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Friday, December 28, 2007 "Lacking lawyers, justice is denied; Attorneys often avoid medical malpractice suits because California limits 'pain and suffering' awards to $250,000": Saturday's edition of The Los Angeles Times will contain this article. Posted at 11:57 PM by Howard Bashman "Caps on personal-injury damages upheld by Ohio Supreme Court; Business group applauds ruling": This article appears today in The Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Toledo Blade reports today that "Limits on damages for pain are upheld by Ohio Supreme Court; Court affirms 2004 law." The Columbus Dispatch reports that "Cap on lawsuit damages upheld; Right to a jury trial does not rule out $350,000 limit." And The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that "Court upholds cap on damages; Max for pain and suffering is $350,000." My earlier coverage of yesterday's ruling of the Supreme Court of Ohio appears at this link. Available online from law.com: Tony Mauro reports that "Small Firm Business Attorney Tapped to Argue High Court Lethal-Injection Case; Choice of veteran Supreme Court advocate reflects trend by states." And in other news, "9th Circuit Switches Gears on UPS Drivers in Closely Watched Class Action; 15-judge panel comes up with a new 'business necessity' standard for employers faced with ADA litigation." My earlier coverage of today's en banc Ninth Circuit ruling appears at this link. Jurisprudence essays available online at Slate: Dahlia Lithwick has an essay entitled "Legal Fictions: The Bush administration's dumbest legal arguments of the year." And Niko Karvounis has an essay entitled "Capital Opportunity: Democrats could safely champion death-penalty reform--why aren't they?" "Hicks released from Yatala - but it's freedom at a price": The Advertiser of Adelaide, Australia provides a news update that begins, "Confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks has been released from an Adelaide jail - but has left dealing with the media to his father and lawyer. The 32-year-old walked out of the Yatala prison in Adelaide's north at 8.17am. Hicks has been in custody since being captured among Taliban forces in Afghanistan, in December 2001." And The Associated Press reports that "Australian Guantanamo Convict Released." It's not every day that you see an opinion involving a conviction for possession of child pornography where the images in question were created by the "victim" at the victim's suggestion and then sold by the victim to the defendant in a transaction the victim proposed: A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued this ruling today. These facts, among others, explain why the appellate court in this decision affirms a sentence that is substantially below the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range. Posted at 05:12 PM by Howard Bashman "Even litigation spawning multiple Roman numeral suffixes must come to an end." If today's ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Doe v. Chao marks the end of that case, the litigation will have concluded at Doe VII. Posted at 04:55 PM by Howard Bashman Second Circuit rejects challenges to the use of an anonymous jury and the removal for cause of certain jurors opposed to the death penalty based only on responses to a written questionnaire in a case where the death-qualified jury ended up imposing a life sentence: You can access today's lengthy ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit at this link. Posted at 04:00 PM by Howard Bashman "$156M Terrorism Damage Award Thrown Out": The Associated Press provides this report. And the Anti-Defamation League has issued a press release entitled "ADL Disappointed With Overturn of Landmark Anti-Terrorism Judgment." My earlier coverage of today's Seventh Circuit ruling appears at this link. You can access via this link the briefs filed on appeal. The case was orally argued a little over two years ago, and you can download the oral argument audio in three parts via this link. Fifteen-judge en banc Ninth Circuit panel sets aside injunction that would have required United Parcel Service to hire hearing-impaired drivers to operate local delivery vans: You can access today's en banc ruling at this link. In October 2006, a unanimous three-judge Ninth Circuit panel had affirmed the injunction, holding that the company's refusal to hire the hearing-impaired to make local deliveries violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. In covering that ruling, Bob Egelko of The San Francisco Chronicle had an article headlined "Deaf drivers due a chance at UPS jobs, court says; Some may be as safe as rivals with normal hearing, ruling holds." Partially divided three-judge Seventh Circuit panel sets aside $156 million judgment awarded to parents of teenager randomly shot to death in Israel by gunmen believed to be acting on behalf of the terrorist organization Hamas: You can access today's 102-page ruling at this link. The majority has ruled that the federal district court erred in holding that the defendants were liable on plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. The end result is that the case is remanded for further proceedings. Before summarizing its holdings, the majority opinion concludes: Belief, assumption, and speculation are no substitutes for evidence in a court of law. However the plaintiffs might establish a line of proof connecting the defendants with the murder of David Boim, the law demands that they demonstrate such a nexus before any defendant may be held liable for David's death. We must resist the temptation to gloss over error, admit spurious evidence, and assume facts not adequately proved simply to side with the face of innocence and against the face of terrorism. Our endeavor to adhere to the dictates of law that this great nation has embodied since its founding must persevere, no matter how great our desire to hold someone accountable for the unspeakably evil acts that ended David Boim's life and created a lifetime of grief not only for the Boims but also for every other family scarred by terrorism.Circuit Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner wrote the majority opinion, in which Circuit Judge Diane P. Wood joined. In his opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, Circuit Judge Terence T. Evans explains that he would have affirmed the district court's judgment except as to one defedant. Update: Coincidentally, earlier this month the publication Washington Jewish Week published an article headlined "Lewin and Lewin make their mark." According to the article, "The Lewins currently represent the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and are working on a number of other Jewish-related cases, such as the Boim case, in which, on behalf of a victim of a Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, they successfully sued the Holy Land Foundation and two other U.S. charities for providing funding to the terrorist organization. They are waiting for the results of an appeal, but the legal theory they developed has been adopted by a number of other terror victims since." "Galle on 'The Tax Law Made Me Crazy' Defense Approved by the 9th Circuit in Cohen": This post appears today at "TaxProf Blog." My earlier coverage of Wednesday's Ninth Circuit ruling appears at this link. Part man, part beast: In case you are concerned that today's ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit involving xenotransplantation -- which the opinion describes as "a relatively new procedure whereby animal organs or tissues are transplanted to the human body" -- would be too fascinating to pass-up, do not despair. In fact, all that the decision addresses is whether the organization known as Campaign for Responsible Transplantation (whose web site features this lovely image) is entitled to recover attorneys' fees from the Food and Drug Administration pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. Nevertheless, please do keep xenotransplantation in mind the next time you sit down to play Scrabble. You can access many of the trial court filings in the case via this link. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania grants review to decide "[w]hether accessing and viewing child pornography over the internet constitutes 'control' of such pornography under 18 Pa.C.S. sec. 6312(d)": You can access Monday's order of Pennsylvania's highest court at this link. The case in which review was granted is captioned Commonwealth v. Diodoro. In November 2006, I had this post reporting on the decision of a unanimous three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania setting aside the defendant's conviction. In December 2006, I criticized that decision in an installment of my weekly "On Appeal" column headlined "Just Looking: Should Internet Ignorance Be a Defense to Child Porn Charges?" Thereafter, the Pa. Superior Court granted reargument en banc. Next, in August 2007, a nine-judge en banc panel of the Pa. Superior Court affirmed the defendant's conviction by means of a 7-2 ruling that you can access here. And now the Pa. Supreme Court has agreed to have the final word on the matter. "Guantanamo Terror Convict to Be Set Free": The Associated Press provides a report that begins, "Convicted terror supporter David Hicks was due to walk free Saturday after more than six years of captivity in Guantanamo Bay and Australia, but will face strict controls on his movements after a court found he was still a security risk." Posted at 07:30 AM by Howard Bashman "Entertainer and Fighter Is Clemens's Lead Lawyer": This profile of attorney Rusty Hardin appears today in The New York Times. The article notes that Hardin also represents the woman who is accusing U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent of sexual assault. Posted at 07:25 AM by Howard Bashman "Protection and Pay for Federal Judges": The New York Times contains this editorial today. Posted at 07:20 AM by Howard Bashman "Affirmative action may be on ballots; Campaign in five states seeks end of preferences": This front page article appears today in USA Today. Posted at 07:11 AM by Howard Bashman  
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