Free Republic

Occupy Oakland protesters claimed victory after they shut down one of the nation's busiest shipping ports - escalating a movement whose tactics had largely been limited to marches, rallies and camps. In a five-hour stand-off protesters vandalised businesses and smashed bank windows, as they tried to shut down the city - and police appeared to respond using tear gas and flash bang grenades. The California demonstrators blocked operations at the city's port and stopped traffic on Wednesday in protests against economic inequality and police brutality, marred by scattered vandalism. Police in riot gear arrested dozens of protesters who had marched...

Barack Obama, US president, offered more support for protesters against the global financial system after a weekend of demonstrations in cities around the world, but called on them not to “demonise” those who worked on Wall Street. On Sunday, Mr Obama honoured Martin Luther King at a dedication to a new memorial on National Mall in Washington. Referring to protests that have spread from Wall Street to London, Rome and elsewhere, Mr Obama said: “Dr King would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonising those who work there.” Mr Obama had previously said the protests “express...

Here’s a tip for you: Listening to really, really loud sounds over long periods of time can damage your hearing. Perhaps you already knew that. But a few years back, a group of clever trial lawyers decided they could make some serious money by arguing in court that you are too stupid to know it yourself. They filed 26 consumer-fraud lawsuits in multiple states against Motorola and other manufacturers of Bluetooth headsets. They alleged that consumers were not warned sufficiently about the dangers, and that they “would not have purchased their Bluetooth headsets but for defendants’ false advertising.” That led...

The state Supreme Court handed insurers and business groups a major legal victory – and personal injury lawyers an equally big setback – on Thursday by imposing limits on medical damages in one of the era's most closely watched civil cases. The issue in the case, Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions, was whether an injured party could collect the full medical care costs billed by doctors and hospitals, or the lesser amount that the medical providers accepted from an insurance company.

COSTA MESA -- California prosecutors filed a major lawsuit against several lawyers and call center operators for allegedly running a nationwide scam to dupe desperate homeowners into paying thousands of dollars to join dubious lawsuits against some of the country's largest banks. The complaint unsealed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court accuses prominent foreclosure attorneys Philip Kramer and Mitchell Stein and at least 17 other individuals and businesses of luring borrowers into a scheme that falsely promised a cut of future settlements. The lawsuit portrays the defendants as the most recent in the chain of mortgage-related scammers who helped...

As reports circulate that the Justice Department has softened its criticism of attorney John Yoo for memos approving the Bush administration's treatment of terrorism suspects, several prominent lawyers are urging a federal appeals court in San Francisco to hold Yoo accountable. They have submitted arguments opposing dismissal of a prisoner's lawsuit that accuses the former Justice Department attorney of providing a legal cover for torture. The suit covers much of the same ground as the department's ethics investigation of Yoo. Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, worked from 2001 to 2003 for the department's Office of Legal Counsel, which advises...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a doctor who accused KFC of not telling customers that it used trans fats to fry its chicken. In an occasionally sarcastic opinion, U.S. District Judge James Robertson said Dr. Arthur Hoyte could not show that he was harmed by KFC's use of the artery-clogging fats. That was enough to doom the lawsuit, but Robertson also noted other flaws in the case. "While it might be appropriate for this court to find, as a matter of law, that the consumption of fat — including trans fat —...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seventy-five lawyers for nearly 400 Guantanamo Bay detainees urged Congress on Tuesday to give the prisoners access to U.S. courts. Fanning out across Capitol Hill for private meetings with senators and House members, the attorneys are seeking legislation to overturn a section of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that stripped the detainees of court access. Under last year's law, the detainees are entitled to a procedural review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia into whether they were properly designated unlawful enemy combatants.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The American Bar Association expressed concern Friday over Bush administration plans to limit lawyers' access to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The ABA was responding to a recent Justice Department court filing alleging that lawyers' visits to Guantanamo Bay and attorneys' mail to the detainees threatened to undermine security at the U.S. facility in Cuba. Many of the detainees have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for five years. The department proposes to limit each detainee-lawyer visits to four. Currently, there are no limits on the number of visits. After an initial face-to-face meeting of up to eight hours,...

Some quotes about the controversy involving the fired U.S. attorneys: ___ "Again, all political appointees can be removed by the president of the United States for any reason. I stand by the decision, and I think it was a right decision." — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. ___ "As a general matter, some two years ago, I was made aware that there was a request from the White House as to the possibility of replacing all the United States attorneys. That was immediately rejected by me. I felt that that was a bad idea and it was disruptive." — Gonzales. ___...

White House acknowledges he funneled complaints about U.S. prosecutors who lost their jobs. WASHINGTON -- The White House acknowledged on Sunday that presidential adviser Karl Rove served as a conduit for complaints to the Justice Department about federal prosecutors who were later fired for what critics charge were partisan political reasons.House investigators on Sunday declared their intention to question Rove about any role he may have played in the firings.White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Rove had relayed complaints from Republican officials and others to the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office. She said Rove, the chief White...

The Capitol's "tort war" began in 1975 when doctors, hospitals and other purveyors of medical care pressured the Legislature and then-Gov. Jerry Brown into placing a cap on "pain and suffering" compensation in medical malpractice lawsuits. They cited a steep increase in malpractice insurance premiums. The medicos blitzed the Capitol. Physicians' wives staged a sleep-in in the governor's office foyer to impose the $250,000 compensation limit, which resulted in a sharp drop in malpractice insurance premiums. The cap became a model for similar efforts in other states. It was a huge wake-up call for what was then called the California...