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Appeals court rules against Bagram detainees
Lawyer Media News |
2010/05/24 03:04
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| Detainees at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their imprisonment the way detainees in Guantanamo Bay have, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in a victory for the Obama administration.pThree appeals court judges said in an unanimous decision that because Afghanistan is a war zone and that the United States in effect has sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay swing the balance against the detainees./ppUnlike Guantanamo Bay, it is undisputed that Bagram, indeed the entire nation of Afghanistan, remains a theater of war, the judges said in turning aside the requests of a Tunisian and two Yemeni prisoners./ppIn the case of Guantanamo Bay detainees, who do have the right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts, the United States has maintained its total control of the Guantanamo Bay facility for over a century, even in the face of a hostile government, the court noted./p |
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CANCER CLUSTER TRIAL APPROACHES
Lawyer Media News |
2010/05/17 09:25
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p style=text-align: center; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none class=MsoNormal align=centerstrong style=mso-bidi-font-weight: normalspan style=line-height: 200%; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0ptfont face=Times New Romanfont size=3CDC, COUNTY AND ILLINOIS STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT REPORTS ARE “INADMISSIBLE,” JUDGE RULES;/font o:p/o:p/font/span/strong/ppA state court judge is barring from evidence studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Illinois Department of Health, and the McHenry County Health Department in what is believed to be the largest brain cancer cluster cases in the U.S. courts. The first trial in the group of 31 cases is to begin here on June 7. /ppCourt of Common Pleas Judge Allan Tereshko last week ruled against Rohm amp; Haas/Dow Chemical, the defendant, deciding that the public health epidemiological studies are “irrelevant” to the case and “can only serve as a source of confusion and misdirection.”/ppThe brain cancer cluster victims from McCullom Lake, Illinois, are asserting that Philadelphia-based Rohm amp; Haas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow, poisoned the air and groundwater in the McCullom Lake community with vinyl chloride (among other toxic chemicals) discharged from its chemical-manufacturing plant into an unlined waste pit near their homes. The Plaintiffs allege that prolonged exposure caused them to contract rare malignant brain cancers and brain tumors; 10 of the victims have died./ppThe first three brain cancer victims – next-door neighbors who were each diagnosed with malignant brain cancer within the same year – filed suit in April 2006.nbsp; Less than a month later, the McHenry Health Department, using outdated cancer-rate data (based on zip codes) for the area that includes McCullom Lake, told local residents there was no epidemiological evidence of a brain cancer cluster.nbsp; McCullom Lake’s population is only about 1,000 people; the population of its zip-code region is roughly 50,000. nbsp; Later, the state Department of Health announced that more recent data showed that there was no epidemiological evidence of a brain cancer cluster in McHenry County – population more than 300,000.nbsp; Under public pressure, the county government then asked the CDC to review the analyses of the two health departments.nbsp; /ppThe Court’s order comes after attorneys for Rohm and Haas/Dow have claimed in pre-trial proceedings and in the news media that no public agency has found a brain cancer cluster in McCullom Lake.nbsp; Their statements rely on the flawed studies that the judge has now ruled inadmissible, according to Aaron J. Freiwald, lead trial attorney for the plaintiffs. /pp“The studies cited by the defendant were about as valid in this case as if you did a study of brain cancer rates in the entire state of Illinois or in all of the Western Hemisphere,” Freiwald said.nbsp; “They, too, wouldn’t tell you anything about brain cancer rates in McCullom Lake. When you do the math, using reliable, objective data, there is no escaping the fact there was and is a cancer cluster in McCullom Lake Village.”/ppThe trial Court, in granting Plaintiff’s Motion to Preclude evidence of the studies, noted that the studies supported by the defendants “do not attempt to discretely address the pattern of brain cancer represented in the significantly smaller subset which is the Village.” /ppThe first brain cancer cluster case to go to trial will be on behalf of Joanne Branham, who lived with her husband Franklin Delano Branham in McCullom Lake for 30 years.nbsp; Mr. Branham was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a lethal form of brain cancer, in 2004, just a few years after he and Joanne relocated to Apache Junction, Arizona, near Phoenix. He died just one month after brain surgery.nbsp; /ppJury selection is scheduled for June 3rd.nbsp;
Contacts:
Aaron J. Freiwald, Esq.
a href=mailto:ajf@layserfreiwald.comfont color=#336699ajf@layserfreiwald.com/font/a
215.875.8000
Stephan Rosenfeld (for Layser amp; Freiwald)
215.514.4101
a href=mailto:steph@idadvisors.comfont color=#336699steph@idadvisors.com/font/a/p |
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US lawmaker urges action on Russian lawyer's death
Lawyer Media News |
2010/04/28 07:53
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pA U.S. senator urged the State Department on Monday to deny entry to the United States for all Russian officials allegedly responsible for the prison death of a lawyer./ppSergey Magnitsky died in November after spending almost a year in jail. He was awaiting trial on tax-evasion charges linked to his work with a British investor barred from Russia because of allegations he was a security risk./ppSen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., released a letter he wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her to deny entry to the United States of several senior officials from the Russian Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service and the Federal Tax Service./ppMagnitsky's colleagues and attorney believe the public officials listed by Cardin were involved in the lawyer's death./ppWe can take the concrete action to ensure those public officials and others who share responsibility for this crime should be denied entry visas to the United States, Cardin wrote. Since the death, a number of prison officials have been fired, but no one has been prosecuted for his torture or death, nor for participating in the corruption he exposed.
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The Shuman Investigates Ormat Technologies Inc.
Lawyer Media News |
2010/04/19 07:38
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pThe Shuman Law Firm today announced that it is investigating potential breaches of fiduciary duty by certain officers and directors at Ormat Technologies Inc./ppThe investigation concerns whether the Company's directors and officers caused the Company to issue materially false and/or misleading financial statements. These statements eventually resulted in the Company restating its financial results. /ppOn February 24, 2010, Ormat disclosed that the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of the Company, upon recommendation of management and after discussions with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, had concluded that the Company's financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2008 required restatement and should no longer be relied upon. The Company restated its results because it improperly capitalized costs incurred in connection with the exploration and development of certain properties that it did not plan to develop. Upon this news, the price of Ormat stock declined more than 12.81% over the three days following the disclosure of this announcement. /ppIf you currently own shares of Ormat and are interested in discussing your rights as an Ormat shareholder, or have information relating to this investigation, please contact Kip B. Shuman or Rusty E. Glenn toll free at 866-974-8626 or email Mr. Shuman at a href=mailto:kip@shumanlawfirm.comkip@shumanlawfirm.com/a or Mr. Glenn at a href=mailto:rusty@shumanlawfirm.comrusty@shumanlawfirm.com/a.
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Wash. court: Illegal worker status inadmissible
Lawyer Media News |
2010/04/16 05:55
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| pThe Washington state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man's undocumented immigrant status in the U.S. should not have been introduced in a trial while the man sought damages in a negligence lawsuit against a construction contractor./ppIn a 7-2 ruling, the state's high court reversed a state Court of Appeals decision to uphold a jury verdict against Alex Salas./ppThe question before the court revolved around the issue of whether Salas' immigration status affects his claim for future wages, given that he is illegally in the country./ppThe jury found the construction contractor had been negligent but did not award any monetary damages to him./ppI knew justice wasn't being done, said Salas' attorney Robert B. Kornfeld. Here you have someone who violates (workers' safety) and they get away with it, because this guy was undocumented? That wasn't right./ppA Mexican native, Salas was working on a construction project in Seattle in 2002 when he fell from a ladder provided by Hi-Tech Erectors./p |
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Law firms seek to represent dead miners' families
Lawyer Media News |
2010/04/14 09:45
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pLittle more than a week after the disaster, competition among lawyers to represent the families of 29 men killed in the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster has begun./ppMassey Energy, the mine's owner, has deep pockets. Lawyers who represent the families could make millions in fees if they can prove company management showed a conscious and deliberate disregard for safety./ppMassey has repeatedly denied all such accusations./ppAt least one well-known local lawyer questioned whether it's proper to seek clients so soon after the tragedy and said he could not bring himself to do it./ppLaw firms take so-called wrongful death cases for free. Losers earn nothing. Winners typically receive one-third of the amount awarded by the court./ppOn Tuesday, before all of the miners who died in the blast were buried, Underwood Law Offices, headquartered in Huntington, ran an advertisement in the Charleston newspapers and papers in the coalfields urging families of the miners to call the firm.
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