Free Republic

The mayor of a Washington town has directed pastors to stop invoking the name “Jesus Christ” in city council invocations. Don Jensen, the mayor of Longview, Wash., told the Kelso-Longview Ministerial Association that prayers mentioning Christ were not acceptable because they could expose the city to a lawsuit. The decision has sparked controversy in the city – located about 50 miles north of Portland, Ore. Mark Schmutz, who pastors the Northlake Baptist Church, said if they can’t speak the name Jesus Christ, association ministers will no longer provide the invocation. “We need to be able to speak Jesus’ name,”...

If the banking industry had a “biggest losers” award, Bank of America Corp. (B of A) would win – and that’s not a good thing. B of A comes by its image problem honestly, and this may be the only way that “honesty” and “Bank of America” can be paired in a sentence without prompting laughter from bystanders. The company’s sins have been widely reported. B of A essentially crafts laws, much to the chagrin of its customers and taxpayers in general, that are protected in court by well-funded trial lawyers and enforced by the politicians they help keep in...

The legal challenges over religious freedom and the birth control coverage requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul appear to be moving toward the U.S. Supreme Court. Faith-affiliated charities, hospitals and universities have filed dozens of lawsuits against the mandate, which requires employers to provide insurance that covers contraception for free. However, many for-profit business owners are also suing, claiming a violation of their religious beliefs. The religious lawsuits have largely stalled, as the Department of Health and Human Services tries to develop an accommodation for faith groups. However, no such offer will be made to individual business owners....

Twice, I have had the unpleasant task of assisting school districts in the aftermath of school shootings. First, Columbine, and then in 2006, an intruder took a classroom hostage in Platte Canyon just west of Columbine, and killed a student. The news from Newtown, Conn., last week was both sickening and infuriating. Everyone, including the gun industry, acknowledges that a risk of catastrophic loss is created when irresponsible persons are given access to firearms. The industry's response is that we can negate this risk by placing more guns in the hands of responsible persons. It's a nice piece of marketing,...

It just would not be right for California to finish off 2012 without one more designation as being the worst at something. Our state seems to receive several of these each year: one of the worst legal climates, the state with the worst government, the worst place to do business, and now, we are the #1 “Judicial Hellhole” in the nation. The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) released its annual list of “Judicial Hellholes” – places where frivolous lawsuits thrive and courts produce uneven rulings that often favor plaintiffs – and California earned the #1 slot.

<p>"Tom Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says contraception is not health care and instead is a "gravely immoral" practice. He's a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, along with his Domino's Farms, which runs an office park near Ann Arbor.</p>

"...The same principles can be applied with employees of companies in the maligned coal industry, or the latest cash rich sector defending against plunder - "Big Fast Food." Many are aware, including executives at McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), that the cash-strapped governments of states like California are seeking whom they may devour in order to support spending while tax receipts are declining. As we witnessed with "Big Tobacco", there is a viral effect from state to state..." This explains McDonald's flying flag upside down. "Big Fast Food WILL be an easy target for bankrupt states like Cali. Don't count on the...

In her Thursday debate against Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.), Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren said she did not assist the nation’s largest insurer deny settlements in asbestos-related cases. “It’s just not true,” Warren said of the charge. “The Boston Globe has looked at this; they’ve written about it.” Warren wrote a U.S. Supreme Court brief for Travelers Insurance in 2009; in the case–Travelers v. Bailey–the company sought to achieve permanent immunity against any new asbestos-related claims through the establishment of a $500 million trust. After Warren left the case, and as an extension of the legal work she did,...

Los Angeles--Environmentalists in this greenest of places call the California Environmental Quality Act the state's most powerful environmental protection, a model for the nation credited with preserving lush wetlands and keeping condominiums off the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. But increasingly, the landmark law passed in 1970 has also been abused, opening the door to lawsuits - sometimes brought by business competitors or for reasons unrelated to the environment - which, regardless of their merit, can delay even green development projects for years or sometimes kill them completely. "Something is broken," said Leron Gubler, president of the Hollywood Chamber of...

Don Barrett, a Mississippi lawyer, took in hundreds of millions of dollars a decade ago after suing Big Tobacco and winning record settlements from R. J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and other cigarette makers. So did Walter Umphrey, Dewitt M. Lovelace and Stuart and Carol Nelkin. Ever since, the lawyers have been searching for big paydays in business, scoring more modest wins against car companies, drug makers, brokerage firms and insurers. Now, they have found the next target: food manufacturers. More than a dozen lawyers who took on the tobacco companies have filed 25 cases against industry players like ConAgra Foods,...

Lawsuit #1, Voter ID suit asks for ballot measure to be stricken: A suit from The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, League of Women Voters Minnesota, Jewish Community Action and Common Cause Minnesota claims the ballot question itself is misleading and asks that it be stricken. Here is the language that is alleged to be misleading: "Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to require all voters to present valid photo identification to vote and to require the state to provide free identification to eligible voters, effective July 1, 2013?" Intervention by legislators in Voter ID suit: After the Secretary...

Egypt denied on Tuesday evening the reports that President Mohammed Morsi had sent a letter to Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres. Dr. Yasser Ali, Morsi’s official spokesman, denied the reports which appeared in the Israeli press and which said that Morsi thanked the Israeli president for his Ramadan greetings and said he is looking forward to Egypt helping to get the peace process “back to its right track.” However, according to a report on the website of the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, Ali described these reports as completely incorrect and stressed that Morsi did not send any letter to Peres. Another report...

MIAMI, Okla. - Product liability lawsuits have extinguished an Ottawa County gasoline can manufacturer, says Rocky Flick, owner and chief operating officer of Blitz U.S.A. Blitz U.S.A./F3 Brands in Miami filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Nov. 9. On Monday, the company said it will close its doors July 31 and lay off 117 people. [snip] The lawsuits that doomed Blitz mostly centered on individuals pouring gasoline out of a can onto an open fire, with the vapors igniting and causing injuries. Three warnings about not mixing gasoline and fire, in addition to other safety precautions, are displayed predominately on the...

The U.S. Navy has refused to hand over details of how Osama bin Laden was buried at sea. Information on rituals and rites for the terrorist have been requested through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). For the first time, I'm hearing that a Muslim seaman said an "appropriate prayer," and washed and wrapped the killer in an "appropriate cloth." Who knew the U.S. Navy would have such a cloth handy. Photo above: USS Vinson The al-Qaida leader’s carcass was reportedly dumped into the sea from the USS Carl Vinson within 24 hours of his May 2, 2011 death at...

More than $840,000 was awarded Monday to 96 victims of illegal searches, seizures and use of excessive force by the now-defunct Metro Gang Strike Force, including a dozen juveniles who were targeted by a Brooklyn Park police officer. The scandal-ridden gang unit, shut down by the Department of Public Safety three years ago this month, broke through people's doors without justification, seized property without authorization and injured people who were not suspects, according to reports by Mark Gehan, a St. Paul attorney appointed as special master in the case.

Hannah Smith, Senior Counsel. Courtesy of the Becket Fund. Washington D.C., Jun 28, 2012 / 02:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the 2010 health care law, a leading religious freedom law firm has new confidence in the future of its lawsuits against the federal contraception mandate. Hannah Smith, senior counsel at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, explained that the arguments against the law that were recently rejected by the court are “separate and distinct legal challenges” from those being brought against the contraception mandate. In a June 28 press call...

In what can only be described as one of the most bizarre lawsuits ever filed, a New Jersey woman is suing an area 13-year-old because she suffered injuries after he made an errant throw at a Little League game. Making the case more extreme is the fact that the prospective defendant wasn't even 13 when he made the throw that accidentally struck the victim: He was 11. The accident which eventually led to Lloyd's suit came when a catcher, then 11-year-old Matthew Migliaccio, attempted to throw a ball back to a pitcher in the bullpen while he was warming up...

The family of a Georgia man who died when his heart couldn’t take a three-way sex romp was awarded a hefty $3 million payout by a jury, according to reports. William Martinez’s estate was originally seeking $5 million in a medical malpractice case that claimed a cardiologist failed to warn the 31-year-old to stay away from physical activity. While Gwinnett County jurors sided with the family Tuesday, they agreed to a lesser amount after finding Martinez was 40% liable for his own death, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday. Martinez, a husband and father of two, was engaged in a threesome...

E. J. Dionne, a liberal columnist for The Washington Post, suggested in a Monday blog post that Catholic leaders who are opposing the Obama administration's birth control mandate could be doing so to help Republicans in the November elections. Dionne was responding to the Monday lawsuits from 43 Catholic agencies. They sued the Obama administration over the requirement to provide coverage for contraception, sterilization and some abortifacient drugs in their health plans. These agencies did not qualify for the religious exemption because the exemption defines religious groups as only those that primarily hire and serve coreligionists, and for which religious...

AUTOS Updated May 16, 2012, 7:50 p.m. ET GM Claims Immunity For Its Old Cars By Mike Spector GM pushed a lawyer to drop a potential punitive-damages claim involving a prebankruptcy vehicle involved in a fatal accident, asserting a level of immunity in that some lawyers claim is a stretch. A General Motors Co. (GM) lawyer demanded the widow of a car-crash victim drop a plan to seek punitive damages from the auto maker, even though the company's government-brokered overhaul doesn't bar plaintiffs from going after such legal penalties. The GM lawyer in a March 3 email told a lawyer...