"Supreme Court hears dispute on class actions" by Mark Sherman | Associated Press, January 08, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court questioned efforts on Monday by consumers’ lawyers to limit the amount of money sought in class-action lawsuits so they are heard in state courts rather than more business-friendly federal court.
The justices appeared receptive to an insurance company’s argument that lawyers artificially lower the amount of money at stake to keep the lawsuits in state courts, which often favor plaintiffs. The Standard Fire Insurance Co. of Hartford, Conn., says the tactic drags out lawsuits and makes fighting them so expensive that companies would rather settle.
The case involves a 2005 federal law that allows defendants to transfer class actions involving more than $5 million to federal court.
Standard Fire is being sued by an Arkansas homeowner over the cost of repairing hail damage.
A federal appeals court ruled that the suit could remain in state court because the homeowner promised to seek less than $5 million for himself and other Arkansas homeowners insured by Standard Fire.
The issue for the justices is whether the promise made by homeowner Greg Knowles, who lives in Miller County in southwestern Arkansas, is binding on others who may eventually be part of the lawsuit. The company says the law, the Class Action Fairness Act, bars such promises.
Business interests complain that Miller County has become a ‘‘magnet’’ for class actions because of judges who refuse to shut down even meritless lawsuits. David Frederick, the Washington lawyer representing Knowles, said the attacks on the county are false.
The Supreme Court has in recent years backed limits on class actions, most notably in the 2011 decision that stopped a suit against Walmart involving up to 1.6 million of its female employees who complained of sex discrimination.
In Monday’s session, Standard Fire seemed to draw support from liberal and conservative justices....
What more is there to type other than don't look to the $upreme Court for salvation?
Justice Elena Kagan was the strongest voice in support of the homeowner, and she repeatedly challenged Theodore Boutrous Jr., the lawyer for the company. Kagan told Boutrous he should be asking Congress for help, not the court....
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"Court turns away class action against Comcast" by Jessee J. Holland | Associated Press, March 28, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court turned away a class action against cable provider Comcast Corp. on Wednesday, in a decision that could make it harder to file such lawsuits in federal court.
The high court overturned a lower court decision to certify as a class customers who say the company’s monopoly in parts of the Philadelphia area allowed it to raise prices unfairly.
Justice Antonin Scalia said in a 5-4 decision the customers need to be able to show that they can tie a single theory of how they were harmed to a specific calculation of damages for class certification. The Comcast subscribers had a model that would have shown damages, but it showed $875 million of damages done under four different theories.
Only one of their theories was accepted by the lower courts, so there is no showing of how much in damages was attributable to that theory, Scalia said.
‘‘It is clear that, under the proper standard for evaluating certification, respondents’ model falls far short of establishing that damages are capable of measurement on a classwide basis,’’ said Scalia, who was joined in his opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.
Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the dissent jointly for themselves, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. In an unusual move, Breyer and Ginsburg read parts aloud in the courtroom.
First, they said that the court’s majority rewrote the question being argued, meaning the issue was ‘‘infected by our misguided reformulation.’’ They also said that Comcast had argued in lower courts that the other theories offered up by the Philadelphia area subscribers had no effect on prices, meaning that the damages from the model ‘‘must have stemmed exclusively’’ from the only theory accepted by the lower court.
Breyer and Ginsburg argued that the court’s decision would not change class-action lawsuit rules. But others say this will make it more difficult to file class actions.
The court’s decision ‘‘reinforces that courts can’t rubber stamp proposed class actions without first taking a hard look at the plaintiffs’ claims,’’ said Kate Todd, a lawyer at the National Chamber Litigation Center. ‘‘The reality is that frivolous class actions impose unjustified litigation and settlement costs on businesses that are passed on to consumers. Today’s decision is a victory in the effort to curb class action abuse.’’
Raul Zermeno, a lawyer with Fisher & Phillips, a labor and employment law firm that represents management, agreed. ‘‘The decision in Comcast v. Behrend will significantly impact the future of employment-related class-action lawsuits nationwide,’’ Zermeno said.
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Related:
Clear the Court: Laboring at the Supreme Court
A Class Action Court
Globe Court Report: Business Reigns Supreme
Also see:
Supreme Court backs arbitration
Court won’t hear tobacco appeal
They must not smoke.
Speaking of drugs:
"Justices hear generic drug ‘pay for delay’ case; Supreme Court could stop deals with big brands" by Jesse J. Holland | Associated Press, March 26, 2013
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices appeared troubled Monday over whether to stop deals between pharmaceutical corporations and their generic drug competitors that the government says could keep cheaper forms of medicine from American consumers for longer periods of time.
Related: Doped Up on This Supreme Court Post
Justices heard arguments from the Justice Department against what the government calls ‘‘pay-for-delay’’ deals or ‘‘reverse settlements.’’
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Often, that settlement comes with a sizable payment from the brand-name company to the generic drug maker....
The Obama administration, backed by consumer groups and the American Medical Association, wants the court to stop the deals because it says they profit the drug companies but harm consumers by adding $3.5 billion annually to their drug bills....
The government, patients, and doctors all on the same side?
What if a brand-name drug company is making $100 million, and a generic drug company says its product will reduce that to $10 million, so both companies agree that the brand name company would give the generic company $25 million to stay off the market, asked Justice Elena Kagan.
‘‘It’s clear what’s going on here is that they’re splitting monopoly profits, and the person who’s going to be injured are all the consumers out there,’’ Kagan said.
Generic drugs account for about 80 percent of all American prescriptions for medicines and vaccines, but a far smaller percentage of the $325 billion spent by US consumers on drugs each year.
Generics saved American patients, taxpayers, and the health care system an estimated $193 billion in 2011 alone, according to health data firm IMS Health.
And yet your services need to be cut in the name of austerity??
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it may be going too far to make these deals illegal on their face, instead of making the government prove they are anticompetitive in court in each case.
And she's one of the liberals!
Eight justices will decide this case later this year. Justice Samuel Alito did not take part in the arguments.
Because of a conflict of interest.
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"Court ruling favors makers of generic drugs" by Katie Thomas | New York Time, June 25, 2013
Why am I not $urpri$ed?
NEW YORK — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that generic drug manufacturers could not be sued by patients who claim that drugs they took were defectively designed.
The decision is a significant victory for the generic drug industry, but further narrows the recourse for people who are injured by such drugs.
The 5-to-4 decision overturned the verdict of a New Hampshire jury....
I think that's wrong.
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Back to work!
"Supreme Court toughens work bias standards; Will be harder to bring workplace retaliation suit" by Jesse J. Holland | Associated Press, June 25, 2013
WASHINGTON — A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday decided to make it harder for Americans to sue businesses for retaliation and discrimination, leading a justice to call for Congress to overturn the court’s actions.
The court’s conservatives, in two 5-to-4 decisions, ruled that a person must be able to hire and fire someone to be considered a supervisor in discrimination lawsuits, making it harder to blame a business for a co-worker’s racism or sexism. The court then decided to limit how juries can decide retaliation lawsuits, saying victims must prove employers would not have taken action against them but for their intention to retaliate.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote both dissents for the court’s liberal wing, and in a rare move, read them aloud in the courtroom. She said the high court had ‘‘corralled Title VII,’’ a law designed to stop discrimination in the nation’s workplaces.
That would be at least two rare moves this term.
‘‘Both decisions dilute the strength of Title VII in ways Congress could not have intended,’’ said Ginsburg, who then called on Congress to change the law to overturn the court....
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God help us all:
"Supreme Court to rule on prayers, patents; Boston Scientific in device dispute" by Adam Liptak | New York Times, May 21, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide cases concerning prayers at the start of town meetings and a patent dispute over heart monitors involving Medtronic Inc. and Boston Scientific Corp.
It also issued an important administrative law decision that said the Federal Communications Commission was entitled to deference in determining the scope of its jurisdiction.
The case concerning prayers came from the town of Greece, near Rochester, N.Y. For more than a decade starting in 1999, the town board began its public meetings with a prayer from a “chaplain of the month.” Town officials said that members of all faiths and atheists were welcome to give the opening prayer.
Two town residents sued, saying the prayers ran afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition of the government establishment of religion. The federal appeals court in New York agreed, pointing out that almost all of the chaplains were Christian.
In 1983, the Supreme Court upheld the Nebraska Legislature’s practice of opening its legislative sessions with an invocation from a paid Presbyterian minister, saying that such ceremonies were “deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.”
It's a tricky question because the Bill of Rights says no establishment of a state religion (of course, government thinks it's God these days, and why wouldn't they with the omnipresent spying power?), but it also says no prohibitions by government.
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The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the group behind the lawsuit, said the Supreme Court should bar prayers in governmental settings such as town meetings.
In other action Monday....
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"High court backs Monsanto patent in seed case" by Jesse J. Holland | Associated Press, May 14, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday an Indiana farmer violated Monsanto Co.’s patents on soybean seeds resistant to its weed-killer by growing the beans without buying new seeds from the corporation.
The justices unanimously rejected the farmer’s argument that cheap soybeans he bought from a grain elevator are not covered by the Monsanto patents, even though most of them also were genetically modified to resist the company’s Roundup herbicide.
While Monsanto won this case, the court refused to make a sweeping decision that would cover other self-replicating technologies like DNA molecules and nanotechnologies, leaving that for another day....
GMOs are wrecking the food supply and killing off creatures like bees and bats, but you would never know that from the corporate pre$$.
In a statement, Monsanto officials said they were pleased with the ruling....
Monsanto has a policy to protect its investment in seed development that prohibits farmers from saving or reusing the seeds once the crop is grown. Farmers must buy new seeds every year.
About 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto’s seeds.
Vernon Bowman’s lawyers argued that Monsanto’s patent rights stopped with the sale of the first crop of beans.
Kagan disagreed. ‘‘Bowman planted Monsanto’s patented soybeans solely to make and market replicas of them, thus depriving the company of the reward patent law provides for the sale of each article,’’ she said. ‘‘Patent exhaustion provides no haven for such conduct.’’
Bowman also said he should not be liable, in part, because soybeans naturally sprout when planted. Kagan said the court did not buy that argument. ‘‘We think the blame-the-bean defense tough to credit,’’ she said.
Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety, said the ruling was wrong. ‘‘The court chose to protect Monsanto over farmers,’’ Kimbrell said.
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FLASHBACK:
"Supreme Court seems to favor Monsanto in seed case" by Mark Sherman | Associated Press, February 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared likely Tuesday to side with Monsanto Co. in its claim that an Indiana farmer violated the company’s patents on soybean seeds that are resistant to its weed-killer.
What a shock.
None of the justices in arguments at the high court seemed ready to endorse farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman’s argument that cheap soybeans he bought from a grain elevator are not covered by the Monsanto patents, even though most of them also were genetically modified to resist the company’s Roundup herbicide.
Chief Justice John Roberts wondered ‘‘why in the world would anybody’’ invest time and money on seeds if it was so easy to evade patent protection.
To protect its investment in the seeds’ development, Monsanto has a
policy that prohibits farmers from saving or reusing the seeds once the
crop is grown. Farmers must buy new seeds every year.
So not only are GMO seeds s***, with lower yields and potential
health problems, but now we find out they are actually a way of f***ing
the farmer.
The case is being closely watched by researchers and businesses holding patents on DNA molecules, nanotechnologies, and other self-replicating technologies.
The issue for the court is how far the patents held by the world’s largest seed company extend. More than 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto’s ‘‘Roundup Ready’’ seeds, which first came on the market in 1996.
The 75-year-old Bowman bought the expensive seeds for his main crop of soybeans, but decided to look for something cheaper for a risky, late-season soybean planting.
He went to a grain elevator that held soybeans it typically sells for feed, milling, and other uses, but not as seed.
Bowman reasoned that most of those soybeans also would be resistant to weed killers, as they initially came from herbicide-resistant seeds too. He was right, and he repeated the practice over eight years. In 2007, Monsanto sued and won an $84,456 judgment.
Across the court’s conservative-liberal divide, justices expressed little sympathy for Bowman’s actions.
They all agreed on this? It truly is a corporate court.
Justice Stephen Breyer said Bowman could make many uses of the soybeans he bought from the grain elevator. ‘‘Feed it to the animals. Feed it your family or make tofu turkey,’’ Breyer said.
But patent law makes it illegal for Bowman to plant them. ‘‘What it prohibits here is making a copy of the patented invention and that is what he did,’’ Breyer said.
Mark Walters, Bowman’s Seattle-based lawyer, tried to focus the court on the claim that Monsanto has used patent law to bully farmers.
‘‘What they are asking for is for the farmer to assume all the risk of farming, but yet they can sit back and control how that product is used,’’ Walters said.
Monsanto lawyer Seth Waxman said the company put 13 years and hundreds of millions of dollars into developing herbicide-resistant seeds.
‘‘Without the ability to limit the reproduction of soybeans containing this patented trait, Monsanto could not have commercialized its invention and never would have produced what is now the most popular patented technology’’ in farming, Waxman said.
The Obama administration also is backing the company.
(Blog editor's chin drops to chest)
Consumer groups and organic food producers have fought Monsanto over genetically engineered farm and food issues in several settings.
They lost a campaign in California last year to require labels on most genetically engineered processed foods and produce.
Rig jobs do that to me.
