The Big Push: ABA Urges the Senate to Finally Ratify Law of the Sea Convention

Aug 1, 2012 5:50 AM CDT

Law Prof Has an Explanation for Differing Opinions on Climate Change

A law professor who studies risk and science communication cites a reason why people hold differing opinions of climate change: confirmation bias. This bias is the tendency to pay attention to information that reinforces what we already believe and to discount evidence that would require us to change our minds,…

Jul 25, 2012 11:00 AM CDT

Probe: Narrow BP Focus on Worker Safety Missed Big-Picture Issues Resulting in Massive Gulf Spill

Focused on worker safety, BP failed to anticipate adequately big-picture risks that led to the 2010 explosion and fire in its Gulf of Mexico oil rig that killed 11 people and resulted in a massive petroleum spill, members of a federal investigatory panel said Tuesday. Preliminary findings by the U.S.…

Jul 24, 2012 10:57 PM CDT

Supreme Court Beefs Up Docket with Business Cases

The U.S. Supreme Court added three business cases to its docket last week that were mostly overshadowed by blockbuster opinions on health care and immigration. The cases “will offer the court more opportunities to cement its generally pro-business reputation,” the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports. The cases are: •…

Jul 3, 2012 11:00 AM CDT

Supreme Court Rules Juries Must Determine Facts Used to Set Substantial Criminal Fines

The U.S. Supreme Court has extended its decisions that require juries to find facts that lead to increased prison sentences or capital punishment. In Southern Union Company v. United States, the court said the same principle applies to criminal fines. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion (PDF). Justice Stephen…

Jun 21, 2012 2:35 PM CDT

A Federal Appeals Court’s Nuclear Opinion Takes Lawyers to Task for Acronyms

A federal appeals court is fed up with little-known energy acronyms like “SNF” and “NWPA.” In a ruling (PDF) last week , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit showed its irritation in its first footnote, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times. The…

Jun 6, 2012 12:56 PM CDT

Bovine Legal Battle Pits Bison Against Cattle

Sixty-three relocated bison now living on a reservation in northern Montana are at the center of a legal battle. Tribal officials and environmentalists praised the relocation of the bison from Yellowstone National Park in March, but a lawsuit soon followed, according to the New York Times Green blog. The plaintiff…

Jun 1, 2012 2:24 PM CDT

Cleveland Man Ticketed for Littering After Giving Money to Panhandler

A Cleveland man says he was ticketed for littering after trying to give money to a panhandler in a wheelchair. John Davis told Fox 8 he was driving on an off ramp earlier this month when he noticed a man in a wheelchair on the side of the road holding…

May 24, 2012 8:42 PM CDT

Letters: Issues in Paradise

May 1, 2012 9:40 AM CDT

Supreme Court to Decide Whether Temporary Flooding of Land by US Is a Taking

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted cert in a case that contends temporary flooding by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a taking requiring compensation to the landowner. The claimant, the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, says thousands of oak tries died when the government flooded its wildlife…

Apr 3, 2012 3:15 PM CDT

Alito Concurrence Decries ‘Notoriously Unclear’ Clean Water Act in Landowner Rights Case

The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing Idaho property owners to challenge the wetlands designation for their property in a case that had generated landowner sympathy among conservatives, libertarians and developers. The property owners, Chantell and Michael Sackett, were represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which had viewed the case as…

Mar 21, 2012 3:05 PM CDT

Does Apprendi Limit Judges’ Findings on Corporate Fines? Justices Mull the Issue

A lawyer representing a natural gas company argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that a multimillion-dollar environmental fine for illegally storing mercury cannot stand because the judge who imposed it referred to facts not found by a jury. The case raised issues about the reach of the 2000…

Mar 21, 2012 1:35 PM CDT

BP Reaches Estimated $7.8B Deal in Oil Spill; Will Feinberg Claimants Benefit?

BP has agreed to pay an estimated $7.8 billion to settle a class action by around 100,000 plaintiffs and businesses harmed by the Gulf oil spill. If U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of New Orleans approves the deal, it will be among the largest class action settlements in history, the…

Mar 5, 2012 11:30 AM CST

Washed Away: As Sea Levels Rise, Island Nations Look to the Law to Fend off Extinction

The Marshall Islands—two roughly parallel chains of low-lying coral atolls that stretch across 800 miles just north of the equator—have an intensely close relationship with the Pacific Ocean that surrounds them. The full implications of that relationship were apparent in a student’s question for John M. Silk, who was serving…

Mar 1, 2012 11:19 AM CST

19 Current and Former Employees Sue, Calling Broward County Courthouse a ‘Sick’ Building

Contending that the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is infested with toxic mold and asbestos fibers, 19 current and former employees are suing. They are seeking not only financial compensation for alleged health problems caused by the “sick” building but medical monitoring and a safe work environment, according…

Feb 22, 2012 11:04 PM CST