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Ohio court to decide if ex-player can sue over concussions
Topics in Legal News |
2018/04/07 10:57
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The Ohio Supreme Court will decide whether the widow of a former University of Notre Dame football player can sue the school and the NCAA over allegations her husband was disabled by concussions from his college career in the 1970s.
Steve Schmitz was suffering from dementia and early onset Alzheimer's disease when he and his wife, Yvette, filed a lawsuit in Cuyahoga County in October 2014. The lawsuit alleged both institutions showed "reckless disregard" for the safety of college football players and for their failure to educate and protect players from concussions.
The lawsuit said the link between repeated blows to the head and brain-related injuries and illnesses had been known for decades, but it was not until 2010 that the NCAA required colleges to formulate concussion protocols to remove an athlete from a game or practice and be evaluated by doctors.
Steve Schmitz died in February 2015. The lawsuit said the Cleveland Clinic diagnosed him in 2012 with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a brain disease attributed to receiving numerous concussions.
A judge ruled that too much time had passed for Schmitz to sue, a decision overturned by a state appeals court. The state's high court planned to hear arguments from both sides on Wednesday.
A ruling in favor of Schmitz's widow would allow her to return to court and argue the specific allegations regarding the impact of concussions on her husband, a running back and receiver.
Notre Dame and the NCAA argue the statute of limitations for Schmitz to have sued date back to his playing days when he first realized he suffered head injuries. As such, the two-year window for filing a personal injury claim had long passed, the institutions say. |
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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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Court to decide if drug use while pregnant is child abuse
Law Firm Blog News |
2018/04/04 10:57
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Pennsylvania's highest court will decide whether a woman's use of illegal drugs while pregnant qualifies as child abuse under state law.
The Supreme Court recently took up the case of a woman who tested positive for suboxone and marijuana at the time she gave birth early last year at Williamsport Hospital.
A county judge ruled that did not qualify as child abuse under the state's Child Protective Services Law, but the intermediate Superior Court said drug use while pregnant can make bodily injury to a child likely after birth.
Court records indicate the child spent 19 days in the hospital being treated for drug dependence, exhibiting severe withdrawal symptoms.
"Mother's actions were deplorable but this court must follow the law," wrote Clinton County Judge Craig Miller in May, ruling the county child welfare agency had not established child abuse occurred.
The mother's lawyers argue lawmakers never intended the child protection law to apply to acts during pregnancy.
"No one thinks using drugs while pregnant is good, but using the criminal justice system and the civil child abuse system to punish people for doing so just makes a bad situation much, much worse," said the woman's lawyer, David S. Cohen.
Amanda Beth Browning, lawyer for the Clinton County Department of Children and Youth Services, declined comment.
In a filing with Supreme Court, the woman's lawyers said most states, with a few exceptions, "have taken a non-punitive approach to the issue."
"Almost every major medical and public health organization has recognized that punishing women for drug use during their pregnancies is counterproductive to public and private health," wrote lawyers for the mother, identified by initials in court records. |
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Supreme Court rejects appeal from Middle East attack victims
Attorney Blog News |
2018/04/02 13:57
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The Supreme Court is rejecting an appeal from American victims of terrorist attacks in the Middle East more than a decade ago.
The justices are not commenting Monday in ending a lawsuit against the PLO and Palestinian Authority in connection with attacks in Israel in 2002 and 2004 that killed 33 people. A lower court tossed out a $654 million verdict against the Palestinians.
The Trump administration sided with the Palestinians in calling on the high court to leave the lower court ruling in place. The federal appeals court in New York said U.S. courts can't consider lawsuits against foreign-based groups over random attacks that were not aimed at the United States.
The victims sued under the Anti-Terrorism Act, passed to open U.S. courts to American victims of international terrorism.
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