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Committee OKs school spending report for WA court
Court Watch |
2013/08/28 09:33
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A committee overseeing progress on paying the full cost of basic education for kids in public school voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a draft of its latest progress report to the state Supreme Court.
In its decision on a lawsuit brought by a coalition of school districts, parents and education groups _ known as the McCleary case for the family named in the suit _ the high court ruled in January 2012 that the state is not meeting its constitutional obligation concerning education funding. In the ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the Legislature to make yearly progress reports on its efforts. Those reports are then critiqued by the group that brought the lawsuit, and by the Supreme Court.
This year, the Legislature allocated about $1 billion more for basic education for the current two-year budget cycle. Lawmakers estimate they need to find a total of between $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion more over the coming years to fully pay for basic education. |
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Calif. tax lawyer convicted of taking client money
Court Watch |
2013/08/26 11:44
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Federal prosecutors say a 73-year-old Northern California tax attorney has been convicted of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients for his own expenses including personal trainers and travel.
A U.S. attorney's statement says Stanford Law School graduate Orion Douglas Memmott of Willows was found guilty Wednesday of tax evasion and subscribing to a false tax document after a five-day bench trial in October.
The statement says Memmott took money from investors and law firm clients including one woman who was left destitute and homeless after he depleted her medical trust.
Prosecutors say Memmott concealed the embezzled money through nominee accounts and false statements to investors, clients, and the Internal Revenue Service. |
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Appeals court: Obama violating law on nuke site
Court Watch |
2013/08/19 15:33
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A federal appeals court says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department's application for a waste site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
In a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was "simply flouting the law" when it allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site near Las Vegas. The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository.
The court said the president can't ignore a congressional mandate simply because of policy objections. |
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Judge denies class action for Wal-Mart bias suit
Court Watch |
2013/08/03 09:26
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A judge rejected on Friday an attempt to file a class action discrimination lawsuit on behalf of 150,000 Wal-Mart women employees in California who claimed their male colleagues were paid more and promoted faster than them.
The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court was a scaled-down version of an initial complaint filed in 2001 that sought to represent 1.6 million women nationwide. But the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out that class action lawsuit in 2011, ruling it found no convincing proof of companywide discrimination on pay and promotion policy. The court also said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit.
After that setback, the women's lawyers filed smaller class action lawsuits, alleging discrimination occurred in different states and Wal-Mart "regions."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the smaller suit on behalf of California women employees was still too disparate and wide ranging to qualify as a class action lawsuit. He also found that the lawyers failed to show statistical and anecdotal evidence of gender bias.
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Court rules against Neb. county in wind-tax case
Court Watch |
2013/08/01 09:27
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A wind-energy company that paid $1.6 million in property taxes for 2009 can claim credit for that amount to avoid paying over the next several years, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Friday as it upheld a tax credit for wind companies.
The high court reversed a Lancaster County judge who struck down the 2010 tax credit as unconstitutional.
The law was intended to reduce start-up costs for wind companies, while allowing local governments to collect the same amount of revenue over a longer period.
Wind facilities were previously taxed as personal property over a 5-year period. The 2010 law swapped the property tax for a nameplate capacity tax a tax on the company's wind-generating power ? to be imposed at a lower rate, but spread over at least 20 years.
As they crafted the law, lawmakers included a tax credit for a wind-energy farm in Knox County that had already paid property taxes. Without the credit, the court said, Elkhorn Ridge Wind would have been only wind-energy firm in Nebraska to have to pay both taxes.
"The nameplate capacity tax was clearly intended to be instead of, and not in addition to, the personal property tax on wind energy generation equipment," the court said in its ruling. "But without the credit, Elkhorn Ridge would be required to pay both personal property tax and the nameplate capacity tax on the same equipment."
The Knox County Board of Supervisors challenged the law after Elkhorn Ridge claimed credit for taxes paid after the county had set its budget. The firm reported a nameplate tax liability of nearly $285,000 in 2010, according to the ruling. But the company argued that it was allowed to apply the property taxes already paid to that tax debt. |
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Investment Fraud Litigation |
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Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of the securities laws. Securities Arbitration. Generally speaking, securities fraud consists of deceptive practices in the stock and commodity markets, and occurs when investors are enticed to part with their money based on untrue statements.
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