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Clicking 'checkout' could cost more after Supreme Court case
Law & Court News |
2018/04/17 05:27
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The Supreme Court is hearing a case this week that could affect how much customers pay for online purchases.
At issue is a rule saying that businesses don't have to collect state sales taxes when those businesses ship to a state where they don't have an office, warehouse or other physical presence.
Large retailers with brick-and-mortar stores have to collect sales taxes nationwide, but smaller online sellers can often avoid doing so.
Large retailers say the rule puts them at a competitive disadvantage. States say they're losing out in billions of dollars in tax revenue.
But small businesses that sell online say the complexity and expense of collecting taxes nationwide could drive them out of business.
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North Carolina court allows case against dance instructors
Law & Court News |
2018/04/10 10:58
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still be sued by the employer who wrangled the foreign-born pair's permission to work in the United States.
Happy Dance Inc. studio owner Michael Krawiec said Wednesday he's not yet discussed with his lawyer how to proceed after last week's ruling by the state Supreme Court.
The court decided breach of contract and other claims can continue against two dance instructors from Bosnia and Serbia, but the Charlotte studio that hired them away is largely out of the woods.
U.S. dance studios face a chronic search for instructors and have filled the gap by importing foreign workers from Eastern Europe and other countries where learning to waltz or tango is part of growing up. |
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Top EU court : Members can ban taxi services like UberPop
Law & Court News |
2018/04/05 10:57
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The European Union’s top court has ruled that member states can ban taxi services like UberPop without prior notification to the Commission.
The ruling came after France banned the UberPop service, which allowed drivers without a taxi license to pick up passengers, in 2014 to avoid unfair competition. A court in the French city of Lille then asked the European Court of Justice whether French authorities should have notified the Commission before passing the law.
The court said in a statement Tuesday that member states “may prohibit and punish the illegal exercise of a transport activity such as UberPop without having to notify the Commission in advance of” any laws penalizing such services. It’s another blow for Uber after the ECJ ruled it should be regulated like a taxi company.
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Stephen Reinhardt, liberal circuit court judge, dies at 87
Law & Court News |
2018/03/27 14:06
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Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a liberal stalwart on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for nearly four decades, died Thursday in Southern California. He was 87.
Reinhardt died of a heart attack during a visit to a dermatologist in Los Angeles, court spokesman David Madden said.
"As a judge, he was deeply principled, fiercely passionate about the law and fearless in his decisions," 9th Circuit Chief Judge Sidney Thomas said in a statement. "He will be remembered as one of the giants of the federal bench."
Reinhardt was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and went on to become the sixth longest-serving judge on the court.
He was considered to be one of the most liberal judges on the 9th Circuit and his rulings often placed him on the side of immigrants and prisoners. Reinhardt wrote a 2012 opinion striking down California's gay marriage ban.
He also wrote a 1996 opinion that struck down a Washington state law that prohibited doctors from prescribing medication to help terminally ill patients die.
Last year he wrote in an opinion that a Trump administration order to deport a man who entered the country illegally nearly three decades ago and became a respected businessman in Hawaii was "inhumane" and "contrary to the values of the country and its legal system."
Reinhardt was "brilliant - a great legal mind and writer - but he was equally hard working," said Hector Villagra, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California.
Villagra, who clerked for Reinhardt in 1995, said he once found the judge in his chambers at 11 p.m. on a Saturday writing a dissent to the court's decision not to rehear a death penalty appeal. |
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Supreme Court hears case alleging unconstitutional 6th District gerrymander
Law & Court News |
2018/03/26 14:06
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U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed frustration with partisan gerrymandering on Wednesday as they heard arguments in a case challenging Maryland’s 6th Congressional District.
The case, which alleges a Democratic gerrymander in Maryland at the same time justices are considering the constitutionality of an alleged Republican gerrymander in Wisconsin, has some legal experts wondering whether the justices might be on the verge of establishing a standard that would allow judicial intervention in partisan gerrymandering cases for the first time in the court’s history.
The 6th District challenge was brought by seven Maryland residents, including three from Frederick County, who argue that the district — which includes southwestern parts of Frederick County and the city of Frederick — was unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Democrats and punish Republicans during the reapportionment process after the 2010 census.
The justices heard arguments in the Wisconsin political gerrymandering case in October, but have not yet released an opinion.
The Maryland and Wisconsin cases both focus on unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering, but there are some important differences. The Maryland case challenges the redrawing of a single federal district to favor Democrats, while the Wisconsin case is based on the statewide redrawing of Wisconsin State Assembly districts to favor Republicans.
The two cases also allege different violations of voters’ rights: The Maryland case claims retaliation against Republican voters under a First Amendment framework, while the Wisconsin plaintiffs are alleging a violation of the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment.
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