Legal Report Resources
ACCESS COURT CASE
The Delaware Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling, ordering Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to share documents related to its internal probe of Mexican bribery allegations with a shareholder. The court ruled that stockholders of a corporation can “invade” its attorney-client privilege to “prove fiduciary breaches by those in control of the corporation” by showing good cause.
RETALIATION CASE
A California jury has awarded a former nurse administrator at the University of California at Davis $730,000 for retaliation after she was laid off following a whistleblower complaint. The nurse had reported that a university research project on pain management was conducting illegal and unauthorized human research on prisoners without informed consent or Institutional Review Board approval and oversight.
WEAPON CONTROL
A federal judge has struck down the Washington, D.C., law that prohibits individuals from carrying handguns in public for self-defense. The judge wrote that there is “no longer any basis on which this court can conclude that the District of Columbia’s total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny.”
DISCRIMINATION
U.S. President Barack Obama has signed an executive order giving employment protection to gay and transgender workers in the federal government and its contracting agencies. Under the order, federal contractors cannot fire or refuse to hire someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The order, which went into effect on July 21, impacts 24,000 companies with 28 million workers—approximately one-fifth of the U.S. workforce.
LABOR LAWS
U.S. President Barack Obama signed an additional executive order that requires companies bidding for federal contracts worth more than $500,000 to disclose any previous labor law violations from the preceding three years, if they have any to report. The executive order also prohibits companies with federal contracts worth more than $1 million from forcing employees into arbitration to settle accusations of sexual assault or harassment. Contractors also have to incorporate this same requirement into subcontracts worth more than $1 million.
CYBERSECURITY
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed two measures that will combat cyberattacks on critical infrastructure by distributing threat information and developing new technologies to support the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) cybersecurity workforce. H.R. 3696 will require the secretary of homeland security to conduct cybersecurity activities and H.R. 2952 will require the secretary to provide Congress with a strategic plant to guide the overall direction of federal physical security and cybersecurity research.
TRAFFICKING
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would enhance human trafficking training for federal government personnel. The bill (H.R. 4449) would require personnel to take a distance learning course, briefings for all ambassadors and deputy chiefs, and annual reminders to personnel at diplomatic and consular State Department posts on human trafficking.
FIREARMS
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has vetoed legislation that would have allowed specially trained teachers to carry concealed firearms. If he had signed the measure into law, it would have allowed public school districts to designate certain teachers or administrators as “school protection officers,” who would undergo training to carry concealed firearms on school premises.
DATA COLLECTION
The United Kingdom’s House of Lords has passed the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill, which allows the government to require Internet and phone companies to collect and store data on their customers’ communications for up to 12 months. If enacted, the bill would also extend the UK government’s powers to intercept the content of communications beyond the country’s borders.
TERRORISM
Pakistan’s Parliament has approved new powers for the country’s security forces to combat terrorism within the nation. Called the Protection of Pakistan Bill 2014, the measure allows security forces to shoot suspects on sight, arrest suspects without a warrant, and withhold information about where detainees are being held or what they are being charged with.
WHISTLEBLOWERS
A California jury has awarded a former nurse administrator at the University of California at Davis $730,000 for retaliation in Keyzer v. Regents of the University of California after she was laid off following a whistleblower complaint. The nurse had reported to her supervisor that a university research project on pain management was conducting illegal and unauthorized human research of prisoners without required informed consent or Institutional Review Board approval and oversight. The project was shut down in 2007, after which the nurse was denied placement in other available positions at the university before ultimately being laid off and her husband—also employed by the university—was fired.
WARRANTS
A federal judge has ruled that Microsoft must comply with a federal search warrant and turn over a customer’s e-mails that are held in a data center in Dublin, Ireland. In her ruling, Judge Loretta A. Preska wrote that the Stored Communications Act extends to data stored overseas by Microsoft Corp. and other service providers, requiring them to comply with federal warrants regardless of where the data is stored.
DISCRIMINATION
A federal appeals court upheld a lower court opinion, ruling that a male nurse was not sexually discriminated against when his employer did not consider him for a vacant operating room nurse position because he never applied for the job. By not submitting an application or making a reasonable attempt to convey his interest, the hospital did not make a decision to deny the nurse the position meaning he could not have been discriminated against.
