Free Republic

HONOLULU - Two dog owners filed a lawsuit claiming their pets were mutilated while being groomed at an Oahu pet store. The lawsuit filed in state court Monday said plaintiff Gladys Kapuwai dropped off her dog Dodo for grooming at the Petco store in Kaneohe in July, and that the pet was returned with its ear cut off. In addition, there appeared to be an effort to "reattach, glue or sew" the ear back on, the lawsuit states. "I couldn't believe what they did. I started crying because this is our baby, too, you know." Kapuwai told Hawaii News Now....

EWTN Sues U.S. Government To Stop Contraception Mandate Network Asks Court to Stop Order to Pay for Immoral Services Irondale, AL (EWTN) – EWTN Global Catholic Network filed a lawsuit February 9 in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama against the Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and other government agencies seeking to stop the imposition of the contraception mandate as well as asking the court for a declaratory judgment that the mandate is unconstitutional. EWTN is the first Catholic organization to file suit since the final HHS rules were published by the Obama administration on...

HANCEVILLE, Alabama, February 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lawyers for the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) say that the broadcasting network has taken the Obama administration to court over a mandate forcing Catholic employers to pay for birth control, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced that it had filed suit Thursday morning on behalf of EWTN, considered the largest religious media network in the world. “The federal government cannot force people to violate their religion like this,” said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund and a constitutional law professor at the Catholic University of...

SAN FRANCISCO – Supporters and opponents of California's ban on same-sex marriage were anxiously awaiting a federal appeals court decision Tuesday on whether the voter-approved measure violates the civil rights of gay men and lesbians. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that considered the question plans to issue its long-awaited opinion 18 months after a trial judge struck down the ban following the first federal trial to examine if same-sex couples have a constitutional right to get married. The 9th Circuit does not typically give notice of its forthcoming rulings, and its decision to do...

Welcome news on the merits, but I doubt Obama cares much. If he wins, then the Cordray and NLRB appointments are vindicated constitutionally, which will give him political cover to be even bolder with his executive power grabs. If he loses, then instead of whining endlessly on the campaign trail this year about the conservative “do-nothing Congress� (only half of which is controlled by conservatives, of course), he can whine about the conservative “do-nothing Congress� and the conservative courts that are allegedly rubber-stamping their obstructionism. All the more reason to re-elect him and let him appoint more judges. Which is...

James O' Keefe has had enough with the liberal media's character assasination attempts on him and officially filed a lawsuit for defamation today. Via Project Veritas: "On New Hampshire Primary Day, Project Veritas, while violating no laws, exposed the ease in which voter fraud can occur in states lacking voter identification requirements. Project Veritas' work has been praised New Hampshire's legislative leaders, yet the reaction also includes articles by large media organizations that stated false and defamatory statements and articles.

A mother is suing the obstetrician who she claims misdiagnosed her pregnancy as ectopic and injected her foetus with an abortant, resulting in birth defects. Thirty-five-year-old Rachel Schoger of Caldwell, Idaho, says she was four weeks five days pregnant with her daughter, Seraphine, when her doctor injected her foetus with chemotherapy drug methotrexate in 2006. Two weeks later, the baby was found inside the uterus. And against all odds, Seraphine made it through term. But the little girl will never lead a normal life, her mother says, after she was born without reproductive organs or a rectum as a result...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won't hear arguments from a conservative watchdog group that wants Justice Elena Kagan disqualified from deciding the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's national health care overhaul. Freedom Watch asked the high court for time to demand Kagan's recusal or disqualification during arguments on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The law is aimed at extending health insurance coverage to more than 30 million previously uninsured people and would, by 2019, leave just 5 percent of the population uninsured, compared with about 17 percent today, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In a case that stemmed from an investigation by D.C. police and the FBI of a local drug dealer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that police across the country need a warrant if they want to track suspects using GPS monitors. In the ruling, which was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court found that even though the case involved a GPS unit that was attached to a car that was out in the open, it still constituted a "search" under the language of the Fourth Amendment: It is important to be clear about what occurred in this...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Millions of current and former Netflix customers woke up Wednesday to an e-mail about a class-action lawsuit involving the price of online DVD rentals. It's legit, and it's the latest twist in a legal saga that started two years ago. In May 2005, Wal-Mart and Netflix struck a pact: Wal-Mart would scrap its struggling DVDs-by-mail subscription service and instead encourage its customers to sign on with Netflix. In return, Netflix agreed to promote Wal-Mart's DVD sales business.

A federal appeals court in Virginia today denied an emergency request by Republican presidential hopefuls Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich to be placed on the ballot for the Virginia primary. After failing to get the required 10,000 signatures necessary to be placed on the ballot, the two candidates argued that Virginia’s strict ballot law was unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed with a lower court and ruled today that the candidates had waited too long to file their suit. The court ruled unanimously that Perry and the other candidates “had every...

A Connecticut Appellate Court recently issued an order dismissing an appeal in Gilland v. Sportsmen’s Outpost, Inc. – a Superior Court decision granting a firearm retailer’s motion to dismiss all claims against it pursuant to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (“PLCAA”). The PLCAA was passed in 2005 with broad bipartisan support. The purpose of the act is to prevent firearms manufacturers and retailers from being held liable for crimes committed with their products. In this case, the plaintiffs, who were represented by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, sought to hold the firearms retailer liable in...

Wednesday the United States Supreme Court delivered a knockout blow to the White House in the cause of religious liberty. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a unanimous court swatted away the government’s claim that the Lutheran Church did not have the right to fire a “minister of religion” who, after six years of Lutheran religious training had been commissioned as a minister, upon election by her congregation. The fired minister -- who also taught secular subjects -- claimed discrimination in employment. The Obama administration, always looking for opportunities to undermine the bedrock of First Amendment religious liberty, eagerly agreed....

Pepsi Pays $3.1 Million For Discriminating Against Minorities With Arrest Records Vivian Giang Jan. 11, 2012, 6:43 PM Most major companies conduct criminal background checks, but using the records to rule out minorities could cost you $3.1 million. That's how much Pepsi Beverages Co. has agreed to pay and it's because it ruled out applicants who had arrest, not conviction records, reports ABC News. Pepsi's screening policy excluded more than 300 black applicants. Under Equal Employment Opportunity Commission laws, it's illegal to deny someone employment because of criminal records if it's irrelevant to the job or if the records are...

The Virginia primary isn’t until March 6; who knows what will happen between now and then? Perhaps one or more candidates among Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum will have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure their names will appear on the Virginia ballot only to be out of the race by the beginning of March anyway.Nevertheless, those left out in the cold in Old Dominion haven’t given up without a fight — and it looks like they might win it after all. Recall that Perry has filed a ballot access lawsuit — in which he was...

Montana farmers have filed a class action suit against former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, charging that the failed financial firm run by Corzine stole millions from their accounts to pay off its spiraling debts, and that Corzine's "single-minded obsession" with making MF Global a big player on Wall Street led to the firm's collapse. MF Global's clients included 38,000 wheat farmers, cattle ranchers and others who "hedged" their crop prices by placing millions in MF Global accounts. Those accounts were supposed to be "segregated and secure," according to the federal suit, meaning MF Global could not draw on those...

I’m happy to say that today’s Ryan v. Hughes-Ortiz (Mass. App. Ct. Jan. 6, 2012) throws out the lawsuit: In November, 2001, [Charles] Milot was released on probation from the Billerica house of correction after an incarceration of about eighteen months. [Thomas] Hughes testified in his deposition that he helped Milot to get reestablished by loaning him a small amount of money and giving him odd jobs to do around his house. [During the pendency of this action, Hughes died, and his daughter, Hughes-Ortiz, was substituted as a party defendant.] Hughes knew Milot through Milot’s sister, Deborah McConologue, and her...

You think you've heard it all until I tell you that an appeals court in Illinois recently ruled that a woman is allowed to sue a dead teen's estate for injuries caused by his flying body parts. The 18-year-old boy was running across the Amtrak tracks to catch another train but didn't make it -- he was hit by an oncoming train going 70 mph and his body was torn apart by the force and flung onto a nearby passengers' waiting platform. The woman, 58, was struck by a sizable chunk of the boy's body and was knocked to the...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Days after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, a federal appeals court ended a lawsuit over an episode that produced one of the more disturbing images of the war: the grisly killings of four Blackwater security contractors and the hanging of a pair of their bodies from a bridge in Fallujah. Families of the victims reached a confidential settlement with the company's corporate successor, Arlington, Va.-based Academi, and the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit last week. The settlement was first reported Friday by The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Va. The deal ends the...

Scion of Prominent 19th Century Political Family Announces Write-In Candidacy for President of the United States and Files Quo Warranto suit challenging Obama's "natural born Citizen" Status Washington D.C. (MMD Newswire) January 6, 2012 -- Montgomery Blair Sibley, scion of the Blair Family whose ancestors first called the anti-slavery Republican Party to order at its preliminary convention at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in February 1856, represented Dred Scott and from whence the Blair House gets its name, has announced the commencement of his campaign as a Write-In Candidate for President of the United States. Given the vagrancies of the Electoral College system,...

Pepsi Co., facing a lawsuit from a man who claims to have found a mouse in his Mountain Dew can, has an especially creative, if disgusting, defense: their soda would have dissolved a dead mouse before the man could have found it. An Illinois man sued Pepsi in 2009 after he claims he "spat out the soda to reveal a dead mouse," the Madison County Record reports. He claims he sent the mouse to Pepsi, which then "destroyed" the remains after he allowed them to test it, according to his complaint. Most shudder-worthy, however, is that Pepsi's lawyers also found...

Feds Wicthhunt against Sheriff Joe. ------- DOJ released a report last month alleging that Sheriff Joe's office racially profiles Latinos, ------ Sheriff Joe has denied the allegations, calling the DOJ report a politically motivated attack by Obama's administration. --------

U.S. District Court in Virginia Expedites Rick Perry’s Ballot Access Lawsuit Richard Winger December 29th, 2011 U.S. District Court Judge John A. Gibney of Virginia has set a hearing in Rick Perry’s presidential primary ballot access lawsuit. He will consider Perry’s request for injunctive relief on January 13. In the meantime, he has established a briefing schedule, and also has instructed attorneys for Perry to communicate with all other Republican presidential primary candidates who had filed a declaration of candidacy, to explain to them how they may intervene in the lawsuit. This shows foresight and thoughtfulness on the part of...

Madison - An aide to a top lawmaker gave sworn testimony last week that new legislative maps approved this year were not meant to increase the Republican majority in the Legislature, but were nonetheless provided to the Republican National Committee in advance. The seemingly inconsistent testimony came in a deposition from Adam Foltz, an aide to Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horizon) charged with drawing the new maps for lawmakers. A copy of the deposition was filed with a federal three-judge panel late Tuesday. Every 10 years, states must draw new boundaries for legislative and congressional districts to account for population...

In a press release, the Perry campaign sites examples of cases it which it claims similar out-of-state petition requirement have been struck down. The campaign goes on the say the Virginia Republican Party has the power to tell the Virginia Board of Election which candidates should be on the ballot.

Taegan Goddard provides the obligatory zinger about a noted fan of states rights and the Tenth Amendment asking a federal judge to overrule Virginia’s preferences on ballot access. The statement from Team Perry: “Gov. Perry greatly respects the citizens and history of the Commonwealth of Virginia and believes Virginia Republicans should have greater access to vote for one of the several candidates for President of the United States,� said Perry campaign communications director Ray Sullivan.“Virginia ballot access rules are among the most onerous and are particularly problematic in a multi-candidate election. We believe that the Virginia provisions unconstitutionally restrict the...

9th Circuit panel rejects suit filed by 'birthers' against ObamaBy Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times December 23, 2011 A group of Southern Californians who insist that President Obama was born in Africa and should be ousted from the Oval Office had their case thrown out by a federal appeals court Thursday, but vowed to press their conspiracy theory with judges at the top of the judicial chain. None of the "birthers" who filed suit on Inauguration Day 2009 can show that they suffered any harm from the Obama presidency that would give them the right to sue him, a...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has filed suit in federal court against the Virginia Republican Party and the Virginia Board of Elections in order to gain a spot on the Commonwealth's primary ballot. Perry was excluded after the party found he had not submitted enough valid signatures by the deadline last Thursday. His campaign submitted 6,000 of the required 10,000, according to the suit. The lawsuit alleges that Perry's 1st and 14th Amendment rights were violated by the requirement that those circulating the petitions also be eligible or registered voters of Virginia. Failure to get on the ballot is a major...

This country's Founding Fathers were a bunch of obnoxious jerks -- and I mean that in the most reverent way. These were men who were fiercely opposed to blind obedience to authority, and who laid their lives on the line to flip it the bird. Oh, how disappointingly -- and dangerously -- far we've fallen. Our Constitutional rights are increasingly being eroded -- at TSA checkpoints, at police stops where citizens are arrested for videotaping, and elsewhere -- and so many Americans are just sitting there blinking like livestock. At the airport this past March, I wasn't one of those...

<p>A federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit alleging conservative political ideology drove a prestigious, selective Justice Department hiring program during the administration of President George W. Bush.</p> <p>The ruling Thursday was a setback for three lawyers rejected for the Honors Program that funneled promising young lawyers into government jobs. They had sued alleging misconduct by Bush political appointees who did the hiring, and violations of the Privacy Act.</p>

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Dallas based adult entertainment business with a club right here in Lubbock is getting sued by some current and former dancers. The dancers say they're hired as independent contractors rather than employees paid by the hour. Documents from the federal lawsuit show 8 dancers suing Jaguars. According to the lawsuit they worked in Lubbock, Abilene, Odessa, Dallas, and Fort Worth. We've been unable to determine how many dancers worked at the Lubbock location or if they're still employed. Texas Tech labor law professor Jarod Gonzalez explains the difference between an employee and an independent contractor....

Copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas faced more problems Monday after a federal judge granted a defendant’s motion that Righthaven be placed under control of a receiver and that its copyrights be auctioned off, giving it nothing to sue or appeal over. U.S. District Judge Philip Pro granted the motion made by attorneys for defendant Wayne Hoehn, who said a receiver was needed to run the company and that its assets should be auctioned. That was after Righthaven failed to pay their attorney’s fees and U.S. Marshals were unable to round up enough Righthaven assets to cover their...

Back in September, we saw a hero Marine receive the Medal of Honor for his amazing, life-saving performance during an ambush in Afghanistan. Marine Sergeant Dakota Meyer is one of the few living recipients of the Medal of Honor for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the citation on the award, this noble, young man went to astonishing lengths to help his fellow troops. He disregarded orders to remain at a safe distance from the ambush and proceeded to save the lives of 36 fellow Marines, soldiers and Afghani military members. Here is the Official Citation for Sgt....

A Frenchman has been ordered to pay his ex-wife £8,500 in damages for failing to have enough sex with her during their marriage. The 51-year-old man was fined under article 215 of France’s civil code, which states married couples must agree to a “shared communal life”. A judge has now ruled that this law implies that “sexual relations must form part of a marriage”. The rare legal decision came after the wife filed for divorce two years ago, blaming the break-up on her husband’s lack of activity in the bedroom. A judge in Nice, southern France, then granted the divorce...

Committee Weighs Contempt Citation Against White House Over SolyndraBy James Rosen Published December 02, 2011 | FoxNews.com Members of Congress investigating the $535 million loan guarantee that the Obama administration gave to now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra are considering suing the White House to obtain access to documents relating to the case, Fox News has learned. For close to a year, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has been probing the circumstances surrounding the loan and its subsequent restructuring, which subordinated taxpayers to private investors in the recovery of the company's assets. Solyndra's chief investor, billionaire George Kaiser, is a...

Robert Lee went into Dr. Stacy Makhnevich’s New York dentist office for a sore tooth, but the year that followed turned into what one Public Citizen senior lawyer called an “unconscionable practice.” The controversy began in 2010, when Lee went into Makhnevich’s office for a scheduled dentist’s appointment. Bleary from pain, Lee claimed he was told he had to sign several papers, including a “Mutual Agreement to Maintain Privacy,” before being treated. The form required Lee to agree not to publish any commentary or write anything disparaging about his experience with Makhnevich. While Lee said he was hesitant to sign...

Even in such a thin economy, he could no longer stomach the fat “jokes.” Thomas Hunt, 48, claims his manager at a Raymour & Flanigan furniture store in Queens was so fixated on Hunt’s weight that she ordered him to establish a “fat club,” recruit members and act as its president. The exec, Marlene Albarano, relentlessly ribbed Hunt about his extra poundage, a Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit claims — even denying him a promotion solely because of his appearance and once ordering him to walk around the building for 30 minutes on his lunch break, according to court papers.

The key to the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling will be clear recognition of constitutional alternatives to Obamacare. On November 14, the Supreme Court granted the Writ of Certiorari to hear the appeal of the cases testing the constitutionality of Obamacare. The resulting decision will mark an historic watershed not only in the restoration of constitutional jurisprudence, but in fundamental, market reform of the entire entitlement state... --snip-- While the decision of simpatico Judge Laurence Silberman upholding the Obamacare mandate is somewhat troubling, that reflected Silberman's poorly reasoned conclusion that he was bound as a lower court judge by the Supreme...

Democrats on Capitol Hill are worried that the Supreme Court will rule against President Obama’s healthcare reform law. Over the last couple weeks, congressional Democrats have told The Hill that the law faces danger in the hands of the Supreme Court, which The New York Times editorial page recently labeled the most conservative high court since the 1950s. While the lawmakers are not second-guessing the administration’s legal strategy, some are clearly bracing for defeat. “Of course I’m concerned,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). The justices “decide for insurance companies, they decide for oil companies, they decide for the wealthy too...

div class="article_body"> The case for Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan recusing herself from voting on the upcoming decision regarding Obamacare would seem to be an open and shut one. Emails show that she harbored definite opinions about the law while serving as Obama's solicitor general.The Examiner: At her confirmation hearing in 2010, now-Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan that she "was not" asked at any time to give her opinion on the merits of the Obamacare legislaton. Newly released emails suggest that whether or not she was asked, Kagan was not shy about her enthusiasm for the bill that eventually...

Supreme Court to Hear Main Lawsuit Challenging Obamacare Washington, DC -- The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the main lawsuit seeking to challenge the Obamacare law that pro-life groups opposed because it allowed taxpayer funding of abortions, failed to protect conscience rights and sparks rationing concerns. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/11/14/supreme-court-to-hear-main-lawsuit-challenging-obamacare/

State football playoffs kick off on Friday in nearly all states which didn't start them on the first weekend of November. That's the case in New Mexico, too, though one school is fighting to put some of the state's scheduled matchups on hold until it can have a blown call rectified … and possibly be added to the playoff mix itself. As reported by KOB-TV and KOAT-TV, among other New Mexico outlets, Atrisco (N.M.) Heritage High parents filed an injunction on behalf of the school's football team after it was kept out of the New Mexico Class 4A state playoffs...

Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a lawsuit Monday against the Health Care Clinic in Delta Township and the affiliated Women's Choice Clinic in Saginaw, forcing the local abortion clinic to close its doors. The court order to shut down operations came after the attorney general said an investigation showed a number of violations. Schuette hopes to keep the clinic's doors from ever opening again. "Doesn't matter whether you're an abortion clinic or a podiatrist, there are state regulations that you have to follow that must be enforced. That's what this case is all about," said Joy Yearout, spokeswoman. Yearout, a...

In 2009, President Obama vowed to overhaul the nation's immigration detention system. Since then, his administration has taken some steps to deliver on that promise, such as providing detainees improved access to medical care and closing troubled facilities. But it has yet to provide the most meaningful fix: ensuring that indigent immigrants in detention have access to legal counsel. Until now, federal courts have held that only criminal defendants are entitled to court-appointed counsel. An immigration case, even if it involves detention, is a civil matter. As a result, the vast majority of detainees, including children and the mentally ill,...

According to a lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County court, kitchen workers at the Morton's of Chicago steakhouse in Boca Raton stuck raw vegetables in their underwear before serving them to unsuspecting diners, the website www.GossipExtra.com reported. In his harassment action against the restaurant chain, sous-chef Reggie Williams claims he witnessed a colleague at the restaurant at the Shops at Boca Center "place stalks of asparagus inside his underwear, next to his anal/genital area in order to simulate his penis," then "serve that asparagus to Morton's unsuspecting paying customers."

A must read for bloggers of all stripes: how Donald Douglas from American Power  whupped the copyright trolls in court... 'Beating Righthaven' -here-

Miami, Florida - -(Ammoland.com)- As we reported earlier, Florida Carry, Inc. planned to file lawsuits today against the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County to end their unlawful gun control ordinances. Moments before the cases were filed with the court, we received assurances from the Miami City Attorney’s Office that their unlawful ordinances will be repealed on November 17th. Miami-Dade County has also agendaed a measure to repeal its gun control laws. We have subsequently decided to suspend filing the cases against Miami and Miami-Dade. We will not file the lawsuits if the city and county repeal the offending ordinances...

The family of a Texas man killed when a racing aircraft crashed into spectators in the National Championship Air Races in Reno filed a $25 million lawsuit Tuesday against the pilot's family, a mechanic on the World War II-era aircraft and the Nevada organization that hosted the event.

The Obama administration has boosted its efforts to bar state-level enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws by suing South Carolina over its new immigration reform law. The Monday announcement by the Department of Justice follows the news that the Department of Homeland Security has quietly canceled long-standing checks of transportation hubs for illegal immigrants. Administration officials defended the controversial lawsuit Monday, despite the nation’s unemployment rate of at least 9 percent.

The family of the Boston pizza deliveryman who was killed during a dinner drop-off has filed a $15 million negligence and wrongful death lawsuit against Domino’s Pizza and Deutsche Bank. “At the time of Richel Nova’s death, Domino’s had no policies posted in and around the store regarding delivery driver security,” Boston lawyer Howard J. Wayne states in the civil complaint he filed last week in Suffolk Superior Court.