Free Republic

A Lake County environmental group on Thursday sued the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to stop it from spending any more money to study an extension of Route 53. The lawsuit, filed in Lake County Circuit Court in Waukegan by Livable Lake County and six area homeowners, alleges the Tollway failed to abide by state law in pursuing the controversial project. Specifically, the lawsuit claims that the Tollway violated the Illinois Toll Highway Act by failing to get proper authorization for the corridor from the Illinois legislature and not holding required public hearings. Anthony Vega, a representative for Livable Lake...

Litigation may be as American as apple pie, but some lawsuits are so destructive that they stand out even among the hugely expensive wreckage wrought by our legal system. The most prominent current example is the "children's" climate lawsuit (Juliana v U.S.): A group of kids, including "future generations, through their guardian Dr. James Hansen," claim that the government's actions and failures to act have caused climate change, thus violating the youngest generation's constitutional rights to life, liberty and property, and have failed to protect essential public trust resources. I leave the numerous legal issues to the lawyers, although precisely...

The Federalist has some takeaways from James Damore’s civil suit against Google, which he accuses of discriminating against white male conservatives. You gotta see this stuff to believe the corporate culture there. Excerpts: In a section claiming Google tries to “stifle” conservative parenting styles, the suit reads: “Google furnishes a large number of internal mailing lists catering to employees with alternative lifestyles, including furries, polygamy, transgenderism, and plurality, for the purpose of discussing sexual topics. The only lifestyle that seems to not be openly discussed on Google’s internal forums is traditional heterosexual monogamy.”A footnote next to the word “plurality” adds:...

In Yoder v. Sugar Grove Area Sewer Authority, (Commonwlth. Ct. PA, Jan. 5, 2018), a Pennsylvania state appellate court, in a 2-1 decision, upheld the denial of an injunction sought by an Old Order Amish couple who object to the requirement that they connect to the local sewer system using an electric pump. The dispute has wound its way through the courts for over five years. (See prior related posting.) The majority said in part: Owners did not establish the injunction would not harm the public, or that the harm in denying the injunction outweighed the harm in granting it....

James Damore, the ex-Google employee fired after writing a memo decrying Google for pushing diversity, is now filing a lawsuit against the company. The class action lawsuit, filed Monday by Damore and another ex-Google employee, alleges that Google discriminates against conservative white men. Or, as put in the lawsuit, their “perceived conservative political views,” their “male gender,” and their “Caucasian race.” The lawsuit gives an alarming glimpse into the runaway progressive culture present at Google. One of the more brazen tidbits the document provides is evidence of a number of Google employees outright endorsing political violence against “Nazis.” Who qualifies...

Commenced by James Damore, Google employee terminated after release of internal memo on “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” James Damore, a former Google engineer who was reportedly fired for circulating a memo critical of the company’s diversity policies, filed a complaint alleging Google discriminates against conservatives, whites and men. Buzzfeed reported Monday: The author of a controversial memo that sparked debates about gender and diversity at Google sued his former employer on Monday, alleging that the company discriminates against politically conservative white men. James Damore, who was fired in August for internally circulating a manifesto that argued Google’s gender pay gap...

Google is facing renewed controversy over its alleged intolerance toward conservatives at the company, after a class action lawsuit filed by former engineer James Damore disclosed almost 100 pages of screen shots of internal communications in which employees discuss sensitive political issues. The evidence appended to the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday, includes a message from Rachel Whetstone, who worked as a senior Google executive after a career in the UK Conservative party, bemoaning “prejudiced and antagonistic” political discourse at the company. Damore, who was fired in 2017 after writing a controversial memo about gender and technology, alleges in...

A well-known Republican San Francisco lawyer has filed a lawsuit against Google seeking to represent white, male or conservative employees who believe the company has discriminated against them. The lawyer is Harmeet Dhillon, a partner with the Dhillon Law Group in San Francisco and the former chairwoman of the Republican Party in San Francisco. She has been on the hunt for such victims since she took on fired Google engineer James Damore as a client in August. And on Monday she presented the first fruits of her research in a 161-page complaint that's chock full of allegations and screenshots. The...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to take up a legal battle over a Mississippi law that allows state employees and private businesses to deny services to LGBT people based on religious objections. Signed into law in 2016 in response to the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling, it allows county clerks to avoid issuing marriage licenses to gay couples and protects businesses from lawsuits if they refuse to serve LGBT customers. The law was immediately challenged. But lower courts, without ruling on the merits of the law, said those suing could not show that they would be harmed...

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is directly challenging Special Counsel Robert Mueller, charging in a law suit filed on Wednesday that the prosecutor lacked the legal authority to investigate and indict him on pre-2016 money laundering charges. Calling the indictment “fanciful,” attorney Kevin Downing’s suit in U.S. District Court says Mr. Mueller was appointed in May with a mandate to investigate possible Russia-Trump campaign collusion in the hacking of Democrat Party computers.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a lawsuit against Motel 6, saying the budget motel chain is voluntarily handing personal information of thousands of guests to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has sued special counsel Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and the Department of Justice in U.S. federal court "The actions of DOJ and Mr. Rosenstein in issuing the Appointment Order, and Mr. Mueller's actions pursuant to the authority the Order granted him, were arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the law," the suit reads. All actions taken by the special counsel "must be set aside," Manafort's lawyers argue. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has sued special counsel Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and the Department of Justice in...

Sued by same-sex couple for not baking them a "wedding" cakeSALEM, Ore. (ChurchMilitant.com) - Despite their appeal, a Christian couple in Oregon is being ordered to pay $135,000 to a same-sex couple after refusing to bake a cake for their "marriage." In January 2013, spouses Aaron and Melissa Klein declined to make a same-sex "wedding" cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer. The lesbian couple retaliated by filing a discrimination complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. In 2015, a judge ruled in favor of the homosexual couple and ordered the Christians to pay $135,000 for emotional damage and...

FULL TITLE: Family sues Alaska Airlines after wheelchair-bound grandmother fell down airport escalator and died following surgery to amputate her leg due to wounds from her accident A family is suing Alaska Airlines and a contractor after a disabled 75-year-old grandmother suffered a fall down a Portland International Airport escalator in June and later died. Video captured the moment that Bernice Kekona, seat-belted to her power wheelchair, tumbled and crashed down an escalator, landing near the bottom with the heavy chair on top of her. After her flight from Hawaii landed in Portland in June 2017, the family says they...

<p>PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - An appellate court Thursday upheld a penalty against Oregon bakery owners who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding almost five years ago.</p> <p>The owners of the since-closed Gresham bakery - Aaron and Melissa Klein - argued that state Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian violated state and federal laws by forcing them to pay emotional-distress damages of $135,000 to the lesbian couple.</p>

Republican Roy Moore, who lost a recent Alabama senate election to his Democrat rival Doug Jones, has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to challenge the result. The lawsuit was filed the day before officials were due to certify Mr. Jones the winner-two weeks after the vote.... Mr. Moore's lawyer said the purposed of the complaint was to "preserve evidence of potential election fraud and to postpone the certification of Alabama's Special Election by Secretary of State John Merrill until a thorough investigation of potential election fraud, that improperly altered the outcome of this election." Mr. Merrill told the Associated...

MYRTLE BEACH — Environmental groups are challenging the federal permits that allow construction of Interstate 73, a project that is the longtime dream of Grand Strand tourism officials. The lawsuit was filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of the Coastal Conservation League. It claims the Army Corps of Engineers relied on an outdated environmental study and did not consider alternatives to I-73 as it issued permits this June to begin work on the road, therefore violating federal law. Catherine Wannamaker, an attorney for the SELC, said that the agencies involved in issuing the permits were stuck on...

A negligence lawsuit claiming Spirit Airlines fed alcohol to rowdy female passengers and then failed to defuse a subsequent cabin brawl has crashed and burned. After a 12-day trial that ended Thursday in Los Angeles, a jury decided the carrier was not responsible for the violent March 2016 clash that was caught on video and quickly went viral. The lawsuit, announced in New York last year by three Delaware women and their plaintiff's lawyer Gloria Allred, claimed Spirit's flight attendants had an obligation to act when the problem passengers exhibited aggressive behavior such as blasting music and waving a boom...

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that part of President Trump's third attempt at a travel ban should be blocked. The ruling, however, will not take effect pending review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The White House's third attempt at the travel ban targeted foreigners from six Muslim-majority countries, Venezuela, and North Korea. Rather than take apart the entire ban, however, three members of the 9th Circuit ruled that only the prohibitions on "foreign nationals who have a bona fide relationship" within the United States should be stopped. The dispute will not return to the Supreme Court...

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit alleging President Trump violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause because his hotels and golf courses continue to do business with foreign governments while he’s serving in office. U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels said the lawsuit was flawed from the start because the plaintiffs, led by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, lacked standing. Daniels, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, also said the matter should be taken before Congress, not the courts. “As the only political branch with the power to consent to violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause,...