Category: In the News - Page 94

A federal judge ruled that portions of a lawsuit may proceed against three men for their alleged involvement in the beatings of protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in 2017.

In a ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the suit filed by 15 mostly pro-Kurdish demonstrators, nearly all U.S. citizens and residents, may continue to seek damages for injuries they contend they suffered when guards for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attacked their group and ignited a melee. The judge’s ruling allows financial claims to continue against the Republic of Turkey, Turkish security forces and five civilians on accusations that they committed assault, battery and hate crimes under D.C. law against the protesters.

The Turkish government, named as a defendant, has yet to respond to the lawsuit.

The government was served in the case on Feb. 11 and has until April 12 to respond in court, said Agnieszka M. Fryszman, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

. . .

The litigation stems from a violent incident outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington on May 16, 2017, against people who gathered to protest alleged human rights violations against the Kurds.

Video footage of the incident outside the Sheridan Circle residence showed men in suits and olive-green military-style jackets kicking and bludgeoning protesters, including women carrying young children and men in their 60s. Victims contend they suffered concussions, seizures, neurological damage, lost and broken teeth, and post-traumatic stress.

The civil case followed attempted criminal prosecution of 15 security guards with Erdogan, as well as two individual Canadians and two Americans.

Read Judge’s Ruling Allows Protesters’ Suit Against Turkey Over DC Attack to Proceed.

Faced with allegations that executives have engaged in or enabled sexual misconduct, directors face a number of decisions, including whether the individuals should be terminated and if a payout, such as for a severance agreement or accelerated stock award, should be made.

Recent examples have shown that parting ways while handing executives multimillion-dollar checks has not proven to be a popular move. At Alphabet, for example, an explosive report late last year from The New York Times detailing the exit packages paid by Google to executives accused of misconduct led to an employee revolt. Additionally, the backlash has included shareholder derivative suits against directors, in part for making payouts to executives who were “credibly” accused of sexual harassment, according to one suit. One such payment was reportedly worth $90 million.

“Directors, as fiduciaries for the company, can’t reward violators of the law,” says Julie Goldsmith Reiser, an attorney representing the plaintiffs in one of the suits against Alphabet directors, pointing to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. “And $90 million for somebody who was credibly accused of sexual harassment is an outrageous sum of money.”

Moreover, she says, the payouts put the company at risk for litigation.

Conversely, directors are given broad discretion by courts to make business decisions, including on how to handle executives’ exits. This may include contemplating what will assist the company in moving beyond a scandal or preventing an executive from going to a competitor, sources say. Similarly, contractual obligations may limit directors’ discretion in deciding not to pay those accused of misconduct.

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Recent Lawsuits

Alphabet directors were hit with two derivative suits early this year that claim directors breached their fiduciary duties in approving excessive payouts to executives who allegedly engaged in misconduct. In the case of former Google senior vice president Andy Rubin, the complaints recount details reported by the Times, such as an accusation by an employee who said that in 2013, she had been coerced by Rubin into performing oral sex. This employee filed a complaint the following year, which prompted an investigation that reportedly found the claim to be credible.

Instead of being fired for cause, Rubin, who created the company’s Android mobile software, walked away with $90 million, to be paid out over a period of four years, according to the Times, citing two people with knowledge of the terms. Rubin could not be reached for comment. He denied coercing a woman to have sex after the Times’ article was published.

Another executive, senior vice president Amit Singhal, similarly walked away with a multimillion-dollar exit package after a claim that he had groped an employee was found to be credible, the Times reported.

Directors breached their fiduciary duties in approving these payouts to individuals who should have been terminated for cause and perpetuated a culture of concealment, one of the complaints reads. Neither the company nor its comp committee directors responded to requests for comment. Directors have not yet filed responses to the complaints.

In separate litigation, Nike directors have been hit with a derivative suit in the wake of allegations that a so-called “boys’ club” culture within the company resulted in gender discrimination and sexual harassment. An unredacted complaint filed in a circuit court in Multnomah County in Oregon claims directors “indiscriminately approved excessive compensation packages and generous severance payouts to executives, including those who were directly and actively involved in the creation of a hostile work environment at Nike.”

The complaint points to former Nike brand president Trevor Edwards, described in the suit as “one of the ringleaders of the wrongful conduct occurring at Nike,” as an example of an individual who left his role amid scandal with a healthy payout. Edwards was not terminated for cause and received a $525,000 payout and nearly $9 million in unvested stock awards, according to the filing.

The directors hit back in a motion to dismiss, arguing, among other claims, that the very policies and procedures plaintiffs cite in the complaint prove that directors did not abdicate their responsibilities. In an e-mail comment to Agenda, a Nike spokesperson says the board will “vigorously” defend against the allegations in the complaint and that directors “acted swiftly, responsibly, and decisively to protect the interests of both Nike employees and shareholders.”

Attorneys representing plaintiffs in these cases question the implications of these payments in interviews with Agenda. Reiser, a partner at firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, says paying executives and allowing them to walk away in circumstances like those alleged in the Alphabet complaint not only protects someone who has put the company legally at risk, but also feeds into the notion employees may have that they are not safe in speaking out.

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The suits against Nike and Alphabet directors follow a long line of court decisions that have protected directors when it comes to decisions about pay, even in questionable circumstances or amid scandal. In 1998, a shareholder filed a derivative suit against directors at a company called ICN Pharmaceuticals. Milan Panic, the founder and then-CEO of the company, was claimed to have been accused of several counts of sexual misconduct or harassment, with some of these instances resulting in lawsuits. While the board increased Panic’s salary and allegedly paid millions to settle harassment suits, the Delaware Chancery Court and then the Delaware Supreme Court in 2001 found the complaint did not raise reasonable doubt that directors’ actions were “the product of valid business judgment.”

And this month, the Chancery Court granted a motion to dismiss a derivative suit against current and former directors of United Continental Holdings, who were described in the complaint as having granted “lavish golden parachutes” to senior executives known to have been involved in a bribery scheme.

Sources agree that the threshold is high for the court to find directors breached their duties. Reiser believes, however, that the desire for accountability may soon reach the courts. “I believe there is more of a sense that people who were complicit in helping cover it up need to be held accountable,” she says. “The law is hard in these cases, but I think public opinion has come around in a way that courts are also now going to come around.”

Federal Government Urged to Set Science-Based Standards for PFOA and PFOS Compounds

Federal environmental experts need to set standards for chemicals that are causing serious concerns about drinking water in North Carolina and across the country, Governor Roy Cooper wrote to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler today.

Recent reports indicate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is declining to set standards for chemical compounds known as PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate). The compounds, which include GenX, have been found in wells and public drinking water in North Carolina, but much is still unknown about their safety.

In a letter to Acting Administrator Wheeler, Gov. Cooper wrote, “It is vital to the public trust that all Americans be confident in their access to safe drinking water. The EPA’s failure to act robs them of that peace of mind.”

The Environment and Public Works Committee of U.S. Senate is set to vote on advancing Wheeler’s confirmation as EPA Administrator next week.

The letter renews Gov. Cooper’s request first made last year that the EPA establish standards for PFOA and PFOS.

The federal agency last year held public meetings in North Carolina and a number of other states to hear concerns about PFOA and PFOS and at the time said the agency would set science-based standards for the currently unregulated compounds.

Gov. Cooper today called on the EPA to partner with states to better understand and set standards for PFOA and PFOS.

“It is our shared responsibility to protect drinking water for the people who rely on it,” Gov. Cooper said in the letter.

The Environment and Public Works Committee of U.S. Senate is set to vote on advancing Wheeler’s confirmation as EPA Administrator next week.

The letter renews Gov. Cooper’s request first made last year that the EPA establish standards for PFOA and PFOS.

Gov. Cooper today called on the EPA to partner with states to better understand and set standards for PFOA and PFOS.

“It is our shared responsibility to protect drinking water for the people who rely on it,” Gov. Cooper said in the letter.

National class action law firms DiCello Levitt; Hausfeld; Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll; Cohen & Gresser; and Kramon & Graham have teamed up to file the nation’s largest class action complaint against Marriott (NASDAQ: MAR) following a massive, long-running data breach at the company. With 176 Plaintiffs from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, this landmark court filing comes on the heels of Marriott’s recent admission that approximately 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers and 20.3 million encrypted passport numbers were among the sensitive customer records accessed by hackers. By the hotel chain’s own acknowledgement, the breach compromised the personal information of nearly 400 million customers who made reservations at Starwood-branded hotels, which Marriott acquired in 2016, making it one of the largest data breaches in the country’s history.

The consumers filed their lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Maryland on Wednesday January 9, 2019, and allege that Starwood, and later Marriott, took more than four years to discover the breach and then failed to notify its customers in a timely manner. Marriott became the world’s largest hotel chain when it acquired Starwood.

. . .

Beginning in 2014 and possibly earlier, and continuing through November 2018, hackers exploited vulnerabilities in Starwood’s network to access the guest reservation system and steal customer data. Marriott discovered the breach on September 8, 2018 but failed to publicly disclose it until nearly three months later, on November 30, 2018, when it admitted that there had been unauthorized access to the Starwood guest reservation database. This database contained personal customer information, including names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) account information, date of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation dates, and communication preferences. For some customers, the information also included payment card numbers and payment card expiration dates.

“Marriott’s post-breach response plan was wholly inadequate, and we intend to hold the company accountable for its failings,” said Andrew Friedman of Cohen Milstein. “Marriott’s latest revelation that millions of customer passport numbers were unencrypted boggles the mind and is an unprecedented lapse in cybersecurity for such a large customer service business.”

A group of class-action law firms Thursday filed the largest-to-date lawsuit over Marriott International Inc.’s recent admission that millions of customers’ private data was accessed by hackers.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, includes 176 plaintiffs from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to a news release.

The complaint is the latest lawsuit filed against the hotel chain over its announcement late last year that there was unauthorized access to reservation systems used by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., acquired by Marriott in 2016.

When the Bethesda hotel chain initially disclosed the breach in November, the company said that hackers compiled stolen data undetected for four years, including credit card and passport numbers, birthdates, phone numbers and hotel arrival and departure dates.

. . .

Attorneys from Baltimore-based Kramon & Graham PA represent the plaintiffs in the latest Maryland filing, along with D.C.-based Hausfeld LLP, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, and Cohen & Gresser LLP, and Chicago-based DiCello Levitt & Casey LLC.

The plaintiffs allege Starwood and later Marriott failed to identify the data breach, which began in 2014, and did not notify those affected in a timely manner. Marriott said last week that it believes the overall number of guests involved is around 383 million.

Some plaintiffs in federal litigation around the country moved to have matters consolidated as multi-district litigation for pretrial proceedings. The federal panel overseeing MDLs will meet at the end of the month for a hearing on that motion.

Ulwick said he and his colleagues believe if the case becomes an MDL it will be consolidated in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, where many of the cases have already been filed.

The case is Vickie Vetter et al. v. Marriott International Inc., 8:19-cv-00094.

Over the past several years, more than ten PFAS chemicals have regularly been detected in CFPUA’s raw and finished water. While PFAS contamination in drinking water is a national problem, the EPA has now released a draft toxicity assessment for two PFAS specifically found in the Cape Fear River—GenX and PFBS.

CFPUA welcomes this draft toxicity assessment. As the nation’s leading regulator of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA should continue to conduct risk assessments for all known PFAS compounds and use that information to create an effective PFAS regulatory framework that is protective of public health and the environment.

The EPA Draft Toxicity Assessment is open for public comment until January 21, 2019.

See Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Newsflashes on GenX toxicity levels and other issues.

December 6, 2018

CFPUA Public Comment on EPA Draft Toxicity Assessment for GenX and PFBS

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) is a water and wastewater provider in Southeastern North Carolina, serving approximately 200,000 people across parts of New Hanover County. We operate three drinking water systems—the largest of which uses the Cape Fear River as its source water. Over the past several years, more than ten different PFAS chemicals have regularly been detected in our raw and finished water, including the compounds GenX and PFBS. As research continues, scientists at universities across the state are identifying additional contaminants.

CFPUA is pleased to see that EPA has started to assess the risks that GenX and other PFAS may pose to human health and the environment. The Cape Fear River is central to the economy of Southeastern North Carolina, acting as the origin of much of our drinking water, recreation, tourism and industrial activities. A full understanding of the ways these chemicals operate in our bodies, and in the environment, is critical to ensuring an effective response is put into place.

Unfortunately, this risk assessment process did not occur before these compounds were released to the environment. As a result, our community will continue to be exposed to a variety of PFAS chemicals in its drinking water while we wait for a risk assessment process that may take years.

Cohen Milstein Among First Firms to File Action in Response to the Marriott Data Breach.

Lawyers have moved to coordinate suits into multidistrict litigation and questioned an arbitration clause in Marriott’s free internet monitoring program offered to its customers.

Lawyers rushed to bring about a dozen class actions over Marriott’s data breach—and with about 500 million people potentially impacted, they didn’t have to go far to find a plaintiff.

“There are so many people that have been potentially compromised, which means basically people could trip over a plaintiff if they just walk outside,” said Amy Keller, who filed one the lawsuits. Marriott announced Nov. 30 that hackers breached the reservations program of its Starwood properties, which include W Hotels and the Westin Hotels & Resorts.

Keller’s Chicago firm, DiCello Levitt & Casey, partnered in its case with Washington, D.C.-based Cohen, Milstein, Sellers & Toll and Hausfeld. That team brought a motion Monday to coordinate all the Marriott consumer cases into multidistrict litigation.

Keller said she expected hundreds of lawsuits against Marriott, which the suits allege failed to protect the personal information of its guests for four years. The suits also challenge Marriott’s response to the breach, both in delaying its announcement by several months and offering a free internet monitoring service for one year that they consider insufficient.

The first of its kind settlement in Palm Beach County is ending the practice of holding juveniles charged as adults in solitary confinement.

Reported by Terri Parker:

Police of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office agreed to end the practice of putting juveniles in solitary. And Palm Beach County School Board will make sure that all jailed juveniles get the appropriate educational services.

Juveniles who are incarcerated will get their schooling outside of their cells.

Alternative behavior management policies will also be put into place.

This all due to a class action lawsuit filed back on June 21st of this year.

Groups such as the Human Rights Defense Center and the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County charged that, some juveniles were kept in solitary confinement around 23 hours a day for up to a year.

The full WPBF story can be viewed above.

New Jersey officials, taking on one of the state’s core industries, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson that manufactures opioids, accusing the pharmaceutical company of misleading patients about the addictive dangers posed by its drugs.

It was the first time that New Jersey has brought legal action against a company based in the state as it struggles to contain a spiraling opioid addiction crisis. And it comes at a time when state attorneys general across the country have intensified their efforts to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the epidemics of abuse.

Gurbir Grewal, the New Jersey attorney general, said the subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, minimized the risks of opioid addiction in its marketing messages, targeted older people and other patients with little knowledge of opioids and mounted a campaign to “embed its deceptions about the viability of long-term opioid use in the minds of doctors and patients.”

. . .

In the absence of any significant federal action to stem the opioid epidemic, states have been leading the charge to grapple with a health crisis that has yet to be contained. In 2017, there were more than 72,000 overdose deaths in the country from opioids, a 10 percent rise from the previous year.

More than 40 state attorneys general have joined New York state in a multiyear, wide-ranging investigation of manufacturers and distributors of opioids. Eleven states, including New Jersey, have filed separate lawsuits against Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, a popular opioid painkiller.

“It became a state issue because there wasn’t a lot of movement on the federal level,” said Lewis S. Nelson, the chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Rutgers University. “To this date, the federal government hasn’t been very effective at regulating the practices of these pharmaceutical companies.”

In addition to the human toll, the opioid crisis has also imposed a significant financial burden that has been largely shouldered by states, Dr. Nelson said, including paying for hospital bills, drug courts and emergency response.

In New Jersey, the state also pays for opioids through public employee health plans, according to the lawsuit. New Jersey spent $178 million between 2010 and 2017 for opioid prescriptions submitted to employee health plans, according to the attorney general’s office.

Young offenders called it “the box.”

It’s where their world at the Palm Beach County jail shrank to a 6-by-12 foot cell — for months.

In solitary confinement, no music was allowed. No television. No human contact.

If they complained, they were subject to verbal and sometimes physical abuse by sheriff’s deputies.

Some of these teens ‒ often charged as adults with brutal crimes ‒ even started hallucinating.

All of this was detailed in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in June on behalf of two juvenile inmates who spent time in the box on the 12th floor of the Main Detention Center on Gun Club Road.

Now the box’s brutal reign is over.

After defending its use of solitary confinement for teenage jail inmates, PBSO is eliminating it in what is being heralded as a landmark settlement.

A new and extensive “segregated housing” policy replaces solitary confinement. All juvenile inmates will have access to a regular school day outside their cell with other young offenders in the general population.

The sheriff’s department will implement a rotating schedule to keep these juveniles away from co-defendants where before they would be put in solitary for administrative, not disciplinary, reasons.

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and the Palm Beach County School Board under the settlement vow to make these inmates get education and mental health treatment.

Only teen defendants in protective custody will be subject to a more rigorous confinement.

First in Florida

“It’s a pretty big deal, a first of its kind in Florida, and a good precedent,” said Sabarish P. Neelakanta, general counsel and litigation director for the Human Rights Defense Center, a prisoners’ rights group based in Lake Worth that engages in prisoner rights litigation nationwide. “The sheriff’s office and school board worked hard to address the situation.”

The sheriff’s office admits no wrongdoing in the settlement but agreed to the widespread reforms.

Sheriff spokeswoman Teri Barbera said the department under policy does not comment on legal settlements but added that such cases are often complex and settled in the “best interest of Palm Beach County taxpayers.”

A call for comment from the school district was not returned. The School Board is expected to approve the settlement Wednesday night.

The lawsuit was spearheaded by the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County and the Human Rights Defense Center. The class-action complaint claimed PBSO and the school district violated the teen inmates’ constitutional rights by subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment and lack of due process.

Now both organizations, as well as designated experts, will oversee implementation of the new policy for a two-year period.

The powerhouse class-action law firm of Cohen Milstein Sellers provided logistical support and counsel on how to tackle the issue.

“We have worked hard to protect the constitutional rights of juveniles whose civil liberties are at risk,” said Theodore J. Leopold, co-chair of the firm’s Complex Tort Litigation and Consumer Protection practices.