8/10/2010

Fighting for access to justice, Public Justice has filed an amicus brief in Williamson v. Mazda Motor of America, Inc., a U.S. Supreme Court case involving federal preemption of claims that a minivan was defective because its aisle seat lacked a lap/shoulder harness.
 
The United States government also filed an amicus brief in Williamson in support of  the petitioners, arguing, like Public Justice, that the lower courts have misread Geier -- a similar case decided in 2000 -- and that the plaintiffs should be permitted to have their day in court.
 
Williamson seeks to hold Mazda accountable for the death of Thanh Williamson, killed in a head-on collision when her body "jackknifed" around a lap-only seatbelt installed in the aisle seat of her family's 1993 Mazda minivan.  Athough the vehicle’s other occupants had lap/shoulder seatbelts and survived the crash, there was no lap/shoulder harness installed for Thanh’s seat. 

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7/13/2010

Paul L. Stritmatter, a Hoquiam, Wash., attorney known for taking on complex consumer cases, has received the Public Justice Foundation’s “Champion of Justice Award” for his leadership and record of accomplishments in public interest law.
 
The Foundation honored Stritmatter July 13 in Vancouver, B.C., at its annual Gala and Awards Dinner, citing him for “his commitment to justice for all.”

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7/13/2010

Ronald Rodriguez, the Laredo, Tex., attorney who took on one of the country’s largest private prison companies in the beating death of a man who was about to be released from a Texas prison has been named the 2010 Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year.
 
Rodriguez’s award was announced July 13 in Vancouver, B.C., site of the Public Justice Foundation’s annual Gala and Awards Dinner.  He was one of five finalists for the award, which is bestowed annually on the lawyer or legal team that won verdicts, judgments or settlements in socially significant, often cutting-edge cases.
 
Rodriguez brought the case against Wackenhut Correction Corp, which has since been renamed the Geo Group, for malicious wrongful death and destruction of evidence in the 2001 beating death of Gregorio de la Rosa of Laredo, who was serving a six-month DUI sentence in Raymondville, Tex.

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7/13/2010

Harry Deitzler, a fixture in West Virginia law, politics and civic life, has been elected president of the Public Justice Foundation, one of the country’s best known national public interest law firms.  Deitzler was elected July 11 in Vancouver, B.C., at the organization’s annual meeting.
 
A one-time Democratic candidate for state attorney general, Deitzler currently sits on the Charleston City Council, where he is vice chairman of the Public Safety Committee.  A former Wood County prosecutor, Deitzler joined Charleston’s Hill, Peterson, Carper, Bee & Deitzler law firm as a partner in 1991.

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6/25/2010

In a case that originated in Nevada, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 21 that companies can force their employees and customers into mandatory arbitration using form agreements with a "delegation clause" that delegates decisions on the validity of the arbitration agreement itself to the arbitrator.

Written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the 5-4 decision in Rent-A-Center v. Jackson held that courts retain the authority to determine whether the delegation clause is itself valid -- and still have their historic role of reviewing the validity of arbitration agreements without delegation clauses.  The decision also left open several avenues for challenging the validity of both delegation clauses and typical arbitration agreements in future cases.  But the Court's ruling lets companies decrease access to justice.
                                                                                  

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6/17/2010

The Public Justice Foundation proudly salutes the five Finalists for the 2010 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award.  This year’s Finalists were chosen from a field of 16 outstanding teams whose socially significant legal accomplishments were extraordinary or precedent-setting and in the public interest. The finalists will be feted at our annual Gala and Awards Dinner on July 13, 2010 in Vancouver, B.C.  The winner of the 2010 TLOY Award will be announced at that event.  To order tickets or for more information, click here. (links to order page)

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5/03/2010

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled May 3 that U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) officials are immune from suit for violating the Constitution and causing Francisco Castaneda's death. 
 
Castaneda was the 35-year-old native of El Salvador whose penis was amputated after state and federal immigration officials in California repeatedly ignored or downplayed his medical needs, refusing to follow their own doctors' recommendations for a biopsy. 

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4/01/2010

Even prominent arbitrators agree: Arbitrators shouldn’t decide whether the arbitration process itself is fair. Instead, they say, courts must step in to prevent abuses.

That’s the upshot of a brief filed by 23 prominent professional arbitrators and arbitration scholars in Rent-A-Center v. Jackson, a case scheduled to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 26. Public Justice and Public Citizen are co-counsel in the case.

It was one of seven friend-of-the-court briefs filed Wednesday by a broad coalition of civil rights groups, labor unions and consumer advocacy organizations.  Although Rent-A-Center has so far received little media attention, it could radically alter the landscape of access to the civil justice system.Read More

3/29/2010

Public Justice won a major victory against the environmental devastation caused by mountaintop removal mining. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a detailed proposal to veto the permit for the mammoth Spruce Mine we have been challenging as illegal and blocking for twelve years.

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3/26/2010

In a landmark case that threatens even the most basic ability of consumers and employees to gain access to courts, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Jackson v. Rent-A-Center, the second Public Justice case the high court will decide this year.
 
At issue is whether an employer may evade court challenges to the enforceability of its arbitration clause. Argument is scheduled for late April, one month after the Supreme Court oral argument in Hui v. Castaneda, a Public Justice case that raises constitutional claims.

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3/15/2010

Hotels.com and Expedia Inc., two of the world’s leading online travel companies, have launched new website features that will allow disabled travelers to search for and reserve hotel rooms that have accessible accommodations. 

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2/12/2010

At Public Justice’s urging, the California Supreme Court has granted review of an extraordinary appeals court ruling that the state Constitution bars consumers from suing companies for charging “sales taxes” on tax-exempt items.

The plaintiffs in Loeffler v. Target Corporation allege that Target, the retail giant, violated tax law when it imposed sales tax reimbursement charges on their purchases of hot coffee “to go” from Target stores in California because California’s Tax Code exempts these purchases from taxation.  The plaintiffs claim that Target’s practice violated California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) and Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) -- consistently recognized by courts as among the strongest consumer protection laws in the country. 

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2/09/2010

A federal district court was wrong to throw out a lawsuit by a Louisiana man who was severely beaten by guards at the notorious, now-defunct Jena Correctional Facility and the victim is entitled to his day in court, a federal appeals court
ruled late last week.

The suit, Dillon v. Rogers, charges that former Jena Warden T.W. Thompson and six guards "deliberately and maliciously assaulted and battered" Keith Dillon, subjected him to inhumane conditions, and failed to provide adequate medical care for the injuries their beatings caused, including deafness in one ear, shooting pain in one shoulder and bicep, back and knee pain, frequent headaches, blurred vision and broken teeth.

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12/01/2009

An Indianapolis man who practices the Sikh faith was denied a job because of his religious practices -- a violation of federal civil rights laws -- according to a federal lawsuit filed today by Public Justice and its co-counsel Kim Jeselskis. 
 
The complaint alleges that Air Serv Corporation, which provides services at airports around the country, denied employment to Inderjit Singh because he wears a turban and beard, as required by his Sikh religion. 

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11/19/2009

In a major victory for consumers throughout the nation, the Ninth Circuit U.S Court of Appeals held today that DirecTV’s contractual ban on customers bringing class actions against it violates a “fundamental policy” of California. 
 
The Court also ruled that, because DirecTV is headquartered in California and the national class action lawsuit is based on California law alone, DirecTV could not use the “choice-of-law” provision in its contract to avoid the application of California’s consumer protection laws in this case.

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11/16/2009

Public Justice has launched a new initiative – the Iqbal Project – to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal from being misused to preclude access to justice in cases throughout the country. 

In Iqbal, announced in May, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a Pakistani Muslim’s complaint alleging unconstitutional discrimination by high level government officials in the aftermath of September 11^th had to be dismissed unless it was amended to provide more specificity.  In so doing, the Court said that, to “survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”  Within days, defendants in consumers’ rights, workers’ rights, and civil rights lawsuits nationwide began moving to dismiss those cases, claiming that Iqbal dramatically changed federal law in numerous ways.  Public Justice’s Iqbal Project is designed to stop the defendants’ improper use of the Supreme Court’s decision and preserve plaintiffs’ right to their day in court. 
 

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9/21/2009

Public Justice has joined a lawsuit in Washington state on behalf of a flight attendant who suffered serious permanent injuries from breathing toxic “bleed air” – engine oil fumes emitted from a defectively designed aircraft.
 
The lawsuit was filed in April on behalf of former flight attendant Terry Williams, 38, of Pierce County, Wash., against both McDonnell Douglas Corporation, which designed and manufactured the aircraft involved in the case, and The Boeing Company, McDonnell’s parent.
 
Ms. Williams worked as a flight attendant for seventeen years, until she suffered debilitating injuries that her doctors have determined were a result of being exposed to contaminated bleed air.

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9/03/2009

For the second time this year, Public Justice has won major decision, requiring West Virginia to clean up toxic acid mine drainage from abandoned coal mines so that discharges comply with water pollution limits.
 
The Aug. 24, ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia could also force the state to make the coal companies pay for millions of dollars’ worth of pollution reductions. 

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7/29/2009

Attorneys in Rocky Flats, Pan Am 103 Litigation Take Public Justice Foundation Honors   
  
Two legal teams that each prevailed in long and hard-fought cases against formidable corporate and government defendants were named co-winners of the Public Justice Foundation’s 2009 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award at ceremonies in San Francisco on July 28.

Ten attorneys from Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Denver were cited for their work in Cook v. Rockwell International Corp., in which they held the operators of Colorado’s Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant accountable for persistent radioactive contamination from the facility.  
 
They shared honors with a team of five New York lawyers who recovered substantial damages for the families of the victims in the deadly 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. 

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7/24/2009

Evidence of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals' Ghostwriting Campaign for Prempro Unsealed
A federal judge in Arkansas granted public access today to evidence that Wyeth Pharmaceuticals "ghostwrote" medical articles regarding its hormone therapy drug Prempro, which a national study has shown increase a woman's risk of stroke, heart attack, blood clots, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. 

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7/21/2009

Sierra Club to Honor Public Justice Attorney and Co-Counsel for Years of Outstanding Environmental Litigation in Appalachia

Jim Hecker, Public Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Project Director, has been named a recipient of the Sierra Club’s 2009 William O. Douglas Award, which recognizes those who have made outstanding use of the legal process to achieve environmental goals, particularly those with national significance. 
 
Hecker will share the honor with Joe Lovett, executive director and a founder of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, for their determined and ongoing efforts to hold the coal mining industry in check for practices that wreak environmental havoc on land, water and air and endanger the health of people, animals and plant life in neighboring communities. 

Team that Obtained Justice for Thousands of Maryland HMO Customers Wins Maryland Trial Lawyer of the Year Award

Public Justice Staff Attorney F. Paul Bland, Jr. and a team of Maryland attorneys who doggedly – and successfully – pursued justice for thousands of customers who had been double-billed by their HMOs were named 2009 Trial Lawyers of the Year by the Maryland Association for Justice.

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7/13/2009

Three rulings could pave the way for North Carolinians to recoup the illegally high fees paid to payday lenders

A North Carolina Superior Court judge has ruled that the mandatory arbitration agreements in three payday lenders’ consumer contracts are unenforceable, effectively giving the go-ahead to class action lawsuits seeking to recoup illegally high fees paid to the lenders.

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7/01/2009

Public Justice and the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization announced on July 1 that a proposed settlement of a nationwide class action against CBS Broadcasting, Inc. and major toy retailers, if approved, will give cash refunds to consumers and effectively implement a nationwide recall of toy science kits, based on the popular “CSI” television drama series, that may contain asbestos.  Requests for claim forms may be submitted at http://www.csitoyssettlement.com/. 

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5/27/2009

A class action lawsuit charging that millions of cell phone users were misled and overcharged when Cingular merged with AT&T Wireless in 2004 may go forward, a federal court ruled on May 26.

In a victory for consumers nationwide, the U.S. District Court for the District of Washington in Coneff v. AT&T struck down a clause in AT&T’s contract that the company argued allowed it to force its customers to bring their claims individually in arbitration proceedings, rather than in a class action in court.  The District Court held that without a class action, the vast majority of AT&T’s customers would never obtain justice—and for that reason refused to enforce the contract provision.
 

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5/08/2009

Less than a week after Public Justice filed a complaint in federal court and threatened to seek a temporary restraining order, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended its permit that would have allowed A&G Coal Corporation to begin filling nearly three miles of streams with mining waste at its planned 1,291-acre Ison Rock Ridge Surface Mine, which would be within sight of the Derby Historic District that is listed on the National Register.
 
On behalf of the Sierra Club and Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS), Public Justice's April 30, 2009 complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia challenges the Corps' conclusions that it could use a streamlined nationwide permit for this huge mine and other similar mines in southwest Virginia and that it had adequately considered historic preservation issues. Nationwide permits can only be used for small projects with cumulatively minimal environmental impacts.

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4/29/2009

The New Mexico State Supreme Court excoriated a major short-term lender’s one-sided consumer contract, which the company – World Finance – used as license to harass and intimidate its customers, all the while charging exorbitant interest rates for the loans.
 
The April 29, 2009 decision in Cordova v. World Finance brings a measure of justice to hard-pressed borrowers who faced lawsuits if they fell behind on their payments, but who had to rely on arbitration by a third party under contract with World Finance if they were wronged by the lender.

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4/03/2009

Court also strikes one-sided appellate review provision as unreasonably favorable to employer 

In a victory for workers who seek to vindicate their rights under the Alaska Wage and Hour Act (AWHA), the Alaska Supreme Court held on April 3 that employers may not require their employees to arbitrate their wage and hour claims unless the employer is willing to pay all of the costs of arbitration.

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3/12/2009

The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued two resoundingly pro-consumer decisions rejecting federal preemption of state-law claims involving injured consumers. 
 
In a March 4 ruling, the Court held 6-to-3 that federal law does not preempt lawsuits against prescription drug manufacturers for failing to warn of their drug's dangers. Public Justice had filed amici briefs in both cases urging the Court to rule as it did. 
 

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2/24/2009

In a triumph for consumers in New Jersey and across the country, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on February 24, held that held that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) does not preempt—or wipe away—state laws that protect consumers from abusive contract terms. 
  
In Homa v. American Express Company, the court emphatically rejected American Express’s attempt to immunize itself from liability by banning class actions and choosing less protective state law to govern its contracts with its customers.

 

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2/05/2009

Public Justice’s reputation for championing immigrant detainees’ rights has brought another in search of justice to Public Justice’s doorstep—the sister of a detainee who died in custody because officials did not respond to her critical medical condition until it was too late.

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