Free Republic

Two days after toxic black smoke from the Chevron refinery fire enveloped Richmond, a second phenomenon swept through the city: the rush for money. More than 1,000 residents claiming to have coughs, nausea, scratchy throats and psychological trauma visited a downtown law office Wednesday in hopes of receiving a payout for their suffering. Another 1,000 contacted Chevron directly. Chevron was so overwhelmed, it set up a storefront downtown to accommodate the claims and answer questions. But what claimants are likely to receive - at the most, a few thousand dollars each - is not enough to buy a long-term solution...

A top administrator in the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office is being sued by a former colleague for punching him in the face during an office brawl two years ago. The fight came amid a highly contentious 2010-election in which the two high-ranking prosecutors backed opposing candidates in the district attorney's race. Paul Sequeira, who was assistant district attorney under former DA Robert Kochly and now holds the same job in Mendocino County, filed the suit Wednesday against senior deputy district attorney Harold Jewett for attacking him during a heated argument inside the DA Office's Martinez headquarters in March 2010....

Jerry Sandusky’s attorney really isn’t doing him any favors. Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant coach who has been accused of over 50 counts of sexual assault against young boys, waived his preliminary hearing this morning. His attorney, Joseph Amendola, then addressed the media in an impassioned — if horribly misguided — manner. Amendola announced that anyone who believes that Sandusky is a child molester should call “1-800-REALITY.” The folks at Deadspin did, and this is what they discovered:

Three members of an amateur San Francisco team who said they were branded "not gay enough" and stripped of their second-place finish at the Gay Softball World Series have settled their lawsuit against a national gay sports organization. Steven Apilado, LaRon Charles and Jon Russ, who were members of D2, a team that was part of the San Francisco Gay Softball League, will receive an undisclosed sum from the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance and will get their second-place 2008 championship trophy back,

No sooner did Attorney General-elect Kamala Harris declare victory than the stargazers of the political universe begin speculating where she will end up in California's Democratic constellation. Right in the center, was the short answer."She is going to have an incredibly long reach," said former state party Chairman Art Torres. "Her office will be in the forefront of everything from civil rights to the environment to consumer issues."She will certainly have no problem making national impact," Torres said.Judging by her victory speech Tuesday, Harris is already thinking big.Her bipartisan transition team features no fewer than two former U.S. secretaries of...

Last week, we blogged about the Southern California family that claimed foreclosure fraud and broke back into the foreclosed home they were evicted from, just days before the new owners planned to move in. The family acted on the advice of their attorney, Mike Pines, after he reviewed their situation and encouraged them to take back the home they were allegedly wrongly evicted from. Some readers commented on the appropriateness of the this lawyer's actions. As reader fabulist wrote: Any lawyer who tells his clients that it is OK to commit burglary because the foreclosure paperwork may not have been...

Last month, this column revealed that legislation to remove serpentine as California's state rock was more than the symbolic gesture it appeared to be. Sponsored by an organization with close financial ties to law firms that specialize in asbestos liability lawsuits, Senate Bill 624 flatly declares that "serpentine contains the deadly mineral chrysotile asbestos, a known carcinogen, exposure to which increases the risk of the cancer mesothelioma (and) California has the highest rate of mesothelioma deaths in the nation." Those words could bolster lawsuits by those exposed to serpentine, but they also raised the hackles of geologists who said they...

A drug suspect who was shot and critically wounded after he crashed his car into another vehicle and struck a police officer at the end of a chase in East Oakland is suing the city for $1.5 million. The shooting happened June 5, 2008, as officers were conducting surveillance of possible drug deals on the 2300 block of 88th Avenue. The officers saw an alleged deal taking place and tried to stop Tavares Cobb, 28, as he left in a 1997 Cadillac. Cobb refused to stop, leading police on a chase through several city blocks, investigators said. As the driver...

A Sacramento Superior Court judge today approved a final $22.5 million compromise settlement to an Oregon girl who was severely injured four years ago when her father accidentally ran her over with his big-rig truck. Diana Yuleidy Loza-Jimenez, 14, had been awarded $24.3 by a jury last month in the damage phase of her civil lawsuit against Freeway Transport, Inc., the trucking firm that had retained her father. . . . Loza-Jimenez was injured Nov. 27, 2004, while traveling with her father and other family members on a long-haul trip from Oregon to Bakersfield and back. On the return trip,...

A Sacramento Superior Court jury has awarded a local-record $24.3 million in personal injury damages to a 14-year-old Oregon girl who was run over by a truck driven by her father six years ago. The 10-woman, two-man panel made the damages award Friday in a case where Judge David W. Abbott in December already had found Freeway Transport, Inc., of Portland, liable for the injuries sustained November 2004 by Diana Luleidy Loza-Jimenez. "We're thrilled to see that the jury appreciated the full magnitude of Diana's injuries," plaintiff's lawyer Robert A. Buccola said in an interview today. "She faces at least...

Pat Whalen thought his life would go like this: Day shift as a Department of Justice analyst. Law school at night. Degree. Fulfilling state career. Secure retirement. But champion of state workers? Leading legal wrench in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furlough machine? He never saw it coming. "I worked for DOJ for 19 years and intended to devote my career to criminal prosecution," Whalen said. " I truly enjoyed public service." But now the 43-year-old McGeorge School of Law grad works for Ellison Wilson Advocacy LLC. The Sacramento lobbying/law firm's clients include the union that covers the state's adjudicating law judges...

Susan B. Jordan, a prominent attorney known for her work defending women charged with violent crimes, and who is credited with the creation of the battered spouse defense, was killed Friday in a plane crash in Utah. She was 67. Jordan, who split her time between homes in Berkeley and Ukiah in Mendocino County, formerly had a law office in Berkeley, and since 1972 had run a law practice in Ukiah. Jordan had been a licensed pilot since 1981, but longtime friend and professional colleague Ann Moorman said she was not flying the plane when it went down. Health care...

A Shasta County atheist sued top state corrections officials Monday, claiming that his constitutional rights were violated when he was returned to prison after objecting to participation in a program with religious overtones as a condition of parole. Barry A. Hazle Jr., 40, was released from prison in February 2007 after doing a year for drug possession. He was required to complete a 90-day drug treatment program and was assigned to one in Shasta County. The Redding computer technician says he objected several times to "coerced participation" in a program based on the 12-step recovery method originally developed by Alcoholics...

Collier refuses to put Moncier's suspension on hold - A judge who ordered a prominent Knoxville defense attorney suspended from practicing federal law has issued a fresh round of criticism, accusing the lawyer of unethical behavior and outright lying.Chief U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier on Friday issued a sternly worded ruling in which he refuses to put on hold a seven-year suspension of Herbert S. Moncier's right to practice federal law in East Tennessee pending Moncier's appeal.In that ruling, Collier accuses Moncier of legal misconduct, unethical behavior and even lying - after Collier put down his April 29 order...

Chief U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier today issued a ruling barring Knoxville attorney Herbert S. Moncier from practicing law in any federal court in the Eastern District of Tennessee. Collier also reprimanded Moncier for remarks made about "opposing counsel." Moncier's courtroom opponent, in the case before U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer that landed him in front of Collier, is Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Smith, but it was not immediately clear if it was Smith to whom Collier was referring. Collier issued an 80-page ruling setting out his reasoning. The order states that Moncier will be under "active suspension" for five...

In a medical malpractice case last week, plaintiff's attorney R. Sadler Bailey repeatedly called defense attorneys liars and told the judge her rulings could "set a world record for error." On Wednesday, Bailey was led from the courtroom in handcuffs after Circuit Court Judge Karen Williams held him in direct criminal contempt of court for those and other "unprofessional and inappropriate" remarks he has made over the two-year course of the case. "Much time was wasted because Mr. Bailey could not discuss issues in this case in the courteous and controlled manner that is expected of all attorneys and officers...

Clerical errors led to attacker's release, says suit against state - The family of a teenage girl who was stabbed and nearly killed last year by a high-security inmate wrongly paroled from San Quentin State Prison has sued the state. The suit claims Scott Thomas, who was suffering from bipolar disorder, was never treated during his months in solitary confinement in San Quentin. After he was released without supervision on May 18, 2007, Thomas randomly stabbed Loren Schaller, now 16, and 60-year-old Kermit Kubitz at a bakery near Miraloma Park. Thomas, 26, who was sent to prison nine times for...

Former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson should be freed from prison immediately because California corrections officials had no authority to re-arrest her after she was paroled last week, her attorneys argued in a court motion filed Tuesday. The motion filed in Sacramento County Superior Court claims that Olson's due process rights were violated when she was returned to prison Saturday to serve at least another year behind bars. Olson, 61, was paroled March 17 after serving six years in prison for the attempted bombings of Los Angeles police cars in the 1970s and the shooting death of a...

A prominent Memphis lawyer has been hit with a second lawsuit by a former client accusing him of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars after gaining power of attorney. J. Richard Rossie is accused in a Chancery Court suit of writing unauthorized checks to himself from the account of client Phoebe Copeland, who had granted him power of attorney in 2001 to handle her estate, personal finances and other legal matters. According to the suit, Rossie drew at least 42 such checks between August 2000 and June 2007 totaling $346,667.43. The checks, which ranged from $1,000 to $40,000, were misappropriated...

A family of Pakistani immigrants living in San Francisco public housing was improperly denied an emergency transfer to another apartment after someone broke into their home, desecrated their Quran, defaced their passports and shredded their traditional clothing, according to a federal court lawsuit. After the August 2005 incident - which took place during a time of intensified anti-Muslim sentiment in the country and while the San Francisco Housing Authority was under court order to better protect tenants from hate-motivated crimes - agency officials ruled that the break-in at Ashan Khan's apartment was a simple burglary and didn't qualify the family...