Afternoon Briefs: Teen vandal gets paint-with-a-toothbrush sentence; Equifax settles data breach claims
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• Equifax has agreed to pay up to $700 million to settle state and federal claims related to a 2017 data breach that exposed the information of 147 million consumers. Up to $425 million of the settlement will pay consumers for time and money they spent to address identity theft or to protect themselves from the problem. Another $100 million will be paid to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a civil penalty. All affected consumers are eligible for at least 10 years of free credit monitoring and at least seven years of free identity restoration services. (Press releases by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission)
• An Ohio judge told a teen that he could face up to 10 days in jail for spray-painting graffiti on a railroad caboose—or he could paint a railing on the courthouse steps with a toothbrush. Avery White opted for the paint sentence and carried out the task in Painesville, Ohio, on Friday. (WTRF and WOIO via Yahoo)
• U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan temporarily blocked subpoenas of President Donald Trump’s financial records Friday after a federal appeals court said he should have allowed an interim appeal in the suit by congressional Democrats. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said threshold questions of law—including separation of powers issues—favor the interim appeal in the suit alleging that Trump violated the emoluments clause. (The Washington Post, Courthouse News Service, D.C. Circuit order)
• A federal appeals court has asked an Illinois lawyer to show cause why he shouldn’t be sanctioned for suing a court-appointed psychologist in his child custody case. Suburban Chicago lawyer Dana Alden blamed his loss of shared custody on the psychologist’s opinion about his alleged alienation tactics. This federal suit claimed that an Illinois law on custody was unconstitutional, but the psychologist he sued has nothing to do with enforcing the law, according to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Chicago. The issue could have been raised in state court litigation over custody, the appeals court said. (The Cook County Record, 7th Circuit order)
• President Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Department of Labor, Eugene Scalia, is a son of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Scalia has represented companies that fought unions and opposed the so-called ergonomics rule that was intended to prevent people from developing repetitive stress injuries. (The New York Times, the Washington Post)
