August 2006 Archives

Rapper 50 Cent has been sued by two female fans who claim he assaulted them during a Springfield, Massachusetts, concert in May 2004.

The suit - filed by Donna Dejesus, 25, and Taneka Nesbitt, 27, at Hampden County Court - alleges the In Da Club star punched DeJesus in the face and injured Nesbitt's knee.

The alleged incident took place when 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, jumped into the crowd in search of a fan who sprayed him with water. Jackson was then returned to the stage by security guards and two police officers and he finished his show.

In May 2005, Jackson entered a plea agreement in a criminal trial stemming from the incident and was sentenced to attend an anger management program and to undergo random drug testing for two years.

The two plaintives are seeking undisclosed damages in their civil case.

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An South Carolina based defense contractor that makes armored vehicles for the Pentagon has agreed to pay the government $1.8 million to resolve allegations brought in a whistleblower lawsuit.

The case was filed in U.S. District Court in South Carolina by Justin Lucey, an attorney, on behalf of two former employees of Force Protection, Perry Chomyn and Robin Swain. The suit claimed the company "failed to advance payments to expedite production of armored vehicles for the U.S. military".

The company, whose vehicles are used in Afghanistan and Iraq to find and remove bombs, denied any wrongdoing.

The two former employees "will receive $315,000 as their share of the proceeds of the settlement" and got "an additional $105,000 in attorney fees and settlement of their employment-related claims," a statement said.

Company vice president Mike Aldrich told the press that the company agreed to the settlement over an accounting technicality.

The lawsuit claimed the company used advance payment "for purposes other than that to which the United States government had intended."

The company said the error essentially amounted to depositing the payment into the wrong bank account.

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Wal-Mart has settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the parents of a 19-year-old store clerk who was abducted, sexually assaulted and killed following her night shift.

The employee, Megal Leann Holden, was kidnapped in January 2005, from the parking lot of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Tyler. Johnny Lee Williams, Jr. later pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to life.

Holden's parents, Sheri Kay Dunlap and James Vincent Holden sued Wal-Mart and the store's security company, the Wackenhut Corporation, alleging that the companies' negligence resulted in their daughter's death.

Dunlap and Holden said the terms of the settlement are confidential. The lawsuit had been scheduled to go to trial tomorrow.

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Three judges on the federal appeals bench in Washington, have ruled that compensatory damages awarded in a lawsuit don't count as "income" even under the expansive language of the 16th Amendment. As a result, the government's attempts to tax such monies are unconstitutional.

The plaintiff in this case, Marrita Murphy, had won a whistleblower action against the New York Air National Guard, and an administrative judge awarded her $70,000 in compensatory damages for a combination of emotional distress and damage to her reputation. She initially paid income taxes of $20,665 on that award, but eventually asked for a refund on the grounds that compensatory awards don't count as "income" under the 16th Amendment.

Income tax law has traditionally recognized that compensatory damages for, say, a physical injury or destroyed property aren't truly "income." Such awards simply use money to return a person to the way things were before, instead of providing a windfall or compensating for some service.

The latest ruling extends this reasoning to compensation for intangible damages. This may not be true for monies received as punitive damages, which count as taxable income.

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Jamie Gold, the winner of this year's 'World Series of Poker' is facing a lawsuit from his colleague over a verbal agreement to share his prize money. Gold's $12 million prize has been placed on hold by a Las Vegas judge after this suit was filed against him.

Gold's fellow TV executive, Crispin Leyser, sued him over an alleged handshake deal between the two to split any earnings Gold would make at the popular poker event. The suit alleges that Gold agreed to split any of his 'WSOP' winnings with Leyser in return for his help in getting celebrities to wear clothing advertising Gold`s sponsor, Bodog.com.

Leyser claims that he was able to get actor Matthew Lillard and 'Punk`d' co-star Dax Shepard to wear apparel that promoted the Internet gambling site, but has not received any payment since Gold won the 8,773-player tournament earlier this month.

As part of his case, Leyser has presented a voice-mail message which allegedly confirms the men's oral agreement.

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Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has settled a libel lawsuit with former late-night British TV personality Anna Richardson, who claimed she was groped by the Hollywood actor during a 2000 interview and later defamed by his aides during his 2003 campaign for governor.

"The parties are content to put this matter behind them and are pleased that this legal dispute has now been settled," said a two-sentence statement issued jointly in London on Friday by lawyers for Schwarzenegger and Richardson.

No details were released. The statement said Richardson and the three people she sued - the governor and two top aides, Sean Walsh and publicist Sheryl Main - reached a settlement "to all parties' satisfaction."

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Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft-drink maker, has been added to a lawsuit filed by lawyers against soft drink makers. The lawsuit claims that the drinks contain a high level of the leukemia-causing chemical benzene.

Coca-Cola and closely held Sunny Delight were added yesterday to a lawsuit targeting PepsiCo Inc.'s Diet Wild Cherry drink and Kraft Foods Inc.'s Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange.

A laboratory contracted by the plaintiffs' lawyers found Vault Zero, after being exposed to heat, contained 13 parts per billion of benzene. The Environmental Protection Agency requires that water have less than 5 parts per billion.

Levels of more than 10 parts per billion have previously led to product recalls of Perrier water and Coca-Cola.

Two other drink makers, Austell, Ga.-based In Zone Brands, maker of BellyWashers, and Preston, Wash.-based TalkingRain Beverage Co., settled a District of Columbia-based case yesterday.

The Food and Drug Administration has "closely reviewed" beverages for benzene in soft drinks in the past and has found no public health problems, Ray Crockett, a spokesman for Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, said in an e-mail.

The lawsuits were triggered by the results of tests conducted by the FDA that showed that some drinks contained high levels of benzene.

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Three former students of Humphrey Public School in Parry Sound, Ontario, filed a lawsuit against Kenneth Bull and the Near North District School Board (NNDSB), for sexual assaults by Bull, a convicted sexual offender who was their teacher in Grade 6.

The three former students, Eric Jalonen, Jeff Masson and Mike Tepfenhart each filed a $4.5 million lawsuit seeking $500,000 for non-pecuniary damages, such as pain and suffering; $2 million for economic loss, both past and future; $250,000 for special damages, such as medical expenses; $250,000 for mental distress; $500,000 aggravated damages; and $1 million against the NNDSB for punitive damages.

In 1978, a Parry Sound judge found Mr. Bull guilty of five counts of indecent assault against males.

Although it’s been 28 years since Mr. Bull’s criminal conviction, the men said they are suing him to make sure that other possible victims don’t feel that they are alone or have to live in fear anymore, Mr. Jalonen said.

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David Rothman, the father of Jeffrey Rothman, who fell off a pier and drowned,  is suing the city of Myrtle Beach and the police department. He claims that the police department did not follow  proper procedures, did not treat the case as a possible homicide and showed a lack of professionalism.

Jeffrey Rothman died after jumping off a pier and an autopsy determined that he had taken the drug Ecstasy and died accidentally.

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Twenty-nine more workers from the Jasper Popcorn Co. plant have filed a lawsuit claiming they suffered lung damage due to a butter flavoring used at the plant.

The suit filed in the Jasper County Circuit Court names as co-defendants the makers of butter flavoring used at the plant, International Flavors and Fragrances, and the company with which it merged in 2001, Bush Boake Allen, Givaudan Flavors, Aldrich Chemical Co. and Sigma-Aldrich.

International Flavors and Fragrances and Bush Boake Allen were defendants in prior lawsuits brought by 43 other workers at the plant, 30 of which have been either adjudicated or settled.

The popcorn lawsuits allege that exposure to the flavoring caused a rare progressive lung disease, known as bronchiolitis obliterans.

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William Gilson of New York City sued the Westchester Square Hospital for allowing his mother's corpse to decompose. The suit said that the body of Veronica Gilson was left in a heated hallway for 38 hours because the hospital's morgue was overcrowded.

Gilson said the corpse had decomposed so badly that he couldn't hold an open casket wake and funeral.

A jury has awarded Gilson $1 million and the hospital says it may appeal.

A federal jury awarded $3.7 million to a former suburban Chicago police officer who sued for the retaliation he suffered after he discovered evidence of corruption in the village of Stickney.

Under Monday's ruling, Richard Hare Sr., 48, will receive $1.7 million in compensatory damages from the village and $1 million in punitive damages each from Mayor Donald Tabor and Police Chief John Zitek.

"It's a victory for me on paper," Hare said, "but I'm sad because it brought down the entire village," he said.

Hare sued in 2002 alleging that Tabor and Zitek retaliated against him after he and five others brought evidence of corruption to the Cook County state's attorney's office. The action against him included demotion, taking away his car and trying to revoke his gun license.

In 2000, Hare testified before a grand jury that money, guns and drugs had disappeared from the police department's evidence room.

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The trial of a lawsuit filed by Linda Reeves of Benton against Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, claiming that the hormone replacement therapy drug Prempro caused her breast cancer, is scheduled to begin on August 21 at Little Rock, Arkansas.

This trial is the first of about 4500 lawsuits against Prempro, and will be watched with interest by consumers, the pharmaceutical and legal communities. Millions of women have taken Prempro, to ease the symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes or osteoporosis.

A clinical study of the drug in 2002 found that Prempro users faced an increased risk of breast cancer, stroke and heart disease.

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A judge ruled in favor of the city of Lubbock, Texas in a lawsuit filed by about 70 families over lost or misidentified graves at the Lubbock Cemetery.

In 2004 many families came forward saying as many as 4,000 graves could be missing. 97% of those burial sites were later traced to the Peaceful Gardens Cemetery in Woodrow.

Still, around 70 families sued the city for negligence and poor record keeping. Now Judge Medina's ruling  stops the suit against the city, and prevents any damages from being awarded to the families claiming wrong doing at the cemetery.

Judge Medina says his decision is based on the law set in 1970, which gives all government entities immunity, meaning they're free from most situations of blame.

The city also claims that they're not responsible mishandling before they took ownership of the cemetery. "Almost all of these allegations were when the cemetery was owned by other entities, not the City of Lubbock," said Jeff Hartsell, the attorney for the City of Lubbock.

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Hispanic activists and the ACLU sued Hazleton, a northeastern Pennsylvania city that has recently approved a tough law to crack down on illegal immigrants.

The new law imposes $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, denies business permits to companies that give them jobs and makes English the city's official language.

The lawsuit contends that the Constitution gives the federal government exclusive power to regulate immigration and that the city's ordinance is discriminatory and unworkable.

Mayor Lou Barletta said that he was confident the ordinance will stand up to legal scrutiny, and Hazleton would stand its ground.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs told Barletta that they would drop the lawsuit if City Council repealed the ordinance and agreed not to pursue a similar measure in the future.

Former West Side High School student, Raymond Little believes he contracted HIV after being seduced by his band teacher. Little missed the deadline for initiating legal proceedings, but the state appeals court ruled that he can still sue the Newark school district.

Citing "extraordinary circumstances," the state appeals court ruled that Raymond Little can sue the Newark school district, even though he missed the legal deadline, because he was devastated by his medical diagnosis and ignorant of the legal requirements of filing a lawsuit.

Little had complained that the teacher Hassan Vann attempted to seduce him when he was a freshman. He said he told a guidance counselor, the school social worker and the principal that the teacher groped him, and asked to be transferred out of Vann's class, but no action was taken. This account was later corroborated by the guidance counselor and the social worker.

Two years later, when Little was a junior, Vann invited him to an apartment where he gave him alcohol and "weed,", and the two allegedly had sex regularly after that. In May 2005, nine months after he graduated, Little tested positive for the AIDS virus.

Little then reported his illness and his past encounters with the teacher to the Newark school board, who notified the police. Little had three months to begin legal proceedings against the school district. A Superior Court judge extended the deadline, but the school district appealed.

The appellate court agreed with the lower court that there were "extraordinary circumstances" and Little should be allowed extra time to file suit.

"(Raymond Little) was two months short of his nineteenth birthday when he learned that he had been injured as a consequence of his teacher's conduct," the court ruling states. "The unexpected news was that he had a condition that not only can lead to death but also carries a stigma."

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Sprint Nextel Corp. has agreed to pay almost $29 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by current and former employees who had sued the company saying their retirement accounts were degraded by being tied to the company’s stock.

U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum approved the agreement last week, which will cover more than 85,000 employees who had money in the company’s retirement plan since 1998.

Susan Meagher, an attorney for the class, said employees who file claims would each receive between $400 and $1,000 in cash, increased company matching for their retirement plans or other benefits.

The class action suit had claimed that the company’s stock was too risky an investment to be included in their retirement plans.

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A sexual harassment lawsuit brought against James Brown by his former publicist, Jacque Hollander was dismissed by the 7th US Circuit Court Of Appeals in Chicago.

The three judges upheld a previous ruling that Hollander's legal action contravened the statute of limitations - as she launched her legal action in January 2005, claiming that Brown raped her at gunpoint in 1988.

Hollander had claimed that a doctor had diagnosed that a thyroid condition she developed was caused by the rape, thereby bypassing the two-year statute of limitations. But the judges ruled that she knew about her injuries immediately.

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Dynacq Healthcare Inc. announced that it resolved the shareholder class action lawsuit pending against it for $1.5 million including administrative costs, class attorneys' fees as well as the payout to the class.

The company stated that it would pay $100,000 within 30 days of final approval of the settlement by the court and the balance in 36 equal monthly interest.

The lawsuit was filed against Dynacq and certain current and former officers and directors for providing materially misleading financial statements.

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The family of a boy who was sexually assaulted by his seventh-grade teacher settled their lawsuit against the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, as requested by the family.

The former teacher, Dawn Reiser, who taught at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Grapevine, was convicted last year of aggravated sexual assault and indecency with a child. She was sentenced to eight years in prison. She must serve four years and register as a sex offender.

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Jockey Gary Birzer, who was paralyzed after falling during a race two years ago, has agreed to settle his lawsuit against the Jockeys' Guild and two former officials who allowed his health insurance to lapse.

Although he had sued for $ 10 million, the financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, and it is protected by a confidentiality agreement.

The settlement includes five years of health insurance coverage for Birzer and his family, as well as a public role with the guild, advocating for other disabled jockeys.

Birzer had a riding accident during a race in July 2004 that resulted in him breaking his neck and being paralyzed from the chest down.

He thought the Guild would pay for his medical care and ongoing therapy, but learned too late that a $1 million insurance policy he'd bought for $10 per race had been allowed to lapse.

He and his family were forced to get by on Medicaid and charity.

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A Florida company has agreed to pay Sprint Nextel Corp. a settlement of $1 million for illegally obtaining and selling customers' records.

The suit against 1st Source Information Specialists Inc. was filed by Sprint in January. Sprint said the data brokers gathered information on Sprint customers through fraudulent tactics, such as posing as customers looking for information about their accounts to access cell phone logs and phone numbers. The company obtained a permanent injunction against 1st Source in March.

Sprint reached a settlement and permanent injunction against All Star Investigations Inc. in June. A third lawsuit against San Marco & Associated, filed in March, is still pending.

Several other wireless companies have filed lawsuits against data brokers.

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A lawsuit filed by a Houston taxpayer group, Citizens Lowering Our Unfair Taxes (CLOUT), against legislative leaders over the level of state spending has been dismissed.

Visiting state District Judge Bill Bender of Seguin ruled that CLOUT didn't have standing to sue the Legislative Budget Board over the state's constitutional spending cap, which limits the state budget from growing more than the Texas economy.

The suit alleged that the LBB, which includes Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, House Speaker Tom Craddick and eight other key lawmakers, has used artificially inflated estimates of economic growth to justify higher spending limits.

It contended the school finance appropriations approved by the Legislature during the spring special session were unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Patti B. Saris ruled that the state of Massachusetts discriminated against black and Hispanic applicants for firefighter jobs by using exams that were unfair to minorities. The class-action suit was brought on behalf of all minority firefighters who took the 2002 and 2004 firefighters exams in hopes of joining fire departments in Boston, Lynn and other communities.

Saris said the state has continued to rank applicants based on how well they score on written exams that test cognitive ability, even though such tests were found discriminatory in the early 1970s. A 1974 federal consent decree ordered that a more fair exam be created. Massachusetts has failed over 30 years to create a more equitable exam for minorities seeking firefighter jobs throughout the state, despite court order to do so, the judge ruled.

"These cognitive examinations do not predict how quickly a firefighter can climb stairs with equipment or raise a ladder," Saris wrote in a 68-page decision in favor of four black firefighter applicants in Lynn.

The judge gave the lawyers for the four 30 days to propose a remedy. The state and the city of Lynn then will have 30 days to respond.

Lynn Mayor Edward "Chip" Clancy said his city has followed state Civil Service guidelines for hiring applications, and will continue to do so if the exam is changed.

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Comedian Jerry Lewis filed a $2.3 million lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court against two entertainment companies, Spyglass Entertainment Group and Hollywood Pictures Corp. The suit claimed the companies owe him money over a proposed remake of his 1961 movie "The Errand Boy."

The lawsuit said Lewis and JAS Productions Inc. entered into an agreement with Hollywood Pictures in 1996 that gave the film company an option to remake "The Errand Boy." Lewis was to act in the film and serve as a consultant and executive producer if the option was exercised.

Between 1999 and 2001, Hollywood assigned its rights to Spyglass, which never made the movie but prepared a screenplay and hired script writers, according to the lawsuit.

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A United States appeals court reinstated a lawsuit filed by Papua New Guinea residents against Rio Tinto PLC, accusing the London-based mining concern of genocide and environmental damage.

The case is being brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a 1789 U.S. statute that grants overseas victims of atrocities access to American courts to sue for damages.

Papua New Guinea's Bougainville province forces fought a decade-long civil war after sabotaging a gold and copper mine in an effort to win independence from the South Pacific's largest island state. About 20,000 people perished during the conflict.

A cease-fire was declared in 1998 by both sides and negotiations on the mineral-rich province's political future began.

The lawsuit by current and former Bougainville residents says Rio Tinto's mine fouled water supplies and the air and that the mine financially backed the government, which committed rape, murder and other atrocities during the conflict.

A Los Angeles judge dismissed the suit in 2002, ruling that the Alien Tort Claims Act did not allow the lawsuit and endorsing the U.S. government view, which said it could undermine the peace process in Papua New Guinea.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case, which has not gone to trial, saying the lower court had wrongly construed the law.

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Author Jeannie Holleman has sued "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken, alleging that he has hurt sales of her Aiken biography.

Holleman's filed the suit in Wake County Superior Court, North carolina, claiming that Aiken directly lessened sales of Holleman's unauthorized biography by publicly stating he was not acquainted with her.

The book, entitled "Out of the Blue -- 'Clay' It Forward," covers an alleged period in Aiken's life when he and his mother Faye Parker lived with Holleman in her North Carolina home.

In response to the book, Aiken and his mother have openly denied knowing Holleman and have said her 564-page book is full of lies about their family.

Holleman is seeking $260,000 in damages from the "Measure of a Man" singer and wants Aiken to not only endorse her work in the book and on his own Web site, but also sell the biography at his concerts for the next five years.

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Sutter Health has settled a class-action lawsuit brought by uninsured patients who said they were overcharged for care and targets of aggressive billing practices.

The settlement of over $ 275 million was approved by a Sacramento Superior Court judge. This allows thousands of patients to make refund claims of between 25 percent and 45 percent of their prior hospital bills.

As a condition of the settlement, Sutter Health's pricing policies for the uninsured must be comparable to insured patients for the next three years, and its hospitals must adopt more compassionate bill collection policies for patients who fall behind on payments.

The class action includes anyone who received hospital services from a Sutter-affiliated hospital between Sept. 3, 2000, and Aug. 3, 2006 and were uninsured at the time of treatment.

The settlement is valued at $275 million, but could increase substantially as the number of plaintiffs could reach into the hundreds of thousands.

Sacramento-based nonprofit Sutter Health is Northern California's largest hospital chain. Among its 26 affiliated hospitals are Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, Mills-Peninsula in Burlingame, California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and Sutter Antioch.

The lawsuit was initiated in September 2004 on behalf of uninsured patients, including a Berkeley man who was billed $4,600 for treatment of a minor hip injury.

Read our previous post about Catholic Healthcare West in a similar settlement.

Graceland Memorial Park South, a Miami cemetery, is facing a class action lawsuit against it for oversights, improper handling, misplacement and the disturbance of thousands of graves. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys Ervin A. Gonzalez and Neil Hirschfield, on behalf of Alicia Garcia and the class.

The allegations against the cemetery included numerous cases of lost bodies, grave desecration, misidentification of graves and insufficient burial spacing. In addition, cemetery staff allegedly disturbed many burials with heavy equipment and probed graves with metal rods on a routine basis, without the permission of the deceased's family members.

This was based on the experience of Alicia Garcia, who had purchased a burial plot for her sister, Eloisa Garcia in 1986. Alicia Garcia was allegedly assured by the funeral home that the location of her sister's burial would be accurately recorded and the family would always be able to find the grave.

According to the lawsuit, Graceland has no accurate maps or records of the section of the cemetery where Eloisa was buried. In an attempt to locate Eloisa's remains, cemetery staff conducted an extensive search in an area adjacent to where they believed she was located. They uncovered multiple graves with heavy equipment and probed various burials with metal rods. After desecrating multiple graves, Graceland staff removed the lid of the vault that they assumed contained Eloisa's remains.

These probes were conducted without the permission or consent of any family member.

According to the State of Florida Department of Banking and Finance, Division of Finance, this is not the first instance of complaints against the cemetery. Findings from examinations of the cemetery between 1993 and 2001 cite numerous occurrences of inconsistent burial records and misidentification of graves. Although fined by the State, the problem was never corrected, and the cemetery has no intention of remedying the situation without court intervention.

The Garcias and the class are now seeking monetary damages for mental anguish, infliction of emotional distress and gross negligence. They also want an injunction requiring Graceland to locate the burials and take remedial action to ascertain the location of the subject remains and to ensure their proper identification and perpetual care.

A Greenville jury awarded $18 million in a lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. for a 1999 crash that killed Patricia Carter and paralyzed Sonya Watson, who was 17 at that time. The jury found that the company had a defective speed-control system in the 1995 Ford Explorer that crashed.

Sonya Watson got $15 million while $3 million was awarded to the estate of Patricia Carter.

"I don't think it will ever be a fair amount because I can't put a price on my legs," said Watson, who sat outside the courtroom in a motorized wheelchair. Watson's attorneys had argued that the SUV "took off" while she was driving down the interstate.

The lawsuits also had claimed Ford and TRW Vehicle Safety Systems had installed defective seat belts, but jurors rejected that argument.

A San Francisco judge has reduced the damages awarded by a jury to the city of Modesto, California in a water contamination verdict. The damages have been trimmed from $ 175 million to 13 million.

The case relates to contamination from dry cleaning chemicals. A jury decided in June that the companies, Vulcan Materials and Dow Chemical, acted with malice because they failed to tell dry cleaners how to use and dispose of chemicals without harming the environment.

Judge John Munter reduced the punitive damages Tuesday against two chemical companies, but rejected a request to order a new trial.

Read our previous post on this case.

Read the news clipping.

A federal judge dismissed filmmaker Carlton Sherwood's defamation lawsuit against Sen. John Kerry, saying remarks linked to Kerry's campaign for the 2004 presidential race amount to political opinions.

Sherwood sued Kerry and John Podesta, a campaign aide, accusing them of blocking the release of his documentary about Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities. He said they labeled him a "disgraced journalist" and a "Bush hack."

The Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. canceled plans to air the documentary "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" on its stations before the November 2004 election.

U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam said he found no evidence that Kerry personally made any of the statements. "I do not believe any of these statements are actionable since they constitute expressions of opinion, and must be viewed in the context of a hard-fought political campaign," Fullam wrote in a ruling issued Thursday.

"More importantly, I am not aware of any basis for holding a political candidate personally responsible for statements made in press releases issued by his party's national committee," the judge wrote.

Toyota Motor North America Inc. has announced that it has settled a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a female employee. The terms of settlement could not be released because of mutual agreement to keep them confidential.

The employee, Sayaka Kobayashi, 42, had sought $190 million in damages in the suit filed with the New York State Supreme Court against her former boss, Hideaki Otaka, as well the company's North American unit and its Japanese parent.

Otaka has since stepped down as the president and chief executive of Toyota's U.S. unit. Otaka has said he is innocent.

Both sides have released a joint statement in which they said they were "pleased" to have reached a mutually satisfactory settlement.

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The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against a Las Vegas city ordinance that makes feeding homeless people in city parks illegal. The suit claims the new law violates the rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, free assembly, due process of law and equal protection under the law.

ACLU public advocate Lee Rowland calls the law - "immoral" and "embarrassing for the city."

Las Vegas is one of the first in the nation to explicitly bar feeding the poor and  City Attorney Brad Jerbic said the city will defend the law in court.

The complaint was filed on behalf of five local activists and the Las Vegas chapter of the advocacy group Food Not Bombs, a national organization that describes its objective as "sharing free vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty." 

On Monday, a radio disc jockey was the first person to receive a summons under the new law, a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $1,000 and six months in jail. Six other people were issued summonses and three people were arrested.

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A federal judge has ruled against tennis star Maria Sharapova, saying that the documentary maker Byzantium was entitled to market a documentary on her despite her objections.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said Byzantium Productions Inc. was lawful in its production of two films, "Anna's Army" and "Russian Women's Tennis." The documentaries did not violate trademark laws, the judge found.

The decision means Byzantium can move forward with plans to distribute the films in Japan and elsewhere, though the filmmakers said the damage had already been done.

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A Florida jury awarded almost $4 million to Kathleen Leer who suffered a brain injury when an intravenous tube was removed at a hospital three years ago.

The lawsuit claimed that Leer suffered a stroke and brain damage when removal of a central line at Largo Medical Center caused an air embolism. Her lawyer said Leer now suffers from left-side paralysis and cognition problems that require 24-hour care from her husband. 

Attorneys for the hospital argued that the line's removal did not cause Leer's injury and that "some or all of these damages" were based on pre-existing conditions. Leer, a chronic pain patient, was admitted to the hospital with a dislodged catheter in her lower back.

Hospital officials said they are considering an appeal.

A state appeals court said a Milwaukee area wedding photographer who held a couple's photos hostage until they paid more money owes them additional damages.

The First District court ruled Tuesday Mark Roob must pay John and Melanie Buellesbach $22,000 in addition to $15,000 a judge awarded after a bench trial in a civil case in 2004.

The New Berlin couple was married nine years ago. The court said the couple should have to wait no longer to be compensated for the photographer's misconduct.

Judge Ted Wedemeyer wrote that, "Roob's conduct was willful and outrageous."

The photographer was found guilty of fraud and unfair trade practice, and sentenced to three years in prison.

The 12th Indiana lawsuit against former Catholic priest Harry Monroe for sexual abuse of boys has been filed. This suit alleges that he abused the same teenage victim more than 50 times until the Archdiocese of Indianapolis transferred him.

The complaint was filed in Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis and alleged the abuse began in 1975 when the boy was 13. The abuse allegedly continued over four years while Monroe took subsequent postings at two other parishes in other parts of the city.

It ended when the archdiocese transferred Monroe to a parish in Terre Haute, about an hour west of Indianapolis, Noaker said.

Monroe plied the boy with alcohol and marijuana during some of their meetings, and the victim, now 43 and married and living in another state, has wrestled with chemical dependency and depression in adulthood, Noaker said.

The archdiocese does not comment on pending child abuse lawsuits in which it is a defendant, but urges victims of sexual misconduct by Monroe to contact the archdiocesan chancellor, Suzanne L. Yakimchick.

The previous 11 complaints allege Monroe sexually abused juvenile male parishioners in Indianapolis, Terre Haute and in Perry County, before being stripped of his ministry in 1984.

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News Corp.'s Fox News Network has paid $225,000 to settle a sex discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The commission filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, on behalf of four women who were subjected to a sexually hostile workplace.

The lawsuit claimed that Fox Vice President Joe Chillemi harassed female employees  and subjected them to less favorable treatment than males.

According to the suit, female workers were faced with obscenities and vulgarities used in describing women or their body parts, including derogatory comments about pregnant women, were cursed at and denigrated and were generally treated in a demeaning manner.

Under the consent decree submitted Monday, Fox will maintain a revised anti-discrimination policy, train employees and managers on federal law prohibiting discrimination, and post a remedial notice and the EEOC poster required by federal law.

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