|
|
|
Berlusconi appeals case to European rights court
Topics in Legal News |
2013/09/09 22:18
|
Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi is turning to Europe's human rights court in a bid to avoid a ban on public office and other punishments for his tax fraud conviction, the media mogul's aides said Sunday.
The politician and media magnate was found guilty of artificially inflating the amounts paid for film rights by his Mediaset empire to reduce the company's tax liabilities. Berlusconi claims he is an innocent victim of magistrates who sympathize with the left, but the verdict was upheld by Italy's top criminal court last month.
His top aide, Angelino Alfano, said the petition to the Strasbourg, France-based tribunal "shows that the Berlusconi case isn't closed."
Alfano didn't say when or on what grounds the petition to the European rights court was filed. But, "we are really confident, that at the European level, we can reach a finding of innocence that so far in Italy hasn't been possible," he said.
Italy's Court of Cassation confirmed a four-year prison term — though Berlusconi is unlikely to actually serve it — and also ordered a Milan appeals court to determine the length of a ban on serving in public office from one to three years.
A Senate panel Monday starts formally discussing if Berlusconi must surrender his Senate seat. That deliberation isn't based on the ban ordered by the Cassation Court, but a 2012 law says those sentenced to more than two years in prison are ineligible to hold public office for six years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court: Malpractice law covers doctors' businesses
Court News |
2013/09/06 22:18
|
Businesses formed by doctors are covered by a state law that caps the damages that victims of medical malpractice can collect from health care providers, New Mexico's highest court ruled Thursday.
The state Supreme Court said that medical professional corporations and limited liability companies fall under the law's definition of a health care provider under the state's medical malpractice law.
At issue was whether the 1976 law applied only to licensed physicians, hospitals, outpatient clinics and certain others such as chiropractors. A corporation established by a group of doctors for tax or business purposes isn't licensed, however.
The court said that excluding the businesses formed by medical professionals would undermine the purpose of the law, which was to increase the availability of insurance coverage for malpractice claims. The law was enacted after a large private insurer stopped offering malpractice coverage in the state.
The court said that "covering individuals without offering the same benefits to the companies that they form or operate under disturbs the balanced scheme originally set up by the Legislature that was intended to attract enough health care providers to service the needs of patients in New Mexico and, in turn, ensure that the patients were protected when claims for medical malpractice arise."
The court issued the ruling in deciding three separate malpractice lawsuits.
In 2011, Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed a measure passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature that would have revised the malpractice law to increase its liability caps and make clear that the business organizations of doctors were covered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NM court to hear case over educator pension cuts
Court Watch |
2013/09/03 22:18
|
New Mexico's highest court is mulling whether the state can cut cost-of-living increases for retired educators to help shore up the pension system's long-term finances.
The state Supreme Court is to hear from lawyers on Wednesday in a case brought by four retirees, who say the state Constitution protects their pensions from reductions like those required under a law enacted earlier this year.
The retirees contend the law gives them a "vested property right" in their retirement benefits and they are legally entitled to the cost-of-living adjustments previously promised, which would have been 2 percent this year without the change in law.
The attorney general's office and the Educational Retirement Board, in written arguments to the court, said the Constitution includes a provision that allows pensions to be modified to preserve the solvency of a retirement plan.
However, the retirees said in their lawsuit that provision only applies to retirement benefits before an employee works long enough to become vested in a pension system.
The Democratic-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Susana Martinez agreed on a package of pension changes this year to improve the solvency of the educational retirement program, which has a $6 billion gap between its assets and the benefits expected to be paid out in the future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Custody dispute goes to Okla. Supreme Court
Court Watch |
2013/09/01 22:17
|
An Oklahoma man who is seeking custody of his Cherokee daughter has appealed a lower court decision to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Dusten Brown filed a writ of prohibition Friday in Oklahoma Supreme Court. The filing is appealing a decision from Nowata County District Court.
Brown for years has been fighting Matt and Melanie Capobianco of South Carolina over the custody of 3-year-old Veronica.
Veronica's birth mother put her up for adoption. Brown is Veronica's birth father and a member of the Cherokee Nation. He fought the Capobiancos' adoption of Veronica under the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Brown and the Capobiancos were in a Nowata County court Friday, but a gag order meant neither side would comment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Minn. Supreme Court sides with HIV-positive man
Topics in Legal News |
2013/08/26 11:59
|
The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected a prosecutor's effort to reinstate the conviction of an HIV-positive man accused of passing the virus to another man, ruling Wednesday that the statute under which he was convicted was ambiguous.
Groups supporting gay rights said the ruling affirms the need for government to respect the personal and private decisions of consenting adults regarding sexual intimacy. The prosecutor contended the case was never a civil rights issue, but rather about protecting the public from people who know they're infected but practice unprotected sex anyway.
The high court affirmed a Court of Appeals decision that reversed the attempted first-degree assault conviction of Daniel James Rick, 32, of Minneapolis, who learned he was HIV positive in 2006. He had consensual sex several times starting in early 2009 with a man identified in court papers as D.B., who tested positive that October.
A jury acquitted Rick in 2011 under the first part of a Minnesota statute that applies to cases involving sex without first informing the other person that the defendant has a communicable disease. But it convicted him under another section that the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday applies only "to the donation or exchange for value of blood, sperm, organs, or tissue and therefore does not apply to acts of sexual conduct." |
|
|
|
|
|
| Law Firm Web Design Information |
| Law Promo has worked with attorneys, lawyers and law firms all over the world in designing beautiful law firm websites that look great on all devices, from desktop computers to mobile phones. Law Promo can construct your law firm a brand new responsive law firm website, or help you redesign your existing site to secure your place in the mobile world. Solo Practice Law Firm Website Design |
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
