Nov. 15 letter to the agency that the yearlong review should have been done in March.

    “The Fish Lake Valley tui chub is staring extinction in the face because of the catastrophic overuse of groundwater in its native range,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

    Service spokesperson Laury Marshall said in an email Wednesday to The Associated Press that the agency doesn’t comment on litigation. Agency officials referred AP to the August finding that concluded the initial listing petition “presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that listing the Fish Lake Valley tui chub as an endangered or threatened species may be warranted.”

    The only place in the world that the 5-inch-long, olive-colored tui chub still exists is in a basin in Esmeralda County between Reno and Las Vegas.

    Lake Valley’s groundwater levels have declined as much as 2.5 feet (76 centimeters) per year over the past half-century, causing a cumulative drawdown of more than 75 feet (23 meters) since 1973, the listing petition said.

    Donnelly said active geothermal leases and lithium claims nearby, if developed, also could put the springs at risk.

    In Utah, more than half the remaining wild populations of the least chub are jeopardized by proposed groundwater pumping to support growth in Cedar City, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas.

    The group petitioned to list that 2-inch-long, gold-colored minnow in September 2021, citing threats posed by the Pine Valley Water Supply Project. An initial finding and 12-month review for that species also are past due, the group said.

    Once widely distributed in Utah’s Bonneville Basin, the least chub has only seven remaining wild populations and about a dozen refuge populations where it’s been reintroduced.

    “Significant habitat loss and alteration, as well as competition and predation from non-native species, have driven this species close to extinction,” the center wrote.

    Officials from Utah’s Central Iron County Water Conservancy District want to spend roughly $260 million to lay about 70 miles (110 kilometers) of buried pipes to transport water from an aquifer below the Pine Valley, an undeveloped, rural swath north of the district’s population center in Cedar City. They say limits on their local groundwater supply and an influx of new residents require they diversify their water supply to prepare for the future.

    District General Manager Paul Monroe said a review of groundwater assessments found any impacts on the springs would be “less than significant.”

    The project has been opposed for decades by neighboring Beaver County, Native American tribes, some ranchers and Nevada counties worried that siphoning water from Pine Valley will affect nearby aquifers.

    “Endangered Species Act protection would ensure the Pine Valley water grab doesn’t jeopardize the survival of this tiny native Utah fish,” said Krista Kemppinen, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

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  • Oregon public defender shortage: nearly 300 cases dismissed

    Oregon public defender shortage: nearly 300 cases dismissed

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    PORTLAND, Ore. — District attorneys in Oregon are once again sounding the alarm over the state’s critical shortage of court-provided attorneys for low-income defendants. The lack of public defenders has strained the criminal justice system and left more than 700 people statewide without legal representation.

    Judges in Multnomah County, which is home to Portland, have dismissed nearly 300 cases this year due to a lack of defense attorneys able to handle cases. The county’s top prosecutor, Mike Schmidt, said that the shortage poses “ an urgent threat to public safety ” and released a tally this week of dismissed cases. He pledged to release new numbers each week to draw attention to the crisis.

    More than two-thirds of the dismissed cases are felonies; in 53% of them, property crime was the primary charge. The next most common primary charge was for weapon crimes, which accounted for 16% of dismissed felonies, while person crimes, which include assault and robbery, accounted for 12%.

    “Months into this crisis, many are still waiting for their day in court while others have seen their cases dismissed altogether,” said Schmidt, a progressive prosecutor who was elected in 2020 on a platform of criminal justice reforms. “This sends a message to crime victims in our community that justice is unavailable and their harm will go unaddressed. It also sends a message to individuals who have committed a crime that there is no accountability while burning through scarce police and prosecutor resources.”

    The statement reflects an increasingly popular tactic used by prosecutors in Oregon. Powerless to fix the problem on their own, they have tried to force the state’s hand. Earlier this month, Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton said that his office would seek a court order requiring the state’s public defense agency to appoint its own staff attorneys to represent defendants if no other attorneys were available.

    The head of Oregon’s public defenders’ office said that she would work with Schmidt “to address this systemic access to justice emergency.”

    “Public defense is a critical component of the public safety system,” Jessica Kampfe, executive director of the Office of Public Defense Services, said in an email, adding that “public defenders need significant investments to retain existing staffing levels and increase capacity.”

    As of Wednesday, statewide there were 763 low-income defendants who lack legal representation, according to the state Judicial Department.

    The Oregon Legislature is set to tackle the issue when the next session begins in January. A working group that includes lawmakers has been meeting for months and considering major reforms that could overhaul the system. One proposal would reassign the Office of Public Defense Services from the Judicial Department, where it’s currently housed, to the governor’s office, in response to criticism of conflicts of interest.

    Oregon’s system for providing attorneys to criminal defendants who can’t afford them has shown cracks for years, but case backlogs have significantly worsened since the coronavirus pandemic. The public defender shortage has overwhelmed the courts, frustrated defendants and impacted crime victims, who experts say experience more trauma when cases are dismissed or take longer to be resolved.

    The state has been sued twice this year for allegedly violating defendants’ constitutional rights to legal counsel and a speedy trial. While the original lawsuit was dismissed, a similar second suit was filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court last month.

    An American Bar Association report released in January found that Oregon has only 31% of the public defenders it needs to run effectively. Every existing attorney would have to work more than 26 hours a day during the work week to cover the caseload, the report said.

    Oregon’s public defense system is unique in that it’s the only one in the country to rely entirely on contractors. Cases are doled out to either large nonprofit defense firms, small cooperating groups of private defense attorneys that contract for cases or independent attorneys who can take cases at will.

    The public defender shortage is “the predictable end result” of the unique contracting system, said Jon Mosher, deputy director of the Sixth Amendment Center. According to Mosher, the contracting and subcontracting of public defense services makes it difficult for the state to track which attorneys are assigned to which cases.

    “On any given day, the state of Oregon can’t know literally the identity of the lawyers providing the services, which means that Oregon can’t know whether those lawyers are qualified to handle the cases or whether they have enough time to handle their cases effectively,” he said. “That creates a massive amount of … a lack of oversight, a lack of accountability.”

    Public defenders say that uncompetitive pay, high stress and overwhelming caseloads also affects staffing levels.

    “You’re being asked as a public defender to be a lawyer, a social worker, a counselor, an investigator,” said Carl Macpherson, executive director of Metropolitan Public Defender, a large nonprofit public defender firm in Portland. “The criminal legal system doesn’t help people with severe issues. It’s a short-term punitive response to a bigger issue.”

    Macpherson said that the crisis extends beyond the public defense system and includes “multiple system failures.”

    “It doesn’t just affect the individuals that are without representation,” he said, before mentioning victims of crime, prosecutors, police and the public. “It affects everyone.”

    ———

    Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Claire on Twitter.

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  • Wife of Texas man killed by police in Arizona settles suit

    Wife of Texas man killed by police in Arizona settles suit

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    PHOENIX — The widow of an unarmed Texas man fatally shot by police outside his suburban Phoenix hotel room in 2016 has agreed to settle her wrongful death lawsuit.

    A notice of settlement filed Tuesday in federal court in Arizona shows that Laney Sweet, the wife of Daniel Shaver, and her two children will receive $8 million from the city of Mesa.

    A probate court has approved the settlement’s terms and appointed a temporary conservator.

    In exchange, all of Sweet’s legal claims will be dismissed with prejudice.

    In a statement released by her attorneys, Sweet acknowledged the settlement will help her family financially. But “no amount of money can undo the transgressions that cruelly removed Daniel from his family’s lives forever.”

    “This settlement does nothing to cure the blatant lack of accountability by all involved since the night of Daniel’s death, which stands as an irredeemable blight on the criminal justice system,” Sweet said.

    Spokeswomen for the city of Mesa and the Mesa Police Department declined to comment Wednesday.

    Sweet first filed a lawsuit in 2017 against both parties seeking $75 million in damages. She contended Shaver had not provoked the killing and it could have been avoided if officers had investigated more.

    The city settled with Shaver’s parents in a similar lawsuit last year for an undisclosed amount.

    In January 2016, Mesa police officers went to the hotel after getting a call that someone there was pointing a gun out a window.

    They ordered Shaver, 26, from Granbury, Texas, to exit his hotel room, lie face-down in a hallway and refrain from making sudden movements — or he risked being shot.

    Then-Officer Philip Brailsford shot Shaver as the man lay on the ground outside his hotel room and was ordered to crawl toward officers.

    Brailsford was charged with murder in Shaver’s death, but a jury acquitted him of the charge.

    Although no gun was found on Shaver’s body, two pellet rifles related to his pest-control job were later found in his room.

    The detective investigating the shooting had agreed Shaver’s movement was similar to reaching for a pistol, but has said it also looked as though Shaver was pulling up his loose-fitting basketball shorts that had fallen down as he was ordered to crawl toward officers.

    Mesa initially fired Brailsford, but he was later rehired to apply for a pension and then took medical retirement.

    The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights violation investigation against Brailsford. In March 2018, the Mesa Police Department revealed the DOJ had subpoenaed the department for all documents about the shooting.

    The investigation is still ongoing, according to Sweet and her attorneys who called for the DOJ to “swiftly proceed.”

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  • Jury: NCAA not to blame in ex-USC football player’s death

    Jury: NCAA not to blame in ex-USC football player’s death

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    LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles jury on Tuesday rejected a claim by the widow of a former USC player who said the NCAA failed to protect him from repeated head trauma that led to his death.

    Matthew Gee, a linebacker on the 1990 Rose Bowl-winning squad, endured an estimated 6,000 hits that caused permanent brain damage and led to cocaine and alcohol abuse that eventually killed him at age 49, lawyers for his widow alleged.

    The NCAA said it had nothing to do with Gee’s death, which it said was a sudden cardiac arrest brought on by untreated hypertension and acute cocaine toxicity. A lawyer for the governing body of U.S. college sports said Gee suffered from many other health problems not related to , such as liver cirrhosis, that would have eventually killed him.

    The verdict could have broad ramifications for college athletes who blame the NCAA for head injuries.

    Hundreds of wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits have been brought by college players against the NCAA in the past decade, but Gee’s is the first one to reach a jury alleging that hits to the head led to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease known by its acronym, CTE.

    Alana Gee said the college sweethearts had 20 good years of marriage before her husband’s mental health began to deteriorate and he became angry, depressed and impulsive, and began overeating and abusing drugs and alcohol.

    Attorneys for Gee said CTE, which is found in athletes and military veterans who suffered repetitive brain injuries, was an indirect cause of death because head trauma has been shown to promote substance abuse.

    The NCAA said the case hinged on what it knew at the time Gee played, from 1988-92, and not about CTE, which was first discovered in the brain of a deceased NFL player in 2005.

    Gee never reported having a concussion and said in an application to play with the Raiders after graduating that he had never been knocked unconscious, NCAA attorney Will Stute said.

    “You can’t hold the NCAA responsible for something 40 years later that nobody ever reported,” Stute said in his closing argument. “The plaintiffs want you in a time travel machine. We don’t have one … at the NCAA. It’s not fair.”

    Attorneys for Gee’s family said there was no doubt that Matt Gee suffered concussions and countless sub-concussive blows.

    Mike Salmon, a teammate who went on to play in the NFL, testified that Gee, who was team captain his senior year, once was so dazed from a hit that he couldn’t call the next play.

    Gee was one of five linebackers on the 1989 Trojans squad who died before turning 50. All displayed signs of mental deterioration associated with head trauma.

    As with teammate and NFL star Junior Seau, who killed himself in 2012, Gee’s brain was examined posthumously at Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center and found to have CTE.

    Jurors were not allowed to hear testimony about Gee’s deceased teammates.

    Gee’s lawyers said the NCAA, which was founded in 1906 for athlete safety, had known about impacts from head injuries since the 1930s but failed to educate players, ban headfirst contact, or implement baseline testing for concussion symptoms.

    Attorneys had asked jurors to award Alana Gee $55 million to compensate for her loss.

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  • Teenage driver charged in crash of stolen car that killed 4

    Teenage driver charged in crash of stolen car that killed 4

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    BUFFALO, N.Y. — A 16-year-old accused of driving a stolen SUV involved in a high-speed crash that killed four teenage passengers was arraigned Tuesday on manslaughter and other charges.

    The parents of two of those killed, meanwhile, have filed a lawsuit against automaker Kia, claiming their children would be alive if its cars were harder to steal.

    A total of six teens were in the Kia Sportage when it crashed on state Route 33 on Oct. 24, Buffalo police said. The car had been reported stolen the previous night.

    The driver, apparently held in by an airbag and the steering wheel, was the only occupant not ejected through the sunroof when the vehicle struck a concrete embankment at high speed and flipped backwards, District Attorney John Flynn said. The driver was treated at a hospital and released. A 14-year-old girl also survived.

    The driver, whose name was not released, pleaded not guilty in Erie County Court on Tuesday to charges of manslaughter, assault and possession of stolen property. He was released under supervision with an ankle monitor, according to Flynn, who said opposed the release.

    Flynn told reporters the teen was charged as an adolescent but he would argue to keep the case in adult court at a hearing next week.

    “I still don’t think it’s right that this kid is out playing video games when on Thursday at Thanksgiving, there’s going to be an empty chair of four individuals at the Thanksgiving dinner table,” he said.

    The 16-year-old’s attorney said in court that those killed were close friends.

    Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said after the crash that the teens may have been participating in a TikTok challenge encouraging people to break into and steal Kia cars using cellphone chargers.

    The so-called Kia challenge showed how to hot-wire Kias and Hyundais with a USB cord and a screwdriver. Many police departments around the country have reported increases in Kia and Hyundai thefts since the video was posted last summer.

    A federal lawsuit filed last week on behalf of the mothers of 15-year-old Kevn Payne Jr. and 17-year-old Swazine Swindle, who died in the Buffalo crash, seeks unspecified damages while accusing Kia Corp. and Kia America Inc. of negligence and creating a public nuisance. It alleges that Kia failed to include an anti-theft device on certain vehicles and did not recall the cars or warn the public when the issue became evident.

    California attorney Jonathan Michaels, who represents the parents, said no one should be stealing cars but social media can have a powerful pull.

    “This is something that, on a young brain that’s not fully developed, that temptation is just so strong,” Michaels, of MLG Attorneys at Law, said by phone, “and they’re not understanding the consequences of what they’re doing, and all their friends are doing it. So it’s foreseeable this is happening, and it’s a defect to begin with.”

    An insurance industry group has said some Kias are stolen at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the auto industry because their keys lack computer chips for theft “immobilizer” systems.

    Kia has since announced it would include an immobilizer for all vehicles starting with model year 2022.

    A spokesman for the automaker said the company generally does not respond to pending litigation.

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  • Iowa jury gives $27 million verdict in misdiagnosed flu case

    Iowa jury gives $27 million verdict in misdiagnosed flu case

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    A jury has returned a $27 million verdict against a central Iowa medical clinic after a man with bacterial meningitis was misdiagnosed with the flu, suffered strokes and said he has been permanently injured

    DES MOINES, Iowa — An Iowa jury has returned a $27 million verdict against a Des Moines medical clinic after a man with bacterial meningitis was misdiagnosed with the flu, suffered strokes and said he has been permanently injured.

    The Polk County jury returned the verdict Monday in the lawsuit filed in 2017 against UnityPoint Clinic Family Medicine in Des Moines.

    Joseph Dudley and his wife Sarah Dudley filed the lawsuit after Joseph became ill in February 2017 and went to the clinic in southeast Des Moines. They reported he had dizziness, delusions, a headache, high fever and a cough.

    A physician’s assistant in charge of the clinic at the time diagnosed him with the flu although tests returned negative, said Dudley’s lawyer Nick Rowley. Dudley was given Tamiflu and a pain reliever and sent home.

    Two days later he went to the emergency room at UnityPoint Iowa Methodist Medical Center, where a doctor diagnosed the bacterial meningitis resulting from a heart valve infection. Dudley was put into a medically induced coma and was in intensive care for eight days during which he had a series of strokes causing the loss of hearing in his right ear, vertigo and dizziness, numb feet and legs, and much slower thinking and reaction time, Rowley said.

    “Mr. Dudley will suffer from a lifetime of permanent brain damage because they failed to perform a simple blood test, a complete blood count,” said Rowley, founder of Trial Lawyers for Justice.

    West Des Moines, Iowa-based UnityPoint Health has 400 clinics, 20 regional hospitals and 19 community network hospitals in Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.

    UnityPoint Health spokesman Mark Tauscheck said the company believes it met well-established standards of care.

    “We respect the jury process but strongly disagree with this verdict and are exploring all options including an appeal,” he said.

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  • What borrowers need to know while student loan forgiveness is in limbo

    What borrowers need to know while student loan forgiveness is in limbo

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    Olga Ryazantseva | Istock | Getty Images

    After applying for student loan forgiveness, some borrowers are receiving what looks like good news from the U.S. Department of Education.

    “We reviewed your application and determined that you are eligible for loan relief under the Plan,” according to a letter sent out by Education Secretary Miguel A. Cardona.

    Yet the notice goes on to say that “Unfortunately, a number of lawsuits have been filed challenging the program, which have blocked our ability to discharge your debt at present.”

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    Not long after President Joe Biden announced his sweeping plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for millions of Americans, a number of conservative groups and Republican-backed states attacked the policy in the courts. Two of these lawsuits have been successful in at least temporarily halting the relief, and the Education Department closed its loan cancellation portal this month.

    The Biden administration believes its plan is legal and will prevail in the courts, but for now, the financial future of millions of Americans remains uncertain.

    Here’s what we know about the legal delays to the policy.

    Delays could drag on for months or more

    In a recent filing with the Supreme Court, the Biden administration warned that the legal battles over its forgiveness plan could drag into 2024 if the cases weren’t decided on an expedited basis.

    However, such a long delay is unlikely, said higher-education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

    He pointed out that the Education Department hopes its loan servicers will apply the relief to people’s accounts within two weeks after it gives it the green light to do so. That means if it’s allowed to continue forgiving student debt, it can act quickly and other legal challenges “will be rendered moot.”

    Around 26 million borrowers have already applied for the forgiveness. Those who haven’t done so yet shouldn’t fret, Kantrowitz said. The government will just reopen its application portal again if its plan succeeds in the court.

    Loan payment pause may be extended again

    The Biden administration is reported to be considering extending the payment pause on student loan bills yet again. That relief policy has been in effect since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

    It would be the eighth time borrowers have been given more time to pause payments, but it may be the White House’s only option with so much still in the air, experts say.

    “Restarting repayment now will be messy because the Biden Administration has promised forgiveness to tens of millions of borrowers who will be upset about having to make payments on loans that they expected to be forgiven,” Kantrowitz said.

    Indeed, a top official at the Education Department recently said student loan default rates could dramatically spike if its loan forgiveness plan is thwarted, “due to the ongoing confusion about what they owe.”

    Borrowers have other aid options

    Those unnerved by the possibility of student loan forgiveness falling through may take some comfort in a number of other options that may offer help.

    The Biden administration recently announced a new repayment plan for certain struggling borrowers that would cap monthly bills at 5% of their discretionary income. It should go into effect next July, Kantrowitz said. (Use one of the calculators at Studentaid.gov or Freestudentloanadvice.org to find the repayment plan most affordable for you.)

    The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which allows those who work for the government and certain nonprofits to get their debt cleared after a decade, is also getting a number of improvements.

    If you’re unemployed or dealing with another financial hardship, you can put in a request for an economic hardship or unemployment deferment. Those are the ideal ways to postpone your federal student loan payments, because interest doesn’t accrue under them.

    If you don’t qualify for either, though, you can use a forbearance to continue suspending your bills. Just keep in mind that interest will rack up and your balance will be larger — possibly much larger — when you resume paying.

    And for those in the most difficult situations, it may soon be easier to discharge your student debt in bankruptcy.

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  • Judge orders Amazon to stop retaliations against organizers

    Judge orders Amazon to stop retaliations against organizers

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    NEW YORK — A federal judge has ordered Amazon to stop retaliating against employees engaged in workplace activism, issuing a mixed ruling that also hands a loss to the federal labor agency that sued the company earlier this year.

    The ruling came in a court case brought by the National Labor Relations Board, which sued Amazon in March seeking the reinstatement of a fired employee who was involved in organizing a company warehouse on Staten Island, New York.

    In its lawsuit, the agency argued Amazon’s termination of the former employee, Gerald Bryson, was unlawful and would have a chilling effect on organizing. It said that not reinstating Bryson to his role would make workers think the agency would not be able to protect their labor rights under federal law.

    On Friday, U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati ruled there was “reasonable cause” to believe the e-commerce giant committed an unfair labor practice by firing Bryson. She issued a cease-and-desist order directing the Seattle-based company to not retaliate against employees involved in workplace activism.

    But Gujarati denied the agency’s request to reinstate Bryson. She determined that the NLRB did not present evidence that Bryson’s termination is having considerable effect on organizing efforts by employees or the Amazon Labor Union, the nascent group in connection to Bryson that ultimately pulled off the first-ever labor win at an Amazon warehouse in the U.S. in March.

    In her ruling, Gujarati also noted Bryson was fired before the union was formed, which makes it different from other cases where a slowdown of organizing support was shown after the firing of a union activist.

    Bryson was fired in April 2020, weeks after participating in a protest over working conditions during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. While off the job during a second protest, he got into a dispute with another employee. Amazon did its own investigation into the dispute and cited a violation of the company’s vulgar-language policy for terminating Bryson. The company denies the firing was connected to organizing activities.

    Shortly after Bryson was fired, he filed a complaint with the NLRB. An administrative law judge concluded earlier this year the company pursued a “skewed investigation” into the dispute designed to blame Bryson. Amazon has said it would appeal that ruling in the NLRB’s own administrative process. Friday’s court ruling came from a separate federal case filed by the agency, which doesn’t have enforcement powers.

    On Friday, Gujarati ordered Amazon to post English and Spanish copies of the court order at the Staten Island facility that voted to unionize. She also ordered the company distribute electronic copies to employees and hold a mandatory meeting where the order can be read aloud.

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  • Saudi prince’s new title key to dodging lawsuit over killing

    Saudi prince’s new title key to dodging lawsuit over killing

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — It raised eyebrows six weeks ago when Saudi Arabia’s aged king, Salman, named his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as prime minister. The kingdom’s laws designate the king as prime minister. King Salman had to declare a temporary exception to loan out the title, and at the same time made clear he retains key duties.

    But that move reaped dividends Thursday, when the Biden administration declared that Prince Mohammed’s standing as prime minister shielded him from a U.S. lawsuit over what the U.S. intelligence community says was his role in Saudi officials’ 2018 killing of a U.S.-based journalist. A judge will now decide whether Prince Mohammed has immunity.

    National Security Council spokesman John Kirby insisted Friday that the administration’s declaration of immunity for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was purely a “legal determination” that “has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the case itself.”

    Many experts in international law agreed with the administration — but only because of the king’s late September title boost for the crown prince, ahead of a scheduled U.S. decision.

    “It would have been just as remarkable for the United States to deny MBS’s head-of-state immunity after his appointment as Prime Minister as it would have been for the United States to recognize MBS’s head-of-state immunity before his appointment,” William S. Dodge, a professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law, wrote, using the prince’s initials.

    State Department spokesman Vedant Patel gave examples Friday of past instances of the U.S. recognizing immunity for heads of government or state — Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Narendra Modi of India, both in allegations of rights abuses.

    The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington by the fiancée of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi and by a D.C.-based rights group he founded. It accuses the crown prince and about 20 aides, officers and others of plotting and carrying out Khashoggi’s slaying at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

    The killing, condemned by Biden on the campaign trial in 2019 as “flat-out murder” that must have consequences for Saudi rulers, is at the core of a rift between strategic partners, the United States and Saudi Arabia.

    Before and immediately after taking office, Biden vowed to take a stand on Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, as part of a presidency that would be based on rights and values. But Biden has since offered a fist bump and other conciliatory gestures in hopes — disappointed so far — of persuading the crown prince to pump more oil for world markets.

    Biden’s administration argues that Saudi Arabia is too important to the global economy and to regional security to allow the United States to walk away from the decades-old partnership.

    But rights advocates, some senior Democratic lawmakers, and Khashoggi’s newspaper, The Washington Post, on Friday condemned the administration’s move.

    “Jamal died again today,” Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, tweeted.

    Fred Ryan, publisher of the Post, called it a “cynical, calculated effort” to manipulate the law and shield Prince Mohammed. Khashoggi wrote columns for the Post that in his last months criticized the crown prince’s rights abuses.

    “By going along with this scheme, President Biden is turning his back on fundamental principles of press freedom and equality,” Ryan wrote.

    Cengiz and Khashoggi’s rights group, Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, had argued that the crown prince’s late September title change was no more than a maneuver to escape U.S. courts, without legal standing or any change in authority or duties.

    Saudi Arabia has not commented publicly on the administration’s decision. Spokespeople with the Saudi Embassy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.

    Saudi Arabia blames what it says were “rogue” officials for Khashoggi’s killing. It says the prince played no part.

    Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, as opposed to a constitutional one like the United Kingdom, where a prime minister rather than king or queen governs.

    “Pretty pathetic,” Sarah Leah Whitson, head of Khashoggi’s rights group, said Friday of the title change.

    “If anything, it just demonstrated how afraid Mohammed bin Salman was and has been of our lawsuit and actual accountability and actual discovery of his crimes,” Whitson said.

    The Biden administration appeared to dismiss her group’s argument that Prince Mohammed’s recent title change ran counter to Saudi Arabia’s governing law and should be disregarded.

    King Salman has continued making appointments and presiding over meetings of his council since the title change.

    But Prince Mohammed for years has been a key decision-maker and actor in the kingdom, including representing the king abroad.

    Some Western news outlets had presented the temporary transfer of the prime minister title as King Salman — who is in his late 80s — devolving responsibility to Prince Mohammed, who is 37.

    A federal judge had given the U.S. until Thursday to offer an opinion, or not, on the claim by the crown prince that his standing shields him from U.S. courts.

    Rights advocates had hoped up to the moment of filing that the administration would stay silent, offering no opinion on Prince Mohammed’s immunity either way.

    Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states’ courts.

    Prior criminal and civil cases brought against foreign governments and leaders in which the U.S. has not intervened have generally involved countries with which the U.S. has no diplomatic relations or does not recognize their heads of state or government as legitimate.

    Cases brought against Iran and North Korea seeking damages for deaths or injuries to American citizens are two prominent examples of instances where the executive branch has not weighed in with an opinion about sovereign immunity.

    By contrast, the United States has full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. The State Department stressed Thursday that honoring the principle for other governments’ leaders helps ensure that courts in other countries don’t seek to haul U.S. presidents before them to answer to lawsuits there.

    Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, said the U.S. decision had “absolutely nothing” to do with “tense” U.S.-Saudi relations over Saudi-led oil production cuts, and other matters.

    Biden has been “very, very vocal” about the “brutal, barbaric murder of Khashoggi,” Kirby said.

    But some of Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress expressed disappointment at the administration’s move.

    “Is the Administration casting aside its confidence in its own intelligence community’s judgment?” Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said in a statement. “If the friends and family of Khashoggi are denied a path to accountability in the American court system, where in the world can they go?”

    Whitson, the official for Khashoggi’s rights group, said the lawsuit would continue against the others named in the lawsuit.

    __

    Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.

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  • Missouri summer camp operators sued over abuse settlement

    Missouri summer camp operators sued over abuse settlement

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    A Tennessee man filed a lawsuit Friday claiming that operators of the Kanakuk Camps in Branson, Missouri, lied to him and his parents while persuading them to sign a settlement over sexual abuse by a camp counselor.

    Logan Yandell, 27, of Hendersonville, Tennessee, and his parents reached a confidential settlement with Kanakuk in 2010 that included a non-disclosure agreement after Yandell was abused by Peter Newman, who is serving two life sentences for sexually abusing multiple children while working for the Christian summer camps.

    The lawsuit names Kanakuk Ministries, Kanakuk CEO Joe White, Kanakuk Heritage Inc., Westchester Fire Insurance Company and a John Doe.

    A statement from Kanakuk said the company just received the lawsuit on Friday and does not comment on pending litigation.

    “We will respond further if or when appropriate,” the company said. “In the meantime, we continue to pray for all who have been affected by Pete Newman’s behavior.

    Yandell was sexually abused while attending the summer camp and other activities between 2005 and 2008.

    The lawsuit alleges that Kanakuk officials claimed they did not know about Newman’s sexual abuse of children prior to his arrest but the Yandell family later learned that wasn’t true.

    In December 2021, the conservative online news outlet The Dispatch reported that Newman’s supervisor, Will Cunningham, recommended in 2003 that Newman be fired because of reports of child sexual abuse, including participating in several activities with children while nude, “counseling” them in a hot tub and sleeping alone with children.

    The lawsuit filed Friday contains an affidavit from Cunningham confirming that he wanted Newman fired. Instead, White overruled the suggestion and promoted Newman to camp director, according to the lawsuit.

    The family would not have signed the settlement and non-disclosure agreement if they had known that Kanakuk officials had lied to them, Brian Kent, one of the family’s attorneys, said Friday.

    He said company officials took advantage of the family.

    “Knowing that the Yandells were really trying to deal with making sure their child is OK and getting him better, this was a clear effort by Joe White and Kanakuk to advise them this is something they should do. And they lied to them in order to get them to sign.”

    The lawsuit is not a class action but Kent said it’s possible more of Newman’s victims will file similar lawsuits because of the new information.

    The Associated Press generally does not name victims of sexual abuse but Yandell is named in the lawsuit and has publicly discussed his case.

    One of the reasons the family decided to file the lawsuit 12 years after signing the settlement was to allow Yandell to “get his voice back and have his voice heard,” Kent said.

    Newman is serving two life sentences plus 30 years in state prison after his 2010 sentencing on seven felony counts of sexually abusing boys while he was a Kanakuk counselor. The number of victims is believed to be in the hundreds, according to the lawsuit.

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  • Gabby Petito family settles $3M suit in killing by fiance

    Gabby Petito family settles $3M suit in killing by fiance

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    ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The families of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie have reached a $3 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit filed after authorities concluded he strangled her during a cross-country trip in August 2021.

    The settlement was signed Thursday by Sarasota County Circuit Judge Hunter W. Carroll. A lawyer for Petito’s parents said whatever money is received will go to the Gabby Petito Foundation dedicated to locating missing people and curbing domestic violence.

    “The Petito family lost their daughter and they were also denied the opportunity to confront her killer,” said attorney Patrick Reilly in an email. “No amount of money is sufficient to compensate the Petito family for the loss of their daughter, Gabby, at the hands of Brian Laundrie.”

    The lawsuit involving the estates of Petito and Laundrie, filed in May, claimed Laundrie was liable for damages because he caused her death. A separate lawsuit, still pending in Sarasota, claims Laundrie’s parents wrongly concealed that he confessed to killing Petito before he returned home in September 2021 to Florida from their trip out West in a converted van.

    Christopher and Roberta Laundrie denied that claim.

    Petito’s disappearance on the trip and the subsequent discovery of her slain body Sept. 19, 2021 in a Wyoming national park became a national obsession, which continued during the weekslong search for Laundrie in a swampy Florida nature preserve.

    His remains were found there in October 2021 and investigators say he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and left a note confessing to Petito’s slaying, according to the FBI.

    It’s highly unlikely Laundrie’s estate has $3 million. Reilly called it “an arbitrary number” but that the Petito foundation would benefit from whatever amount is collected.

    “Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt wish to turn their personal tragedy into a positive,” Reilly said.

    The Petito family has also filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against police in Moab, Utah, where the couple got into a physical altercation but were allowed by officers to resume their journey despite clear danger signs of domestic violence. The city has declined comment on that lawsuit.

    Petito, 22, had been in regular contact with her parents and posted frequently on social media about their travels, including YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. The couple had a regular following before the murder mystery took hold.

    The FBI says Laundrie sent text messages from Petito’s cellphone to her parents and others in an effort to pretend she was still alive. He was also charged with illegally using one of her credit cards before his remains were discovered in the Florida nature preserve.

    Petito and Laundrie were engaged to be married. Both grew up in Blue Point, New York, but moved to North Port, Florida, in 2019 where his parents live. That’s where they began the van trip that ended with both of them dead.

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  • Musk testifies in lawsuit over Tesla compensation package

    Musk testifies in lawsuit over Tesla compensation package

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    WILMINGTON, Del. — Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the witness stand Wednesday to defend himself in a shareholder lawsuit challenging a compensation package he was awarded by the company’s board of directors that is potentially worth more than $55 billion.

    Musk denied that he dictated terms of the compensation package or attended any meetings at which the plan was discussed by the board, its compensation committee, or a working group that helped develop it.

    “I was entirely focused on the execution of the company,” he said.

    Plaintiff’s attorney Greg Varallo spent much of his early cross-examination trying to draw Musk into admitting that he controls Tesla to such an extent that he can sway the board to do his bidding. Among other things, Varallo questioned Musk about his title of “Technoking,” a role that Musk has previously noted comes with “panache” and “great dance moves.”

    “I think comedy is legal,” Musk told Varallo, who had questioned whether Musk was “stone-cold sober” when he came up with the title.

    Varallo also suggested that one of the reasons that Musk developed a “master plan” for Tesla was to let people know he was in charge. He also noted that Musk makes recommendations regarding compensation for senior executives, and that he unilaterally made the decision to pause Tesla’s policy of accepting bitcoin from vehicle purchasers.

    “You’re asking complex questions that can’t be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” Musk said when Varallo asked whether he came up with the vision for Tesla.

    The lawsuit alleges that the performance-based stock option grant was negotiated by the compensation committee and approved by Tesla board members who had conflicts interest due to personal and professional ties to Musk, including investments in his companies. It also alleges the shareholder vote approving the compensation plan was based on a misleading proxy statement.

    The shareholder plaintiff alleges that the proxy wrongly described members of the compensation committee as “independent,” and characterized all of the milestones that triggered vesting in the stock options as “stretch” goals meant to be difficult to achieve, even though internal projections indicated that three operational milestones were likely to be achieved within 18 months of the stockholder vote.

    Attorneys for the defendants have noted that two institutional proxy advising firms that urged shareholders to reject the plan nevertheless noted that it would require “significant and perhaps historic achievements” and require growth that “appear stretching by any benchmark.”

    The plan called for Musk to reap billions if Tesla hit certain market capitalization and operational milestones. For each incidence of simultaneously meeting a market cap milestone and an operational milestone, Musk, who owned about 22% of Tesla when the plan was approved, would get stock equal to 1% of outstanding shares at the time of the grant. His interest in the company would grow to about 28% if the company’s market capitalization grew by $600 billion.

    Each milestone in the plan includes growing Tesla’s market capitalization by $50 billion and meeting aggressive revenue and pretax profit growth targets. Musk would receive the full benefit of the pay plan, $55.8 billion, only if Tesla hit a market capitalization of $650 billion and unprecedented revenue and earnings within a decade.

    To date, Tesla has achieved all 12 of the market capitalization milestones and 11 operational milestones, resulting in the vesting of 11 of the grant’s 12 tranches and providing Musk over $52.4 billion in stock option gains, according to the lawsuit. Since the grant was awarded, Tesla’s market capitalization has increased from $59 billion to more than $613 billion now, having briefly hit $1 trillion early this year. Musk has sold Tesla stock to finance the Twitter purchase, adding downward pressure on the shares.

    Shares of Tesla and other automakers have been battered this year, but the Austin, Texas, company earned $5.5 billion in 2021, blowing away the previous year’s profit of $721 million. It also produced a record 936,000 vehicles, nearly double vehicle production in 2020.

    Attorneys for the plaintiff have suggested that incentivizing Musk to remain at Tesla’s helm by offering a huge compensation package was unnecessary, because he’s never suggested that he might leave. They’ve also suggested that Musk’s true motive in negotiating the package was to fund his dream to colonize Mars.

    In a November 2017 email to former Tesla General Counsel Todd Maron, Musk expressed optimism that the compensation package would be seen in a favorable light.

    “Given that this will all go to causes that at least aspirationally maximize the probability of a good future for humanity, plus all Tesla shareholders will be super happy, I think this will be received well,” he wrote, adding that “it should come across as an ultra bullish view of the future.”

    While on the stand, Musk also said that he does not want to be the CEO of any company.

    “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time,” Musk said, according to multiple media reports.

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  • Walmart offers to pay $3.1 billion to settle opioid lawsuits

    Walmart offers to pay $3.1 billion to settle opioid lawsuits

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    Walmart proposed a $3.1 billion legal settlement on Tuesday over the toll of powerful prescription opioids sold at its pharmacies, becoming the latest major drug industry player to promise major support to state, local and tribal governments still grappling with a crisis in overdose deaths.

    The retail giant’s announcement follows similar proposals on Nov. 2 from the two largest U.S. pharmacy chains, CVS Health and Walgreen Co., which each said they would pay about $5 billion.

    Most of the drugmakers that produced the most opioids and the biggest drug distribution companies have already reached settlements. With the largest pharmacies now settling, it represents a shift in the opioid litigation saga. For years, the question was whether companies would be held accountable for an overdose crisis that a flood of prescription drugs helped spark.

    With the crisis still raging, the focus now is on how the settlement dollars — now totaling more than $50 billion — will be used and whether they will help curtail record numbers of overdose deaths, even as prescription drugs have become a relatively small portion of the epidemic.

    Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart said in a statement that it “strongly disputes” allegations in lawsuits from state and local governments that its pharmacies improperly filled prescriptions for the powerful prescription painkillers. The company does not admit liability with the settlement, which would represent about 2% of its quarterly revenue.

    “Walmart believes the settlement framework is in the best interest of all parties and will provide significant aid to communities across the country in the fight against the opioid crisis, with aid reaching state and local governments faster than any other nationwide opioid settlement to date,” the company said in a statement.

    Lawyers representing local governments said the company would pay most of the settlement over the next year if it is finalized.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a release that the company would have to comply with oversight measures, prevent fraudulent prescriptions and flag suspicious ones.

    Some government lawyers suggested Walmart has acted more responsibly than other pharmacies when it came to opioids.

    “Although Walmart filled significantly fewer prescriptions for opioids then CVS or Walgreens, since 2018 Walmart has been the most proactive in trying to monitor and control prescription opioid diversion attempted through its pharmacies,” Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said in a statement.

    The deals are the product of negotiations with a group of state attorneys general, but they are not final. The CVS and Walgreens deals would have to be accepted first by a critical mass of state and local governments before they are completed.

    Walmart’s plan would have to be approved by 43 states by Dec. 15, and local governments could sign on by March 31, 2023. Each state’s allocation depends partly on how many local governments agree.

    “Companies like Walmart need to step up and help by ensuring Pennsylvanians get the treatment and recovery resources they need,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who last week was elected governor of his state, said in a statement. “This deal with Walmart adds to the important progress we’ve already achieved through our settlements with the opioid manufacturers and distributors – and we’re not done yet.”

    The share of Walmart’s proposed settlement going to Native American tribes is $78 million, to be divided among all the federally recognized tribes, said Robins Kaplan, a law firm representing tribes.

    After governments used funds from tobacco settlements in the 1990s for purposes unrelated to public health, the opioid settlements have been crafted to ensure most of the money goes to fighting the crisis. State and local governments are devising spending plans now.

    Opioids of all kinds have been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. over the past two decades.

    In the 2000s, most fatal opioid overdoses involved prescription drugs such as OxyContin and generic oxycodone. After governments, doctors and companies took steps to make them harder to obtain, people addicted to the drugs increasingly turned to heroin, which proved more deadly.

    In recent years, opioid deaths have soared to record levels, around 80,000 a year. Most of those deaths involve illicitly produced version of the powerful lab-made drug fentanyl, which is appearing throughout the U.S. supply of illegal drugs.

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  • Alec Baldwin sues to ‘clear his name’ in movie set killing

    Alec Baldwin sues to ‘clear his name’ in movie set killing

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    LOS ANGELES — Saying he wants to clear his name, Alec Baldwin on Friday sued people involved in handling and supplying the loaded gun that he was using when it fired, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a 2021 filming accident in New Mexico.

    Baldwin filed a cross-complaint in Superior Court in Los Angeles alleging negligence against some of the people sued by a script supervisor, Mamie Mitchell. Among other things, it seeks a share of any damages that Mitchell may win from the people Baldwin names and asks that they pay for any damages assessed against him.

    Mitchell was standing behind Hutchins, who died shortly after being wounded during setup for a scene in the western movie “Rust” at a film set ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe on Oct. 21, 2021.

    Mitchell sued Baldwin, who was a producer on the film, the production company and many others involved for assault and negligence.

    In his cross-complaint, Baldwin says that while working on camera angles with Hutchins during rehearsal for a scene, he pointed the gun in her direction and pulled back and released the hammer of the gun, which discharged.

    The shot fatally wounded Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza in the shoulder.

    The actor said neither he nor Hutchins knew the weapon contained a live round.

    “This tragedy occurred on a movie set — not a gun range, not a battlefield, not a location where even a remote possibility should exist that a gun would contain live ammunition,” the lawsuit said.

    Baldwin has maintained he was told the gun was safe and that he did not pull the trigger. But a recent FBI forensic report found the weapon could not have fired unless the trigger was pulled.

    “More than anyone else on that set, Baldwin has been wrongfully viewed as the perpetrator of this tragedy. By these cross-claims, Baldwin seeks to clear his name,” the actor’s lawsuit says.

    Baldwin’s cross-complaint says he has lost opportunities and been fired from jobs because of the shooting and also “has suffered physically and emotionally from the grief caused by these events.”

    New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator determined the shooting was an accident. However, prosecutors are reviewing the shooting to determine whether criminal charges should be filed.

    In April, New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau imposed the maximum fine of $137,000 against Rust Movie Productions and distributed a scathing narrative of safety failures, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires of blank ammunition on set prior to the fatal shooting.

    The company is challenging the fine.

    Baldwin’s lawsuit alleges negligence by armorer Hannah Guttierez-Reed; prop master Sarah Zachry; first assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls, who handed Baldwin the gun; ammunition supplier Seth Kenney and his company, PDQ Arm & Prop, which also supplied prop weapons for the production.

    All have previously denied responsibility for the fatal shooting.

    In October, Hutchins’ family announced they had agreed to settle another lawsuit against the actor and the movie’s producers, and producers said they aimed to restart the project in January.

    A lawyer for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, Jason Bowles said he was reviewing Baldwin’s lawsuit. Attorneys for other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the New York Times reported.

    A phone message left by The Associated Press seeking comment from Bowles wasn’t immediately returned Friday night.

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  • Family of man fatally shot by police to get $3M settlement

    Family of man fatally shot by police to get $3M settlement

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    VALLEJO, Calif. — A San Francisco Bay Area city will pay the mother of a 21-year-old man shot and killed by police in 2017 nearly $3 million to settle a wrongful death and federal civil rights lawsuit.

    The family of Angel Ramos filed the lawsuit against the city of Vallejo as well as Vallejo Police Officer Zach Jacobsen, who killed Ramos, the East Bay Times reported.

    “There will never be a dollar amount high enough to measure the value of Angel’s life and what our family lost,” Angel’s sister Antoinette Saddler said in a statement. “We have experienced pain, terror and anxiety that no words can ever explain, and no family should ever have to experience.”

    On Jan. 23, 2017, Jacobsen and his partner responded to a 911 call about a disturbance at a home. According to a report by the officers, Jacobsen said he saw two men fighting on a second-story balcony and began shouting at them to stop but they didn’t. Jacobsen said Ramos was holding a knife and he opened fire to save the other man’s life.

    An autopsy revealed that Jacobsen shot Ramos from the first floor and that Ramos was shot at the base of his neck, and three times in the chest. At the time of his death, Ramos had a blood alcohol level of .26 — just over three times the legal limit.

    Although Jacobsen claims Ramos had a knife, Ramos’ family and the other person in the fight have said that Ramos wasn’t armed. A knife at the scene was never found.

    Ramos’ family and their attorney, Melissa Nold, are still upset about the original press release sent by the Vallejo Police Department on the night of Angel Ramos’ death stating that he was armed with a knife.

    Nold said it “was patently untrue and calculated to conceal the truth. To date, the City of Vallejo has never issued a retraction of their fabrication that Angel was ‘holding a knife’ when he was shot.”

    In April 2018, a board of review convened by the Vallejo Police Department cleared Jacobsen, saying the officer used reasonable force when he shot Ramos. The board also said, however, that Jacobsen should have activated his body-worn camera, the newspaper reported.

    In December, a judge said that he found sufficient evidence to hold a trial, and denied several claims filed by the City of Vallejo, including a motion for summary judgment.

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  • Elon Musk’s $56 Billion Tesla Pay Under Review in Delaware Court

    Elon Musk’s $56 Billion Tesla Pay Under Review in Delaware Court

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    A lot of business — and the attendant court cases — flow through Delaware, and it looks like the CEO of Tesla and “Chief Twit” at Twitter Elon Musk is about to spend some time in the state.


    Justin Sullivan I Getty Images

    Elon Musk at a Tesla event in 2015.

    The world’s richest man acquired Twitter in late October after getting sued by the company in Delaware’s Chancery Court to make him go through with the deal. Now, the same court — and the same judge as the Twitter case, Kathaleen St. J. McCormick — will hear a different case related to Musk on November 14.

    The lawsuit, filed by Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta, claims that Musk’s board-approved compensation package from 2018 was excessive and breached the board’s duties to shareholders. Further, the suit claims Musk has too much on his plate to pull a compensation package that can go up to a value of over $50 billion, per TechCrunch.

    The legal documents call it “the largest compensation grant in human history,” the outlet noted.

    Tesla and Twitter are both incorporated in Delaware, as are most very large businesses, due to the state’s tax benefits. This is why both cases will be in the state’s Chancery Court. It has “unique competence,” in the nitty-gritty of business law.

    What is the Tesla lawsuit about?

    Musk’s compensation (stock options, salaries, and bonuses) as CEO of Tesla (going back to 2009) was pegged to performance, as noted in the 2019 pre-trial opinion from Joseph R. Slights III, who was formerly vice chancellor of the Court of Chancery. (McCormick took over the case from Slights.)

    After Tesla met the goals outlined in past compensation packages, the board created a new one for Musk and voted to approve it in January 2018.

    The new package set a series of 12 performance goals, and corresponding groups of stocks, related to Tesla’s ability to increase its market capitalization, as well as revenue and earnings. Upon hitting those goals “corresponding to each tranche of the Award, options held by Musk representing 1% of Tesla’s current total outstanding shares will vest,” Slights wrote.

    This means that Musk would earn the equivalent of 1% of the company’s total outstanding shares. If he met all of those goals, Slights added, the maximum value of the total stock grant is $55.8 billion. The company has met 11 out of 12 so far, per TechCrunch.

    Tornetta sued in 2019 saying that the package was too large and did not motivate Musk to focus on Tesla versus his other ventures. Musk, of course, is a busy man. He is the listed CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and now Twitter, at least in the interim.

    Related: Elon Musk’s Twitter Mass Layoffs Have Begun: ‘Has The Red Wedding Started?

    Musk’s legal team has said that a one-of-a-kind, high-powered CEO deserves a high-impact compensation package.

    “The plan designed and approved by the board was not a typical pay package intended to compensate the ordinary executive for overseeing the day-to-day operations of a mature company,” a Musk attorney, Evan Chesler, wrote in a filing, per Bloomberg Law. “That is because Musk is not the typical CEO.”

    Further, the lawsuit claimed that because Musk is friends with board members Ira Ehrenpreis and James Murdoch, he generally exerts too much influence over it — despite recusing himself and his brother Kimbal from the compensation discussion — and the decision was not fair, according to TechCrunch.

    The question of whether or not there was a conflict of interest is part of why the Slights initially denied Musk’s attempt to dismiss the suit.

    Typically, the court would leave executive compensation up to a company, and “this court’s earnest deference to board determinations relating to executive compensation does not jibe with our reflexive suspicion when a board transacts with a controlling stockholder,” Slights wrote in the 2019 opinion.

    Whether to not Musk was operating as a controlling stakeholder (Musk owns the largest stake in Tesla but not the majority, leaving it up for debate) will likely come up again as McCormick hears the case, one expert told Bloomberg Law.

    Generally speaking, “this has the potential to be a very important case from an executive compensation standpoint,” business law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Jill Fisch told the outlet.

    “It won’t get the attention the Musk-Twitter case got from the general public, but it’s still important,” she said.

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  • Former officer: Alabama ‘not in control’ of state prisons

    Former officer: Alabama ‘not in control’ of state prisons

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    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A former corrections officer on Friday compared Alabama prisons to a “third world country with a concrete floor” and said he believes federal officials should intervene in the system.

    “The Alabama Department of Corrections is not in control of any prison in Alabama and hasn’t been for a while,” Stacy George, who recently resigned after 13 1/2 years at Limestone Correctional Facility, said.

    George, who ran for governor in 2014 and 2022, spoke to reporters and relatives of prisoners outside the Department of Corrections headquarters, saying he wanted people to hear the truth about what was going on inside. George recently resigned because of complications from an injury.

    He described coming into work and seeing blood trails through the prison, inmates threatening suicide with nooses or razor blades, and staffing levels so low that made it difficult to monitor the prison or care for inmates in need.

    “We have to treat people like human beings. Everybody’s in danger — the officers, the incarcerated individuals,” George said.

    George said sometimes there would be nine officers working in the prison that houses 2,200 inmates. He said there should be about 35. “There could be people bleeding to death in the cell and nobody even know it for hours,” George said.

    George, a Republican, said he believes politics contributed to overcrowding. Politicians and judges seek lengthy prison sentences for offenders, he said, while there is political pressure to keep parole rates low.

    George said he hopes federal officials will intervene in the system. George said conditions have rapidly deteriorated in recent months. Department reports show the number of security staff decreased from 2,177 on Oct. 31, 2021 to 1,879 on June 30.

    Alabama inmates in September went on a work strike to protest conditions in the state’s lock-ups, refusing to labor in prison kitchens, laundries and more.

    The Alabama Department of Corrections, in a statement to al.com, said it could not comment on George’s statement about staffing numbers

    “Staffing is the subject of ongoing litigation and court orders,” the ADOC said. “Additionally, disclosure of specific staff numbers at a facility creates the risk of a security issue. For these reasons, the Department is unable to comment on specific staff numbers and/or implications.

    “However, the Department is actively engaged in a number of initiatives aimed at recruiting and retaining correctional officers and other facility staff, including medical and mental health staff. The focus on staffing of facilities is a Departmental priority.” The state has raised officer pay but continues to struggle with staffing.

    The U.S. Department of Justice has an ongoing lawsuit against Alabama over prisons it says are “riddled with prisoner-on-prisoner and guard-on-prisoner violence.”

    The lawsuit accuses Alabama of operating prisons where conditions are so poor they violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. While Alabama has acknowledged problems in state prisons, the state is disputing the Justice Department’s allegations of unconstitutional conditions and is fighting the lawsuit in court.

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  • Fox loses legal battle to buy a stake in FanDuel from parent company Flutter at a lower valuation

    Fox loses legal battle to buy a stake in FanDuel from parent company Flutter at a lower valuation

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    The FanDuel Inc. app.

    Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Fox lost a legal battle to buy an 18.6% stake in sports betting company FanDuel Group from its parent company Flutter at a reduced valuation, according to a ruling Friday from a New York arbitrator.

    Should Fox exercise its option to take the stake, it would be at a price of at least $3.72 billion.

    The decision ends the more-than-yearlong lawsuit between the two companies over the valuation of FanDuel, which has emerged as one of the leading U.S. sports betting platforms alongside services from DraftKings, Caesars and MGM.

    The price that Fox would have to pay is based on a FanDuel valuation of $20 billion, according to the ruling. Flutter, which owns nearly 95% of FanDuel, acquired a 37.2% stake in the company in December 2021 at an implied valuation of $11.2 billion. Fox had argued the price should be based on that threshold.

    Still, Fox could have been ordered to pay much more, as Flutter had been arguing for Fox to pay “fair market value” to exercise the option, which could have valued the stake at upward of $6 billion based on a March 2021 estimated value, a Fox spokesperson told CNBC.

    Fox has a 10-year option to acquire the stake, which runs through December 2030. The arbitrator ruled that there would be a 5% annual escalator on its purchase price, meaning the current price of a deal would be $4.1 billion.

    “Today’s ruling vindicates the confidence we had in our position on this matter and provides certainty on what it would cost Fox to buy into this business, should they wish to do so,” said Flutter CEO Peter Jackson in a statement.

    As part of the arbitration ruling, Flutter cannot pursue an IPO for FanDuel without Fox’s consent or approval from the arbitrator. Flutter had previously considered taking FanDuel public, taking advantage of the booming sports betting market.

    “Fox is pleased with the fair and favorable outcome of the Flutter arbitration,” the company said in a statement following the ruling. “Fox has no obligation to commit capital towards this opportunity unless and until it exercises the option. This optionality over a meaningful equity stake in the market leading U.S. online sports betting operation confirms the tremendous value Fox has created as a first mover media partner in the U.S. sports betting landscape.”

    Sports betting has continued to grow in the U.S. as more states bring legal sports betting online — as of Nov. 1, 33 states allow some form of sports betting, with California having two measures on its ballot to legalize it.

    That has pushed up revenues as well. Commercial sports betting revenue nationally through August was $3.97 billion, up nearly 70% year over year, according to data from the American Gaming Association.

    But that continued growth hasn’t benefitted all public sports betting companies. DraftKings stock posted its worst-ever decline on Friday after the company reported monthly customer growth that fell short of estimates even as it revised its revenue forecast upwards. DraftKings, which is down more than 59% year-to-date, is now valued at just over $5 billion.

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  • Johnny Depp Files Appellate Brief Asking Court to Reverse One Count of Defamation

    Johnny Depp Files Appellate Brief Asking Court to Reverse One Count of Defamation

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    In an appellate brief filed this week, Johnny Depp’s legal team is arguing that the jury got it right in his defamation trial against Amber Heard—except when it came to her countersuit, where they found he had defamed his ex-wife through his lawyer.

    “This Court should reverse the judgment on Ms. Heard’s Counterclaim as to the April 27 Waldman Statement, but should otherwise affirm the judgment in Mr. Depp’s favor,” Depp’s legal team writes in the brief (Deadline has published the entire filing).

    The jury awarded Heard $2 million in damages for her countersuit, argued simultaneously in court, over one of three statements that Depp’s lawyer Adam Waldman had made. In the statement deemed defamatory, which was given to the Daily Mail in 2020, Waldman said that Heard’s claims of abuse were a “hoax” (Waldman gave all three statements in light of a similar defamation case involving Heard that was underway in the UK at the time, which Depp eventually lost). Heard’s team called Depp “vicariously liable” for his representation’s statements, and the jury agreed in that one case. 

    Depp’s team is saying that the jury did everything perfectly by ruling in favor of Depp’s side on the three counts of defamation in his suit—but that it made a mistake in regard to the one countersuit claim. “Ms. Heard presented no evidence at trial that Mr. Depp was personally involved in directing or making any of the three Waldman Statements,” Depp’s lawyers argue. “Indeed, Mr. Depp testified that he had never even seen the Waldman Statements prior to the filing of the Counterclaim in August of 2020.”

    The brief adds that Heard “failed to present evidence that Mr. Waldman acted with actual malice when he made the April 27 Statement.” 

    The damages awarded to Heard for Waldman’s statement are paltry compared to those awarded to Depp, which ultimately totaled $10.35 million. In the trial, which Depp filed suit for in 2019 and which ended this past June, some three years later, the actor claimed a 2018 op-ed written by Heard in support of the Violence Against Women Act—and in coordination with the ACLU—defamed him in three places (Heard was an ACLU ambassador at the time). 

    In the piece, while arguing in favor of reauthorizing the legislation, Heard wrote briefly of her personal relationship to domestic abuse but did not refer to Depp by name. Depp successfully claimed that readers could infer she was talking about him in two of its sentences and in its headline, “Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence—and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.”

    The jury sided with Depp on all three counts. Heard has since appealed the decision, filing her 16-point grounds for appeal last month; the filing also addressed the confusing outcome that the jury found the two actors had defamed each other. 

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    Kenzie Bryant

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