February 2012 Archives

McKesson Corporation, a pharmaceutical distributor and health care information technology company, suffered a setback in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this week after decades of dairy litigation.

That's right: McKesson has spent years crying over spilled milk. But with good reason.

Sherkat Sahami Labaniat Pasteurize Pak (Pak) is a joint venture between San Francisco-based McKesson and private Iranian citizens. McKesson's had a 31 percent ownership interest in Pak at the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the families of enemy combatants who killed themselves in their Guantanamo prison cells cannot sue the U.S. government for damages.

Talal Al-Zahrani and Ali Abdullah Ahmed Al-Salami sued the United States as representatives of their deceased sons' estates, seeking money damages relating to the alleged mistreatment and eventual death of those sons while they were detained at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. A district court granted United States' motion for dismissal of the claims based on the merits.

One side thought it was helping to prevent driver fatigue and improve highway safety. The other side thought the action was overblown and unnecessary. Now, the tension over a government rule changing the hours-of-service regulations for commercial truck drivers may be headed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently published the rule reducing the maximum number of hours in a week a truck driver can work by 12. It also mandates a 30-minute rest period within every eight-hour work period. The impetus behind the rule change was to reduce crashes that occur due to fatigued drivers.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has given the Federal Trade Commission a week to file a response to a lawsuit against search giant Google's new privacy policy.

The D.C. Circuit's decision to expedite the case came two days after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a lawsuit against the FTC last Wednesday. EPIC reportedly contends that Google's new privacy policy violates Google's settlement with the FTC over previous allegations of privacy invasion.

Instead of suing Google, however, EPIC is seeking a court order forcing the FTC to take action against Google to prevent the launch of its publicized privacy policy, which is set to roll out on March 1.

With the widely-publicized block of D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Caitlin Halligan, opposition to President Barack Obama’s judicial picks have come under scrutiny. Looking at his confirmation rate over the past three years, a recent report released from the Brookings Institute reveals that there may be more similarities in his circuit court confirmation rates than dramatic differences, compared to his predecessors.

In an atypical case of Americans refusing government entitlements, a group of senior citizens on Social Security has tried and failed to stop their automatic eligibility for Medicare.

Like green eggs and ham, Burt and Ernie, and Batman and Robin, you can’t have Social Security without Medicare, no matter how much you don’t want it.

“To say that you can’t decline Medicare Part A and not opt out of Social Security is outrageous,” plaintiffs’ attorney Kent Brown told the Associated Press.

As attorney Leonard Suchanek found out, biting off more than you can chew may come back to bite you in your wallet.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Suchanek must disgorge a portion of his fees paid by a client because of his violations of the ethical rule against current-client conflicts.