General Law and Lawsuits

[RTH10260]

Court Orders Subway Franchise Owners in California to Pay Workers Nearly $1M

October 2, 2023

A federal court ordered the owners of 14 Subway locations north of San Francisco to pay employees nearly $1 million in damages and back pay, and also to sell or shut their businesses, with any sale proceeds going to the Department of Labor.

Federal investigators said franchise owners John and Jessica Meza directed children as young as 14 to operate dangerous machinery, assigned minors work hours that violated federal law, and failed to pay their employees regularly, including by issuing hundreds of bad checks and illegally keeping tips left by customers.

The Labor Department also charged that the Mezas coerced employees in an attempt to prevent them from cooperating with its investigation and that an associate, Hamza Ayesh, played a role in those efforts, including threatening an employee who complained about receiving a bad check.




https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/w ... 742557.htm

[RTH10260]

Court Orders Pair of Subway Franchisees to Sell or Close Stores Due to Worker Violations
Officials said the operators interfered with the investigation by threatening employees who spoke up.

OCTOBER 3, 2023 |
BEN COLEY

A federal court in Northern California ordered franchisees of 14 Subway restaurants to either close or sell their stores by November 27 and pay employees almost $1 million in back wages.

A federal investigation found that operators John and Jessica Meza allowed children as young as 14 to 15 years old to handle dangerous equipment and work illegal hours. They also failed to pay employees regularly, including hundreds of bad checks and keeping tips from customers.

Officials also discovered the franchisees interfered with the review by coercing workers to not cooperate and threatening children who raised concerns. The Mezas' associate, Hamza "Mike" Ayesh, was said to have threatened an employee who complained about receiving a bounced payroll check.

“Thanks to some very brave young people who stood up to their employers’ exploitation and attempts to intimidate them, the Department of Labor and a federal court are holding these business owners accountable,” Ruben Rosalez, San Francisco's Wage and Hour Division regional administrator, said in a statement. “With the combined efforts of Wage and Hour Division investigators and the department’s Office of the Solicitor, these employers are facing the consequences for endangering the safety and well-being of children and violating federal law.”

The Department of Labor said Subway notified the Mezas in June that it knew of the litigation and that they were violating federal law, but allowed them to continue operating their stores.

Subway said it doesn't condone the operators' behavior and that it "takes these matters very seriously."

"Immediate steps were taken to remove the franchisee from the system when we learned of the DOL investigation," a Subway spokesperson said in a statement. "Our restaurants are independently owned and operated, and franchisees are required to follow federal, state and local laws."

[RTH10260]

Colorado Supreme Court Upholds Keyword Search Warrant

BY JENNIFER LYNCH AND ANDREW CROCKER
OCTOBER 16, 2023

Today, the Colorado Supreme Court became the first state supreme court in the country to address the constitutionality of a keyword warrant—a digital dragnet tool that allows law enforcement to identify everyone who searched the internet for a specific term or phrase. In a weak and ultimately confusing opinion, the court upheld the warrant, finding the police relied on it in good faith. EFF filed two amicus briefs and was heavily involved in the case.

The case is People v. Seymour, which involved a tragic home arson that killed several people. Police didn’t have a suspect, so they used a keyword warrant to ask Google for identifying information on anyone and everyone who searched for variations on the home’s street address in the two weeks prior to the arson.

Like geofence warrants, keyword warrants cast a dragnet that require a provider to search its entire reserve of user data—in this case, queries by one billion Google users. Police generally have no identified suspects; instead, the sole basis for the warrant is the officer’s hunch that the suspect might have searched for something in some way related to the crime.

Keyword warrants rely on the fact that it is virtually impossible to navigate the modern Internet without entering search queries into a search engine like Google's. By some accounts, there are over 1.15 billion websites, and tens of billions of webpages. Google Search processes as many as 100,000 queries every second. Many users have come to rely on search engines to such a degree that they routinely search for the answers to sensitive or unflattering questions that they might never feel comfortable asking a human confidant, even friends, family members, doctors, or clergy. Over the course of months and years, there is little about a user’s life that will not be reflected in their search keywords, from the mundane to the most intimate. The result is a vast record of some of users’ most private and personal thoughts, opinions, and associations.

In the Seymour opinion, the four-justice majority recognized that people have a constitutionally-protected privacy interest in their internet search queries and that these queries impact a person’s free speech rights. The federal Supreme Court has held that warrants like this one that target speech are highly suspect so courts must apply constitutional search-and-seizure requirements with “scrupulous exactitude.” Despite recognizing this directive to engage in careful, in-depth analysis, the Seymour majority’s reasoning was cursory and at points mistaken. For example, although the court found that the Colorado constitution protects users’ privacy interests in their search queries, it held that the Fourth Amendment does not, due to the third party doctrine, because federal courts have held that there is no expectation of privacy in IP addresses. However, this overlooks the queries themselves, which many courts have suggested are more akin to the location information that was found to be protected in Carpenter v. United States. Similarly, the Colorado court neglected to address the constitutionality of Google’s initial search of all its users’ search queries because it found that the things seized—users’ queries and IP addresses—were sufficiently narrow. Finally, the court merely assumed without deciding that the warrant lacked probable cause, a shortcut that allowed the court to overlook the warrant's facial deficiency and therefore uphold it on the “good faith exception.”




cont. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/c ... ch-warrant

[RTH10260]

Fired prosecutor defends charging innocent bystander

ABC15 Arizona
21 Oct 2023

The prosecutor who was fired after working with police to falsely charge protesters as gang members told a panel of state disciplinary judges that she stands by her actions.

[RTH10260]

California

Did you lock the car door before the burglary? Will you come to court to testify that you locked the door?

The get-out-of-jail card for car burglars

[raison de arizona]

Oops. She pointed her finger at the wrong man.

Her apology: https://medium.com/@Alice_Sebold/statem ... 09361d6150

[RTH10260]

Judge rules Virginia teacher shot by 6-year-old can move forward with $40M lawsuit

BY LAUREN IRWIN -
11/03/23 5:07 PM ET

A teacher who was shot by her 6-year-old student in Virginia can move forward with her $40 million lawsuit against the school system, a judge ruled Friday.

Abigail Zwerner is suing the Newport News Public School system over claims of negligence. She’s seeking compensation for the serious injuries caused by the classroom shooting that happened in January, The Associated Press reported.

“We are eager to continue our pursuit of accountability and a just, fair recovery,” Zwerner’s attorneys said in a statement. “No teacher expects to stare down the barrel of a gun held by a six-year-old student.”

The school system argued that Zwerner should only be eligible for workers’ compensation, which provides up to nearly 10 years pay and lifetime medical care for injuries.

Newport News Circuit Court Judge Matthew Hoffman disagreed with the school board, arguing Zwerner’s injuries “did not arise out of her employment” and thus she was not considered for workers’ compensation.

The school board’s attorneys have indicated they would appeal the decision.

The state of Virginia has an uncommonly strict workers’ compensation law that covers workplace assaults and allegations of negligence against employers.



https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... d-lawsuit/

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

comment: I understand that the law suit got dismissed based on lack of injury.

[RTH10260]

Louisiana speciality, a Mayor's Court

This Louisiana Village Brought in $1 Million Through a Court Where the Mayor Is the Judge

WVUE FOX 8 New Orleans
16 Nov 2023

In many ways, the village of Fenton is like other small towns in Louisiana. But it’s remarkable in one way: It collected more money in a single year through fines and forfeitures than almost any other municipality in the state, according to audits.

[RTH10260]

Steve Letho comments on law pertaining to pedestrian crossings. In many states only people crossing by foot are protected. Crossing by means of any king of contraption is unprotected, eg bycicle, wheelchair, etc

[RTH10260]

Forfeiture Victims Win First Round in Class Action Lawsuit Challenging Harris County’s Seizure and Civil Forfeiture Practices

J. Justin Wilson ·
November 8, 2023

IJ is a public interest law firm. We represent clients free of charge in cutting-edge litigation defending vital constitutional rights. You can join us by supporting our work here: ij.org/support

On Tuesday, Ameal Woods and Jordan Davis—a Mississippi couple that lost their life savings on the side of I-10 after Harris County officers seized their cash and sent them on their way—got the news they have waited more than a year to hear. Harris County District Court Judge Robert Schaffer issued an order rejecting the county’s claim of immunity and allowing their constitutional challenge to proceed.

“We are incredibly grateful to be able to proceed with our case,” said Ameal Woods, a commercial truck driver represented by IJ in his fight. “I’m glad that, after all I’ve been through, the truth will prevail. Carrying cash is not a crime.”

This decision marks an early and important victory in a case seeking to enforce the Texas Constitution’s protections to stop the unconstitutional practices used by Harris County officials to seize and forfeit cash and cars from people never convicted of a crime.Harris County has an unconstitutional financial incentive to seize and forfeit cash and other property without probable cause and to do so excessively, sweeping in innocent people and property. Its practice of using form affidavits, copy and paste allegations, and tough pressure tactics instead of evidence of crimes violates due process, private property protections, and other constitutional rights.

Judge Schaffer’s ruling paves the way for a challenge to Harris County’s unconstitutional practice of using civil forfeiture as a funding scheme—the same unconstitutional practice used to forfeit Ameal and Jordan’s life savings without either of them being charged with a crime.

“This decision is a remarkable victory for holding government officials accountable to the Texas Constitution,” said IJ Senior Attorney Wesley Hottot. “The county’s outlandish claims of immunity from suit were rightly rejected. No government actor is above the state’s highest law.”

Because Texas forfeiture proceedings are civil actions, most constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants do not apply to property owners—like Ameal and Jordan—that try to get their property back. It is not even necessary for the government to prove that the property owner is guilty of a crime. There is no conviction requirement. Officers seize cash, cars, and property without ever arresting anyone.

As bad as Texas’ statewide forfeiture laws are, the situation is even worse in Harris County. The county has established a clear pattern and practice of playing fast and loose with the facts to meet even the low bar in civil forfeiture proceedings. The county’s evidence for forfeiture proceedings routinely amounts to nothing more than a boilerplate list of vague accusations and unverified claims of after-the-fact alerts from drug-sniffing dogs after the money is already seized. Frequently the law enforcement officer signing the affidavits used as evidence in forfeiture proceedings was not even present at the scene of the seizure, relying entirely on second-hand knowledge. Harris County forfeiture filings reveal a troubling pattern of relying on these second-hand affidavits written with the same copy-and-paste language to permanently keep seized property. Judge Schaffer’s ruling yesterday clears another hurdle to stopping this unconstitutional practice.



(above is the whole article)
https://ij.org/press-release/forfeiture ... practices/

[RTH10260]

Loveland to pay $400,000 over Colorado DUI arrest, Driver had no alcohol, drugs in system

BY BRIAN MAASS
UPDATED ON: DECEMBER 12, 2023 / 9:36 AM MST / CBS COLORADO

The City of Loveland has agreed to pay a Windsor man, Harris Elias, $400,000 over a 2020 DUI arrest in which breath and blood testing indicated Elias had no alcohol or drugs in his system.

"It sounds like a lot of money, but my gosh," said Elias,"what they did was atrocious."

Elias filed a federal lawsuit in 2022 against the City of Loveland and two of its officers over the case. Federal court records show the two sides came to a settlement agreement on Dec. 4. Sarah Schielke, Elias' lawyer, said Loveland is not admitting wrongdoing in the case. A spokesperson for the City of Loveland did not respond to a text message or phone call from CBS News Colorado.

On Jan. 4, 2020, Elias was driving home through Fort Collins when Loveland police officer William Gates pulled him over for failing to signal that he was changing lanes and driving 18 mph in a 45 mph zone.

When he approached the car, Gates said he smelled an "overwhelming odor of alcohol."

Elias told CBS News Colorado he had some of a single alcoholic drink five to six hours before the stop, but that was it. He declined to do roadside sobriety tests and Gates arrested him for suspected DUI.

A breath test at the police station showed no alcohol in Elias' system.

"I thought they would thank me for my time and give me a ride back home," Elias said.

Instead, police pressed Elias to take a blood test.

That subsequent blood test confirmed no alcohol or drugs in the man's system.

"The entire system is set up to go after people for no illegal or logical reason," said Elias.

His attorney Sarah Schielke believes the problem stems from a police culture that incentivizes officers to make more and more DUI arrests. She says officers who make the most DUI arrests are honored, given better shifts and compete with other departments to see who can make the most DUI arrests.



https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/h ... do-driver/

[RTH10260]

formerly reported at viewtopic.php?p=213491&hilit=pee#p213491

Judge sentences Black child, 10, to three months of probation for peeing in public
Mississippi judge also orders child to write a book report on Kobe Bryant after officers arrested him for urinating in a parking lot

Associated Press
Fri 15 Dec 2023 00.17 CET

A 10-year-old Black child who urinated in a parking lot must serve three months’ probation and write a two-page book report on the late NBA star Kobe Bryant, a Mississippi judge has ordered.

Tate county youth court judge Rusty Harlow handed down the sentence Tuesday after the child’s lawyer reached an agreement with a special prosecutor. The prosecution threatened to upgrade the charge of “child in need of supervision” to a more serious charge of disorderly conduct if the boy’s family took the case to trial, said Carlos Moore, the child’s attorney.

“I thought any sensible judge would dismiss the charge completely. It’s just asinine,” Moore said. “There were failures in the criminal justice system all the way around.”

The child’s mother has said her son urinated behind her vehicle while she was visiting a lawyer’s office in Senatobia, Mississippi, on 10 August. Police officers in the town of about 8,100 residents, 40 miles (64km) south of Memphis, Tennessee, saw the child urinating and arrested him. Officers put him in a squad car and took him to the police station.

Senatobia police chief Richard Chandler said the child was not handcuffed, but his mother said he was put in a jail cell, according to NBCNews.com.

Days after the episode, Chandler said the officers violated their training on how to deal with children. He said one of the officers who took part in the arrest was “ no longer employed”, and other officers would be disciplined. He didn’t specify whether the former officer was fired or quit, or what type of discipline the others would face.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -probation

[RTH10260]

Brett Kavanaugh 25 years ago wrote a piece on POTUS immunity, eg while in office, but prosecute after he leaves.

[Dave from down under]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-21/ ... /103256292

A judge in the US state of Oklahoma has exonerated a man who spent nearly 50 years in prison for murder — the longest-serving inmate in that country to be declared innocent of a crime.

Key points:

Glynn Simmons maintained his innocence since being convicted of murder in 1975
He served more than 48 years, before being released because key evidence in the case wasn't given to his lawyers
Mr Simmons has been ruled innocent, and is eligible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation
Glynn Simmons, 71, who was released in July after prosecutors agreed that key evidence in his case was not turned over to his defence lawyers, was ruled innocent on Tuesday.

"This court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the offence for which Mr Simmons was convicted, sentenced and imprisoned … was not committed by Mr Simmons," according to the ruling by Oklahoma County District Judge Amy Palumbo.

[RTH10260]

3 Tacoma police officers found not guilty on all charges in 2020 death of Black man in police custody

By Veronica Miracle, Eric Levenson and Emma Tucker, CNN
Updated 8:58 PM EST, Thu December 21, 2023

CNN — A jury found Tacoma police officers Christopher Burbank, Matthew Collins and Timothy Rankine not guilty on all charges Thursday in the 2020 death of Manuel “Manny” Ellis, a Black man who died in custody after saying he couldn’t breathe.

After a monthslong trial, Burbank and Collins were acquitted of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter, while Rankine was acquitted of first-degree manslaughter. All three had pleaded not guilty.

The officers were accused of unlawfully using deadly force on Ellis, 33, when attempting to arrest him in March 2020 for allegedly “trying to open car doors of occupied vehicles.” Part of the arrest was caught on video by a witness who testified during the trial. Ellis could also be heard crying, “I can’t breathe,” on police dispatch audio.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson charged the officers in May 2021, marking the first time the state’s attorney general criminally charged officers for the unlawful use of deadly force. It was the second time homicide charges were filed in the state against law enforcement officers since Washingtonians adopted Initiative 940 in November 2018 – a measure making it easier to prosecute police officers for negligent shootings.

Moments after the verdict was announced, the officers and their families were seen hugging each other in the courtroom, some in tears. The officers had faced up to life in prison, according to the Washington State Office of the Attorney General.

Ellis’ death led to protests in Tacoma and came just months before the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing widespread demonstrations against racism and police violence.



https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/21/us/m ... index.html

[RTH10260]

Oregon Supreme Court rules against former Newberg school board members in 'doxxing' lawsuit
The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that as elected officials, board members have a high bar to clear when claiming damage from people posting their information online.

Author: Ashley Koch, KGW Staff
Published: 6:54 PM PST December 22, 2023
Updated: 6:54 PM PST December 22, 2023

SALEM, Ore. — A recent Oregon law against "doxxing" just got one of its first big tests, and the case stems from a place that will likely be familiar to Portland-area residents: a Newberg School Board controversy.

Doxxing refers to when someone releases another person's personal information in a targeted and public way — usually online. But earlier this month, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that when it comes to elected officials, the bar for what can be considered doxxing is pretty high — and that didn't apply to the school board members.

In 2021, the Newberg school board's conservative majority passed a ban on LGBTQ+ Pride and Black Lives Matter displays on school grounds — later amended to be a ban on anything deemed "political" or "controversial." The ban was later ruled unconstitutional, and two of the four board members who voted for it were voted out of their jobs in the last election.

But before that happened, the rule was the subject of intense debate, protests and several lawsuits.

The 'doxxing' accusations
Most of the lawsuits were filed against the board members or school district by teachers, parents or groups like the ACLU, but one lawsuit was the reverse; it was filed by the four conservative board members against a group of parents, alleging that the parents had doxxed them.

The parents were members of a private Facebook group created after the political symbols ban passed. Four of the parents posted information about the board members' employers:



https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/ ... fb33a5df18

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/n ... r-AA1lOhmX

New York sues SiriusXM, accusing company of making it deliberately hard to cancel subscriptions

New York’s attorney general filed suit Wednesday against SiriusXM, accusing the satellite radio and streaming service of making it intentionally difficult for its customers to cancel their subscriptions.

Attorney General Letitia James’ office said an investigation into complaints from customers found that SiriusXM forced subscribers to wait in an automated system before often lengthy interactions with agents who were trained in ways to avoid accepting a request to cancel service.

The company disputed the claims, arguing that many of the lengthy interaction times cited in the lawsuit were based on a 2020 inquiry and were caused in part by the effects of the pandemic on their operations. The company said many of its plans can be canceled with a simple click of a button online.

“Like a number of consumer businesses, we offer a variety of options for customers to sign up for or cancel their SiriusXM subscription and, upon receiving and reviewing the complaint, we intend to vigorously defend against these baseless allegations that grossly mischaracterize SiriusXM’s practices,” Jessica Casano-Antonellis, a company spokeswoman, said in a statement.

The attorney general’s office cited affidavits in which customers complained of long waits in an automated system to chat with an agent, only to endure lengthy attempts to keep their business. It takes subscribers an average of 11.5 minutes to cancel by phone, and 30 minutes to cancel online, although for many subscribers it takes far longer, the attorney general’s office said.

During 2019 and 2021, more than 578,000 subscribers seeking to cancel by telephone abandoned their efforts while waiting in the queue to be connected to the live agent, according to the lawsuit.

“When I finally spoke to the first customer representative and explained that I had been waiting nearly half an hour, I was promptly hung up on. Which means I had to wait again. Another 30 minutes, just to cancel a service I would have preferred to cancel online,” one customer wrote in an affidavit.

[tek]

The company said many of its plans can be canceled with a simple click of a button online.

I find this very hard to believe.
I've been a sirius subscriber for decades, and never once have I been able to click to cancel.
It is always "you will need to speak with a representative to do this."

And I do it every year.. to play the "this is too expensive, I want to cancel" "Oh, well, let me see what I can offer you!" game.

[neonzx]

The company said many of its plans can be canceled with a simple click of a button online.

And I do it every year.. to play the "this is too expensive, I want to cancel" "Oh, well, let me see what I can offer you!" game.

And therefore, you are a victim for not sticking to your plan to cancel each year? Just say no.

[raison de arizona]

Sirius absolutely makes it difficult to cancel. I’m well acquainted with the former head of chat there, making it difficult were the marching orders.

[Slim Cognito]

Been there, got the T-shirt. The statement “my decision is final,” works pretty good.

[Ben-Prime]

Not with Sirius, but I had a couple of subscription-style memberships I had to cancel when I joined the Foreign Service. I had one guy still try to hard-sell me after I said "I will be living outside the United States for the next 3 years. Do you actually *have* services in Addis Ababa?" (I had no idea where I was going at that point, but Addis Ababa had become my go-to example in talks with my family so it just stuck with me) I will admit I volunteered to stay on the line for a survey with a fake chirp of happiness in my voice just so I could trash the guy and the script he was almost certainly forced to use after that. Does that make me a bad person?