Month: April 2017
Orlando Bail Bonds – US Supreme Court Strengthens Fashion Copyright
Source : Apparel News
By : Andrew Asch
Category : Orlando Bail Bond , Orlando Bail Bonds
The fashion business might become more litigious, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, according to a discussion about the court’s decision at law firm Freeman Freeman & Smiley LLP in Los Angeles’ Century City district. The Supreme Court made a decision March 22 on the case Star Athletica L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands Inc. At issue in the case was whether Varsity Brands could copyright an element of a cheerleading uniform such as a chevron or a stripe. The court voted 6–2 in favor of Varsity Brands, a Memphis, Tenn.–headquartered company that is the dominant manufacturer of cheerleading uniforms. It had sales of $1.2 billion in 2014, according to a statement from company owners Charlesbank Capital Partners.
On the day of the decision, Varsity Brands Chairman and Founder Jeff Webb said that the court ruling was a vindication for designers. “We were honored to serve as advocates and fighters for the basic idea that designers everywhere can create excellent work and make investments in their future without fear of having it stolen or copied,” Webb said in a statement. The Council of Fashion Designers of America wrote an amicus brief supporting Varsity Brands’ case. Todd M. Lander, an intellectual-property litigator with Freeman Freeman & Smiley, said that the decision would set the tone for fashion copyright for years. “I don’t see in the ensuing few years any real movement in the courts to restrict protection in textile designs,” he said during a March 23 discussion of the case at Freeman Freeman & Smiley’s office, which offers a panoramic view of West Los Angeles stretching to downtown. “If you are a manufacturer, you should assume that designs are protected irrespective of how generic or ubiquitous you believe designs are in the marketplace. If you lend money to manufacturers, this has become a cost of business. This will be part of the apparel industry for the foreseeable future.”
Lander said that litigation over textile copyright has dramatically increased in the past 15 years. Robert Ezra, head of Freeman Freeman & Smiley’s Fashion Law department, said that the recent decision might result in an uptick of copyright litigation. “Copyright protection has been expanded,” Ezra said. “The more rights a holder has, the more likelihood that there is a violation of those rights.”
During the case, lawyers for Star Athletica, a St. Louis–area company that also makes cheerleader uniforms, argued that design details such as chevrons, zigzags and stripes could not be separated from cheerleading uniforms. These details have no separate identities and cannot be protected by copyright. If details are taken away, the cheerleading uniform would be nothing but a dress, Star Athletica’s attorneys said. According to federal law, details from a garment must be recognizable by themselves, or must be able to stand alone from the garment, in order to be considered worthy of a copyright. While Star Athletica said that stripes, chevrons and other details on cheerleader uniforms were generic and could not be protected by copyright, Varsity Brands’ lawyers argued stripes, chevrons and other markings defined and created points of difference between cheerleading uniforms. Take the details away, a cheerleading uniform could be identified as a cheerleading uniform. Other manufacturers could make a garment with the same cheerleader’s silhouette and have it be identified as a cheerleader’s uniform. But companies such as Varsity Brands can copyright art details and protect them, Varsity Brands’ lawyers contended. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion of the court. “Just as two-dimensional fine art correlates to the shape of the canvas on which it is painted, two-dimensional applied art correlates to the contours of the article on which it is applied. The only feature of respondents’ cheerleading uniform eligible for a copyright is the two-dimensional applied art on the surface of the uniforms,” Thomas wrote. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer dissented from the opinion.
Ilse Metchek, president of the Los Angeles–based California Fashion Association, said that the ruling strengthens current law and reinforces the value of a copyright. “You cannot copyright the shape and pattern work of a garment,” she said, adding that the new ruling doesn’t deviate from existing copyright law, which protects original artwork. “It reestablishes the principle that art is protectable.” Companies looking to protect themselves from litigation might design their own prints, Freeman Freeman & Smiley’s Ezra said. A company could also confirm that fabric suppliers own the prints they sell and possess registration for them. If a company is willing to secure those working with the print against legal responsibility, the company has confidence in using the product.“There is a lot of clip art that is not copyrighted,” Ezra said. “If you need a tulip, go find a tulip in clip art. There are a lot of clip-art designs in the public domain.”
Read more here: apparelnews.net/news/2017/mar/30/us-supreme-court-strengthens-fashion-copyright/
Orlando Bail Bond – Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Microsoft v. Baker To Address
Source : Lexology News
By : Mayer Brown LLP
Category : Orlando Bail Bond , Orlando Bail Bonds
Earlier today, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, a case that raises complicated questions about federal appellate jurisdiction and Article III standing, but ultimately involves an important practical question in class action litigation: Can a named plaintiff engineer a right to an immediate appeal of the denial of class certification by voluntarily dismissing his or her claims with prejudice and appealing from the resulting judgment? From the argument, it was clear that a number of Justices believe that the answer should be “no.” As Justice Ginsburg pointed out several times, the committee charged with amending the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure crafted Rule 23(f) to give courts discretion to decide whether to allow immediate appeals of orders granting or denying class certification. But plaintiffs maintain that they should be free to challenge the denial of certification immediately by appealing from what their counsel described as a “manufactured final judgment.” In other words, as Justice Ginsburg put it, “any time … that a class action is brought against a corporation, [Rule] 23(f) is out the window.” As discussed below, there are many ways in which the Court could decide the issue. That said, businesses should be cautiously optimistic that the Court will reverse the Ninth Circuit and thus reject a dysfunctional regime in which class-action plaintiffs can appeal the denial of class certification while defendants remain able to appeal orders granting class certification only by grace.
Background
As most lawyers who litigate class actions know, the decision whether to certify a class is often the make-or-break decision in a class-action lawsuit. If a district court certifies a class—whether correctly or not—a defendant is far more likely to settle on a class-wide basis to avoid the risks of a potentially massive verdict at trial (whether the claims have merit or not). Conversely, if a district court denies class certification (whether rightly or wrongly), a named plaintiff in a class action must decide whether to pursue his or her individual claim in order to obtain a final judgment on the merits and appeal the denial of class certification or instead either abandon the claim or (more typically) accept an individual settlement, bringing the case to a close. Given these stakes, it’s unsurprising that both plaintiffs and defendants would prefer an unfettered right to immediately appeal an adverse decision concerning class certification. But nearly 40 years ago, the Supreme Court held in Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay that orders granting or denying class certification are not “final” orders within the meaning of 28 USC § 1291, the statute that gives the federal courts of appeals jurisdiction over “appeals from all final decisions of the district courts[.]”
In response, Rule 23 was amended in 1998 to add Rule 23(f), which authorizes courts of appeals to allow permissive immediate appeals of orders granting or denying class certification. The courts of appeals have sole discretion whether to hear such appeals, and the different circuits exercise this discretion with varying degrees of enthusiasm. But it is clear that Rule 23(f) does not, by its terms or in practice, permit automatic interlocutory appeals of orders granting or denying class certification. Defendants are largely stuck with this state of affairs; if a class is certified and their attempt to appeal under Rule 23(f) fails, they must either face a class-wide trial or settle the case. But plaintiffs’ counsel have developed a tactic for securing immediate appeals that the Ninth Circuit has countenanced. Specifically, if a district court denies class certification, and the plaintiff’s Rule 23(f) appeal fails, the plaintiff then seeks a voluntary dismissal with prejudice—ordinarily viewed as surrendering in full—then files an appeal aimed at challenging the order denying class certification, contending that the dismissal amounted to a “final” judgment within the meaning of Section 1291. In the process, the plaintiff leapfrogs over a trial on the merits of his or her own claims. In practical terms, then, the plaintiff has executed an end-run around Rule 23(f). Is that permissible? Today’s arguments in Microsoft Corp. v. Baker may answer that question. The issue presented in Baker, as formulated by the Court, is: “Whether a federal court of appeals has jurisdiction under both Article III and 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to review an order denying class certification after the named plaintiffs voluntarily dismiss their claims with prejudice.”
Procedural history
Baker involves the latest in a set of putative class actions about Microsoft’s popular Xbox 360 video game console. In these cases, the plaintiffs contended that the Xbox 360 was designed in a manner that causes game discs to be scratched due to vibrations, in breach of both express and implied warranties. In the first round of cases, the district court denied class certification, the Ninth Circuit rejected a 23(f) appeal, and the individual cases were resolved individually. Subsequently, the plaintiffs in Baker, represented by the same plaintiffs’ counsel, filed a new suit. Microsoft won a motion to strike the class allegations, and the Ninth Circuit denied plaintiffs’ Rule 23(f) petition to appeal. This time, the plaintiffs dismissed their claims “with prejudice” with the goal of generating a seemingly “final” judgment that they could appeal to the Ninth Circuit as of right. The Ninth Circuit approved this tactic and, in analyzing class certification, reversed the district court’s decision, remanding the case for further consideration of the parties’ class certification arguments. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in early 2016, and (after the passing of Justice Scalia) announced that it would defer oral arguments until the following Term.
Discussion of oral argument
The theme I took away from today’s oral arguments was that many Justices seemed concerned with the use of a tactic that respondents’ own counsel characterized as a “manufactured final judgment.” As noted above, Justice Ginsburg pointed to Rule 23(f) repeatedly, stating, for example: She went on to say: “If the rule makers wanted to have these class action decisions go up on appeal as of right, they could have made it, or asked Congress to make it, one of the interlocutory orders that is immediately appealable, like a preliminary injunction. Along similar lines, Justice Breyer suggested that “looking to try to simplify procedure, we [could] say … people in your position [should] [a]sk the [c]ourt of appeals for permission under [Rule 23(f)]. Now, sometimes they’ll wrongfully deny it. Well, if they wrongly deny it, here’s what you do. Go litigate your case and lose, or give up”—for example, by accepting an adverse summary judgment on the merits—“and then appeal that final judgment for [defendants].”
Asked to identify his best case, counsel for respondents pointed to United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., in which the Government—the plaintiff in an antitrust case—had been ordered to produce a grand jury transcript in discovery. As Justice Kennedy pointed out, “the Court was very careful to say when the government proposed dismissal for failure to obey [the order to turn over the transcript], it had lost on the merits.” He followed up telling respondents’ counsel: “That is not your case”—presumably because denial of class certification is not the same thing as losing on the merits. The issue of Article III standing received comparatively little express discussion, The Chief Justice seemed the most interested in the issue, telling respondents’ counsel: “The reversal that you’re looking for does not go to the merits of the judgment that you voluntarily agreed to have entered against you. … [T]hat’s what raises the Article III question. Nothing that you’re arguing on appeal is going to change the fact that you lose. …. [Y]ou told the district court to enter a judgment against you, so you can’t argue that it shouldn’t have done that.”To be sure, both sides received hard questions. Justice Breyer posited a hypothetical circumstance where the named plaintiff had only a claim for “10 cents”; if class certification were denied, Justice Breyer asked, “what is the plaintiff supposed to do?” Would the plaintiff’s counsel proceed to trial on “a claim that’s only going to be worth 10 cents, because, of that, he’s most likely to get no more than two cents for the lawyer himself”? And the Chief Justice noted that, in light of litigation costs, even a claim for $10,000 might not motivate a plaintiff who lost class certification to proceed to trial. In response, Microsoft’s counsel pointed out that (1) in fact, named plaintiffs often do proceed ahead with their individual claims when class certification has been denied; (2) the state-law claims at issue come with fee-shifting provisions that would provide attorneys’ fees for a prevailing individual plaintiff; and (3) “if the plaintiffs believe in their case, … there’s every reason to go ahead”—presumbly because after prevailing on the merits at trial, they could pursue a reversal of the order denying class certification.
Final thoughts
There is a legitimate policy debate over whether the approach taken by Rule 23(f)—authorizing only permissive interlocutory appeals of orders granting or denying class certification—is preferable to allowing either party aggrieved by a class certification order to have an automatic right to an immediate appeal (the proposed approach in the class action reform bill recently passed by the House of Representatives.) But an approach to appellate jurisdiction that gives only one side (plaintiffs and their counsel) the ability to secure an immediate appeal at will would unfairly increase the already outsized leverage that plaintiffs have in class-action litigation.
Read more here: lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e4aaa769-7e34-4b44-b75b-d013a5872fa9
Orlando Bail – A First Step Toward Legal PA Sports Betting? House Committee Unanimously Approves Bill
Source : Legal Sports Report News
By : Dustin Gouker
Category : Orange County Fl Bailbonds , Orlando Bail
Firast things first: the legislation in Pennsylvania — H 519 — is not like the New Jersey sports betting effort that is a direct affront to federal law. The federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act — PASPA — bans single-game wagering everywhere except for Nevada. The PA law — if enacted — only kicks in if the federal climate changes:
The Secretary of the Commonwealth shall, when Federal law is enacted or repealed or a Federal court decision is filed that affirms the authority of a state to regulate sports wagering, publish a notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin certifying the enactment or repeal or the filing of the decision.
In any event, a court challenge like NJ has staged in recent years would be pointless, as PA and NJ both reside in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, where New Jersey has lost at every step to date. NJ is appealing its case to the US Supreme Court. Pennsylvania passing sports betting legislation now would allow it to act quickly, should New Jersey win its case. The bill sets up a regulatory scheme if legal sports betting come a reality at the state level.
Sports betting bill moves, but what next in PA?
The PA sports betting bill — authored by Rep. Robert Matzie — won approval from the House Gaming Oversight Committee on Tuesday. Despite no one voting against the measure, it’s not clear if PA is ready to move forward on sports betting. The vote comes during a larger discussion about other new gambling measures in the state, which includes the possible regulation of daily fantasy sports and PA online casinos. The potential legalization of sports betting might just further muddy the waters for what has already been a contentious debate over the future of gaming in PA. There is a chance that the bill continues on its own track, goes nowhere, or gets lumped into the larger gaming expansion.
Other states and sports betting
Despite several states introducing sports betting measures this year, none of those have gained traction. The most promising efforts — in Michigan and West Virginia — likely would have created conflict with federal law like New Jersey. Those efforts have not seen any forward momentum, although sports betting was discussed in a hearing in Michigan.
Read more here: legalsportsreport.com/13820/pa-sports-betting-bill-2017/
Orange County Fl Bailbonds – Supreme Court rules for disabled girl, service dog
Source : USA Today News
By : Richard Wolf
Category : Orange County Fl Bailbonds , Orlando Bail
The proverb “every dog has its day” came true at the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the family of a 13-year-old girl with cerebral palsy and her goldendoodle, Wonder. In a case that was closely watched by the disability community, the high court ruled unanimously that Ehlena Fry’s family can pursue a lawsuit against her former public school district for denying access to her service dog.
Lower courts had ruled that the family first had to exhaust all administrative remedies under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act before seeking damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the justices ruled that if the family did not pursue a solution under IDEA, it can sidestep that process in search of its real goal: providing Ehlena with greater physical and emotional independence. “Nothing in the nature of the Frys’ suit suggests any implicit focus on the adequacy of (Ehlena’s) education,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote. “The Frys could have filed essentially the same complaint if a public library or theater had refused admittance to Wonder.”
Even so, the 8-0 ruling leaves open the possibility that a lower federal court still could require exhaustion of the IDEA administrative process, depending on further fact-finding. As often happens as court proceedings drag on, Ehlena was moved to a different Michigan elementary school that welcomed Wonder — now 10 and retired as a service dog — and even put the pooch’s mug shot in its yearbook. Over the years, the lawsuit against the Napoleon Community Schools became more about principle than keeping the girl and her goldendoodle together.
A number of justices had seemed sympathetic to the Frys’ argument during oral arguments in October. Forcing them to negotiate with school officials over Ehlena’s educational program seemed unfair, they said, when her education wasn’t the problem. Rather, the Frys wanted Wonder — not a human aide — to perform such tasks as helping Ehlena in the bathroom and through doorways. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer expressed concern that a decision in the Frys’ favor could allow families of children with disabilities to gain an advantage over school districts by threatening ADA lawsuits while negotiating their educational programs. But Roberts acknowledged that requiring the Frys to go through the IDEA process when their concerns were not about education was “a kind of charade.” The case was the first of two heard this term that could influence how schools handle children with disabilities. In January, the justices also appeared to side with the family of a Colorado student with autism seeking a more substantial education under the IDEA law. That case, likely to be decided this spring, could have a broader impact on thousands of students with disabilities.
Read more here: usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/22/supreme-court-disabled-girl-wonder-service-dog/98214948/
Orange County Fl Bail Bondsman – Supreme Court drug case prompts appeal for tolerance of judicial delays
Source : The Globeandmail News
By : Sean Fine – JUSTICE WRITER
Category : Orange County Fl Bail Bond , Orange County Fl Bail Bondsman
Less than a year after it set new time limits for criminal trials, the Supreme Court of Canada is being asked by federal prosecutors and several provinces to soften a ruling that has resulted in four charges of murder being thrown out for unreasonable delays. At a hearing Tuesday in the case of James Cody, an accused drug trafficker from Newfoundland and Labrador, the court will hear a plea from the federal prosecution service for tolerance of slow-moving cases that entered the system before the ruling last July – in a case known as R v. Jordan – created the new limits. Five provinces are intervening in the case in support of a more permissive view of delay. Three of them – Ontario, Alberta and Quebec – have seen judges throw out murder charges over delay, including a first-degree murder charge against a Montreal man dismissed on Friday, and a second-degree murder charge against another Montreal man whose wife died when her throat was slit. Manitoba and British Columbia are the other two provinces intervening.
The Cody case was scheduled, after multiple delays, to take five years to come to trial. The Supreme Court’s new time limit is exactly half that – 30 months, from charge to completion, for trials in Superior Court. But the court also said it would be unfair to apply the new rules to cases that were already well under way; it provided for a blend of new and old rules. Two months before Mr. Cody’s trial was to begin, he applied to the judge for a stay, saying his right to a timely trial had been violated. The trial judge agreed and dismissed the charges. But the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 decision, said the delay was reasonable and ordered a new trial. Mr. Cody appealed to the Supreme Court to restore the trial judge’s ruling.
The federal prosecution service argues that five years was reasonable in Mr. Cody’s case, under the old rules. “If the Crown had known that the law was going to be changed, it might have acted differently; it cannot now go back and change behaviour that was reasonable under the former law,” federal prosecutors, who handle drug cases, said in a legal filing to the Supreme Court. The hearing in the Cody case comes as the federal and provincial justice ministers prepare for an emergency meeting on Friday to look for solutions to clogged courts and dismissed cases. It is unlikely that a ruling will be made in time to influence discussions in that meeting, though the court occasionally rules on the same day as the hearing.
For the court, the Cody case is a test of its resolve to transform the justice system. In Jordan, the court’s majority in the 5-4 ruling was scathing about a “culture of complacency and delay” in the justice system, and said judges, defence lawyers, prosecutors and government all bore responsibility. “Unless you admit a case has been in the system too long, you will never get past the ‘culture of complacency,’” said Ottawa lawyer Michael Crystal, who is representing Mr. Cody before the Supreme Court. “It’s only when you say too long is too long – five years is too long – that you will be uncomfortable. It’s only when you have a target of 30 months that you become uncomfortable and you have to become more efficient.” Mr. Cody was charged in January, 2010, one of 13 people accused of being part of an alleged drug-trafficking ring between British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Complications arose during proceedings. His initial lawyer was named to the bench. An agreed statement of facts contained errors, and so did a judge’s pretrial ruling. Based on those errors, Mr. Cody’s defence counsel fought an extended battle to have the charges thrown out.
The case shows the difficulty judges are having in interpreting the Supreme Court’s rules for cases in the system before Jordan. Two appeal court judges said the actual delay had been just 16 months, after subtracting for delay that was permitted under the old rules, and delay caused by the defence. By contrast, a dissenting judge found there were 39 months of delay. The Jordan ruling sparked an uproar. In Alberta, prosecutors dropped 200 cases – including drunk driving and assaulting-police charges – saying that they did not have enough prosecutors to handle them all, and had to save their resources for serious cases. In Quebec, where the government is spending an extra $175-million over four years to hire more judges, prosecutors and court workers, Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée told The Globe and Mail that by the time prosecutors can set trial dates in superior court, the cases are already beyond the 30-month time limits. Ontario and Manitoba are trying to persuade Ottawa to drop most or all preliminary inquiries. The situation in the Cody case echoes that of the Supreme Court’s last major attempt to crack down on court delay. In 1990, it set time guidelines in R v. Askov, resulting in nearly 50,000 criminal charges being thrown out in Ontario alone; then in R v. Morin, 18 months later, the court eased off, allowing for more flexibility. And the court was clear in Jordan that it did not wish to see a repeat of the chaos caused by Askov, which is why it allowed for the old rules still to be in force to some extent.
Read more here: theglobeandmail.com/news/national/supreme-court-drug-case-prompts-appeal-for-tolerance-of-judicial-delays/article34793611/
Orange County Fl Bail Bond – Corporations and rivers now have rights. Animals are next
Source : Philly News
By : Stu Bykofsky
Category : Orange County Fl Bail Bond , Orange County Fl Bail Bondsman
In a stunning move, India last month granted “living person” status to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, making polluting the rivers akin to assaulting a human. A week earlier, New Zealand made the Whanganui River a “living entity” with legal rights. Sound crazy? Maybe less so when you remember that in the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby cases, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled companies are like people and have certain rights.
If rivers and businesses have rights, why not animals, ask animal advocates excited by the river rulings.“Legal personhood is not determined by biology, but by public policy,” argues Steven Wise, founder of the Nonhuman Rights Project. For decades he has been a lawyer for what he calls “nonhuman clients.” Existing animal welfare statutes, he says, “don’t provide recourse against the inherent cruelty of depriving self-aware, autonomous beings of their freedom, the company of others of their kind and their natural habitats.” His goal is to pry open the law.
One success last year was the Oregon Supreme Court, contrary to the usual legal view, ruling that dogs are more than “property.” Nonjudicial successes included getting elephants out of the Ringling Bros. circus and killer whales out of Sea World, reflecting Americans’ changing attitudes toward captive animals. Achieving “rights” for animals is poised to be the next great social revolution, but no one is suggesting that animals get the right to vote or to drive. The “rights” would be limited, like those enjoyed by children. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is considered extremist by some, yet founder Ingrid Newkirk’s definition of “rights” is moderate: “The decent, commonsense idea that if a living being can suffer, whether child or Chihuahua, man or mouse, it is wrong to impose that suffering on them needlessly,” she tells me.
Some animals do enjoy limited “rights,” says Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, “including not to be tortured or harmed in a malicious way. Others have the ‘right’ not to be confined in small cages and crates.” Achieving those protections was painful and slow.
If “rights” were conferred, it would raise ethical considerations. Could we raise animals as food?
Yes, we could, says Tara Zuardo, a lawyer for the Animal Welfare Institute. “There are countries like Germany that have animals written into the constitution, but they still raise animals for food,” using humane methods. “We predict that courts will increasingly issue decisions declaring that animals are not merely property and deserve certain legal rights,” she says. A 1992 amendment to the Swiss Constitution recognized animals as “beings” instead of “things,” and in 2008 a committee of the Spanish Parliament conferred legal rights on great apes.
If a river has rights, how can they be denied to animals, which are sentient, and capable of feeling emotions such as joy, fear, loneliness?
“There is a trend toward recognizing that humans aren’t the be-all and end-all for those who deserve protection,” says Matthew Liebman, director of litigation for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. He cites cases around the world, from Spain to Argentina — where great apes have been accorded special protections and some formal “rights.” For decades, the Nonhuman Rights Project has been going to court to secure rights for chimpanzees, but it hasn’t yet achieved a breakthrough. It came close when it sued to have set free Leo and Hercules, two chimpanzees being held for research at Stony Brook University. The case stalled in 2015 when Stony Brook returned the chimps to the University of Louisiana, out of the court’s jurisdiction. PETA is in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that a chimp named Naruto holds the rights to pictures he took of himself using a camera set up and left in a forest.
Sound crazy? As crazy as Ringling giving up elephants?
Humans and chimpanzees share about 98 percent of the same DNA, and some humans have been freaked out ever since Charles Darwin wrote that humans are descended from apes.
Read more here: philly.com/philly/columnists/stu_bykofsky/If-corporations-and-rivers-have-human-rights-why-not-animals-.html
Bail In Orlando Fl – High Court: Tel Aviv Stores to Remain Open on Shabbat
Source : Haaretz News
By : llan Lior
Category : Bail In Orlando , Bail In Orlando Fl
The High Court of Justice approved on Wednesday Tel Aviv bylaws that would allow around 160 grocery and convenience stores to open on the Jewish Sabbath in three areas of the city. The stores will be allowed to open on the Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sunset on Saturday, in the Jaffa Port, Tel Aviv Port and the Old Railway Station (Hatachana).
The three-justice panel rejected the government’s request for another extension until Interior Minister Arye Dery decides whether to approve the bylaw. Supreme Court President Justice Miriam Naor and justices Esther Hayut and Daphne Barak-Erez unanimously ruled that the Tel Aviv bylaws are “proportional” and should be published in the official government gazette, after which they will become law. In their ruling, the justices criticized the government’s delaying tactics in which it avoided making a decision on the issue for the two and a half years since the Tel Aviv city council passed the bylaws.
The High Court of Justice also ruled that the government failed to meet a number of its commitments to reach a final decision on the bylaws. As a result, the court said this indecision must be viewed as a decision in practice to reject the bylaws without any explanation, which is invalid, wrote Naor.
The limited number of areas where stores may open was also balanced, which “take into consideration the various rights, the character of the city and the interests of the status of the Sabbath day,” she said. These compounds have clearly delineated borders and are separate from residential areas.
The four different interior ministers, Sa’ar, Gilad Erdan, Silvan Shalom and Dery, who served in the two and a half years since the bylaws were passed have all avoided making a final decision on approving the new regulations. So far, the government has explained this delay by the possibility of merging the city of Tel Aviv with its southern neighbor Bat Yam, and asking the court to wait until such a merger was concluded. Dery, the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said the decision was a breach of the religious status quo. He said that just before Passover last week he decided to overrule the bylaws and had intended on announcing it in the next few days. The decision will seriously harm the “holy Sabbath and the character of the Jewish People.” “I plan on meeting with [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] soon along with members of the United Torah Judaism [party], and other ministers and members of Knesset for whom the Sabbath is important, and protest the serious harm to the status quo on the matter of the Sabbath,” said Dery. “We will act to restore the status quo with all available means.”
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai said “the city of Tel Aviv was always free and will remain free.” Different and diverse communities live in the city and live together with mutual tolerance, he added. The new legal arrangements are meant to express this balance between observing the Sabbath as a day of rest and the needs of residents and the ability to allow everyone to enjoy their day of rest as they so desire, Huldai said. Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, the chairman of United Torah Judaism, spoke out against the High Court ruling, calling it a severe attack on the Jewish character of Israel. “This is the continuation of the gross judicial intervention in the values of religion and Jewish law, which leaves no choice but to advance a legal move to bypass the High Court of Justice in order to prevent the continued erosion of the Jewish tradition and religion in Israel.” Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Galon praised the decision, saying it is important approval of the right of the residents of Tel Aviv to decide for themselves in a democratic manner, as well as for the authority of the city to pass bylaws accordingly. “Today, sanity overcame the voices aspiring to establish a halakha state in Israel,” said Galon, referring to Jewish religious law. MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) said the government has once again forced the High Court to decide on matters of the character of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. When the legislator is negligent in carrying out his duty he leaves no choice except for the High Court to decide on fundamental issues of our lives in Israel. “It is a good thing there are judges in Jerusalem,” said Stern.
Read more here: haaretz.com/.premium-1.784440
Bail In Orlando – How ‘ideologically uniform’ is the legal academy?
Source : Washington Post News
By : Jonathan H. Adler
Category : Bail In Orlando , Bail In Orlando Fl
How much more liberal are law professors than members of the legal profession? A new paper by Adam Bonica (Stanford University), Adam S. Chilton (University of Chicago), Kyle Rozema (Northwestern University) and Maya Sen (Harvard University), “The Legal Academy’s Ideological Uniformity,” provides some answers. Their bottom line: The legal academy is significantly more liberal than the legal profession, which is notable because the legal profession itself is more liberal than the public at large. Here is how the authors summarize some of their findings: We find that approximately 15% of law professors are conservative and that only approximately one out of every twenty law schools have more conservative law professors than liberal ones. In addition, we find that these patterns vary, with higher-ranked schools having an even smaller presence of conservative law professors. We then compare the ideological balance of the legal academy to that of the legal profession. Compared to the 15% of law professors that are conservative, 35% of lawyers overall are conservative. Law professors are more liberal than graduates of top 14 law schools, lawyers working at the largest law firms, former federal law clerks, and federal judges. Although we find that professors are more liberal than the alumni at all but a handful of law schools, there is a strong relationship between the ideologies of professors from a law school and the ideologies of alumni from that school. However, this relationship is weaker for schools with more conservative alumni.
These findings are based upon an examination of reported political donations. While this is an admittedly imperfect measure of ideology, it does allow for comparisons across population groups. Moreover, reliance on political donations is less selective than one might think, as the authors report that more than 60 percent of law professors made reported political donations between 1979 and 2014. Although the authors believe that other factors explain some of the split between the ideology of legal academics and legal practitioners, even after accounting for such factors, they find that law professors are significantly more liberal than lawyers generally. Does this matter? I’ve certainly argued that the ideological uniformity of legal academia affects teaching and scholarship (most recently here). The authors of this study suggest that it could also affect the political relevance and influence of law professors. They write: The ideological tilt of the legal academy has potentially broad implications. For instance, because law professors are overwhelmingly liberal, groups of law professors advocating for liberal positions can easily be marginalized. This letter was criticized by some as simply representing the views of the left leaning legal academy . . . . To assess … these criticisms, we match the signatories of the letter to our sample of law professor ideology, and find that only 4% of the signatories that appear in our data are conservative. This raises the question of whether the reception to the letter would have been different had more conservative law professors signed the letter. Although we have no way to answer this question, the endeavor might have been given more credence had more conservative professors participated in the letter: observers might have been less likely to expect Republican-leaning law professors to oppose Sessions ideologically, thus making such criticisms more powerful and effective. We argue that this example illustrates that the legal academy’s ideological uniformity limits its political credibility.
One could extend this analysis to current controversies at state universities, such as proposed measures to curtail tenure or limit the activities of legal clinics and academic centers at state universities. Appeals to “academic freedom” are less convincing when the only ones in a position to benefit from such principles sit on one side of the aisle. Writing in opposition to a proposed measure in North Carolina that would prohibit the University of North Carolina School of Law’s Center for Civil Rights from engaging in litigation, Gene Nichol suggested the center’s critics are “nakedly ideological” because they would have no problem with law school programs enlisting students in efforts to protect gun rights or religious liberty. He might be right, but how would we know? It’s not as if UNC’s law school has any such programs, or even a critical mass of right-leaning faculty members. I agree with much that Nichol has to say in his piece, but I also suspect his arguments would be more persuasive to a Republican-dominated state legislature if there were more ideological diversity on UNC’s law faculty and within the law school’s academic programming. Assuming there is substantial ideological uniformity in the legal academy, and that this is a problem, there remains the problem of what to do about it. Here the authors of the above-mentioned study note that remedial measures, such as some sort of “affirmative action” for right-leaning faculty, could compromise efforts to advance other values. I agree. However well-intentioned, heavy-handed efforts to impose “balance” on law school faculties could do more harm than good. I believe law schools should seek to encourage more viewpoint diversity within their ranks, but I oppose any such efforts that involve quotas or rigid requirements. This Iowa proposal to require partisan balance in university hiring, for example, strikes me as a supremely bad idea. In my opinion, the way forward begins with efforts to cultivate an appreciation of the value of differing perspectives and viewpoints and a broader recognition that ideological uniformity undermines effective legal education. The first step toward a solution is recognizing there’s a problem.
Read more here: washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/17/how-ideologically-uniform-is-the-legal-academy/
Bail Bondsman In Orlando Fl – State Supreme Court to review law eliminating pension benefit
Source : SF Gate News
By : Bob Egelko
Category : Bail Bondsman In Orlando , Bail Bondsman In Orlando Fl
The state Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to review the legality of 2013 legislation, challenged by labor unions, that eliminated a pension benefit for hundreds of thousands of state and local government employees in California. The justices voted unanimously to grant a hearing to the unions and decide whether the law violated the rights of employees to the pension benefits that were available when they were hired.
This benefit, which lawmakers had approved in 2003, allowed employees with at least five years of service to purchase up to five years of additional credits before retiring. A worker who retired after 20 years, for example, could pay for the right to receive a pension based on 25 years of contributions. The 2003 law did not increase costs to government employers, but it added to pensions at a time that statewide public-retirement systems faced increasing deficits, estimated at $500 billion or more in recent studies. Legislators cited those deficits in 2013 when they barred employees from buying future retirement credits.
A union of 6,000 state firefighters, supported by other state and local labor organizations, challenged the 2013 law. The unions argued that their members had a legal right to the pension benefits that were in effect when they were hired and that the state broke its contractual promise to them by eliminating those benefits. The state’s high court had ruled in 1978 that California could legally reduce current employees’ future pensions, but only if the employees remained eligible for benefits that were “substantial” and reasonable” when the state acted. Any cutbacks in benefits, the court said, “should be accompanied by comparable new advantages.”
The state’s First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled Dec. 30 that the 2013 law satisfied that standard. The employees “are entitled only to a reasonable pension, not one providing fixed or definite benefits immune from modification or elimination,” Justice Martin Jenkins said in the appellate panel’s 3-0 written opinion.
Read more here: sfgate.com/news/article/State-Supreme-Court-to-review-law-eliminating-11069304.php
Bail Bondsman In Orlando – State Supreme Court to review law eliminating pension benefit
Source : SF Gate News
By : Bob Egelko
Category : Bail Bonds Orlando Fl , Bail Bondsman In Orlando
The state Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to review the legality of 2013 legislation, challenged by labor unions, that eliminated a pension benefit for hundreds of thousands of state and local government employees in California. The justices voted unanimously to grant a hearing to the unions and decide whether the law violated the rights of employees to the pension benefits that were available when they were hired.
This benefit, which lawmakers had approved in 2003, allowed employees with at least five years of service to purchase up to five years of additional credits before retiring. A worker who retired after 20 years, for example, could pay for the right to receive a pension based on 25 years of contributions. The 2003 law did not increase costs to government employers, but it added to pensions at a time that statewide public-retirement systems faced increasing deficits, estimated at $500 billion or more in recent studies. Legislators cited those deficits in 2013 when they barred employees from buying future retirement credits.
A union of 6,000 state firefighters, supported by other state and local labor organizations, challenged the 2013 law. The unions argued that their members had a legal right to the pension benefits that were in effect when they were hired and that the state broke its contractual promise to them by eliminating those benefits. The state’s high court had ruled in 1978 that California could legally reduce current employees’ future pensions, but only if the employees remained eligible for benefits that were “substantial” and reasonable” when the state acted. Any cutbacks in benefits, the court said, “should be accompanied by comparable new advantages.”
The state’s First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled Dec. 30 that the 2013 law satisfied that standard. The employees “are entitled only to a reasonable pension, not one providing fixed or definite benefits immune from modification or elimination,” Justice Martin Jenkins said in the appellate panel’s 3-0 written opinion.
Read more here: sfgate.com/news/article/State-Supreme-Court-to-review-law-eliminating-11069304.php
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