Suits and Litigation (Civil)

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    Ex-Yankee Is Awarded About $500,000 in Damages for Moldy Greenwich Mansion

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    Josh Donaldson, a former American League Most Valuable Player with Toronto, sued his former landlord over the conditions at his $55,000-a-month rental property.A Connecticut jury on Wednesday awarded the former New York Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson damages that are expected to top $500,000 from the ex-landlord of his $55,000-a-month Greenwich, Conn., rental mansion, which he complained was plagued by mold and squirrels.Mr. Donaldson, 39, terminated the lease about six weeks after moving into the five-bedroom, 4,800-square-foot home in April 2022 with his now-wife, Briana, who was pregnant at the time, and their 17-month-old daughter.In a federal lawsuit filed in Connecticut in June 2022, the now-retired baseball player accused the home’s owner, Bill Grous, of breach of contract and said that the rental in Greenwich’s backcountry section was a money pit.The neighborhood, sought after for its sprawling estates and privacy, is a magnet for professional athletes, other celebrities and financiers.Mr. Donaldson, a former American League Most Valuable Player with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015, moved into the mansion a few weeks after being traded to the Yankees from the Minnesota Twins.His two seasons in New York were rocky. Mr. Donaldson struggled to replicate his success and was suspended by Major League Baseball in May 2022 for one game for repeatedly calling Tim Anderson, who is Black and was a shortstop for the Chicago White Sox at the time, “Jackie,” a reference to Jackie Robinson. In August 2023, Mr. Donaldson was released by the Yankees.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Is Fake Grass Safe? A Manufacturer Sues to Stop a Discussion.

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      Four experts were sued for defamation ahead of a seminar where they planned to talk about research into the potential health risks on playgrounds and sports fields nationwide.The seminar seemed straightforward enough. Four experts planned to talk about whether artificial grass, which is used on playgrounds and sports fields nationwide, has health risks for children.But January’s seminar never happened, after the four speakers were sued for defamation by Polyloom, an artificial-turf maker, based on promotional material for the seminar.“This was before we even said a word,” said Kyla Bennett, an ecologist formerly with the Environmental Protection Agency who is one of the four defendants.Polyloom and the artificial-turf industry is responding to a growing body of scientific research showing the presence of harmful chemicals in synthetic turf, and potential environmental and health implications. All this is happening as demand for artificial turf, which is made from plastic and mimics the look and feel of natural grass, is booming globally.Once mainly used in places like professional football or baseball stadiums, today, artificial grass is common in city parks, community playgrounds and fields for high-school football and soccer. It’s even in some suburban backyards where homeowners want to avoid the need to water or mow the lawn.Between 1,200 and 1,500 large artificial turf fields were installed in 2023, bringing the total in the United States to around 19,000 fields, according to the latest figures from AMI Plastics, an industry data organization.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      MyPillow Founder Mike Lindell Defamed Former Dominion Executive, Jury Finds

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      He was ordered to pay $2.3 million in damages to Eric Coomer, a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems.The MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, who spread baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, defamed a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems, a federal jury in Denver found on Monday.The jury awarded $2.3 million in damages to the former employee, Eric Coomer, after a two-week trial, according to one of his lawyers, David Beller.Mr. Lindell claimed without evidence that the vote had been rigged to prevent President Trump from winning re-election. Among his targets was Dr. Coomer, who is a former director of product strategy and security at Dominion, a Denver-based manufacturer of voting machines that was falsely accused of flipping votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.Mr. Lindell called Dr. Coomer “a traitor to the United States” and said he should turn himself in to the authorities, according to court filings. Dr. Coomer sued Mr. Lindell in 2022, arguing that those attacks had effectively ended his career in the election industry and led to “frequent credible death threats.”“Mike Lindell not only hurt Eric Coomer with his baseless lies — he hurt the American people and the democratic process,” Mr. Beller said in a statement. “Dr. Coomer is now one step closer to putting his life back together.”The verdict was the latest in a long string of legal rulings that have upended the false theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump. In 2023, Dominion reached a $787.5 million settlement with Fox News after filing a defamation suit against the network, which had spread misinformation about the company’s voting machines. That same year, an arbitration panel ordered Mr. Lindell to pay a forensics expert who had met his $5 million challenge to debunk claims about election interference.Dr. Coomer became a target of election conspiracists partly because of posts on his Facebook page that were critical of Mr. Trump. In the complaint against Mr. Lindell, his lawyers wrote that Dr. Coomer was respected in his field and had worked with “elections officials — Republican, Democratic and independent — across the country to make sure the process was safe, secure and fair.”But his life was upended when Mr. Lindell and other conspiracy theorists turned him into “the face of an imagined criminal conspiracy of unprecedented scope in American history,” the lawsuit said.Lawyers for Mr. Lindell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

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      Supreme Court Sides With Teenager in School Disability Discrimination Case

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      Disability rights groups had followed the case closely, warning that arguments by the school district could threaten broader protections for people with disabilities.The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a teenage girl with epilepsy and her parents who had sued a Minnesota school district, claiming that her school had failed to provide reasonable accommodations, which made it difficult for her to receive instruction.The case hinged on what standard of proof was required to show discrimination by public schools in education-related disability lawsuits.In a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court held that the student and her family needed to show only that the school system had acted with “deliberate indifference” to her educational needs when they sued.That is the same standard that applies when people sue other institutions for discrimination based on disability.The school district argued that a higher standard — a stringent requirement that the institution had acted with “bad faith or gross misjudgment” — should apply. Had the district prevailed, the new standard might have applied broadly to all kinds disability rights claims filed under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.That argument had unnerved some disability rights groups, which had cautioned that a ruling for the school could make it much harder for Americans with disabilities to successfully bring court challenges.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Revives Suit From Victims of Botched F.B.I. Raid

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      Lower courts ruled in favor of agents who had used a battering ram and a flash-bang grenade in mistakenly raiding the home of an Atlanta couple.The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously revived a suit from a couple whose home was mistakenly raided by the F.B.I., giving them a fresh opportunity to try to persuade lower courts that they should be able to sue the federal government for the harm they suffered.The case, Martin v. United States, No. 24-362, arose from a raid very early on a fall morning in 2017, when F.B.I. agents used a battering ram to knock down the front door of the home of the couple, Hilliard Toi Cliatt and Curtrina Martin. Guns drawn, the agents set off a flash-bang grenade and charged inside.The couple barricaded themselves in a closet. The agents dragged Mr. Cliatt out at gunpoint and handcuffed him. They told Ms. Martin to keep her hands up as she pleaded to see her 7-year-old son, who had been asleep in another room.As they questioned Mr. Cliatt, he gave his address. It was different from the one the agents had a warrant to enter.One of the agents, Lawrence Guerra, had earlier identified the correct house, which he said looked similar and was nearby, on a different street. But on the morning of the raid, he said he went to the wrong house because he had been misdirected by his GPS device.The couple sued for false arrest, false imprisonment, assault, battery and other claims but lost in the lower courts on a variety of grounds, notably that government officials’ actions are protected from lawsuits when they perform a duty that involves discretion.The case turned on the Federal Tort Claims Act, which sometimes allows suits against the government notwithstanding the doctrine of sovereign immunity. A 1974 amendment to the law made it easier to sue over wrong-house raids after notorious ones in Collinsville, Ill. But the law is subject to a tangled series of exceptions and provisos. More

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      As Energy Costs Surge, Eastern Governors Blame a Grid Manager

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      For decades, a little-known nonprofit organization has played a central role in keeping the lights on for 65 million people in the Eastern United States.Even some governors and lawmakers acknowledge that they were not fully aware of how much influence the organization, PJM, has on the cost and reliability of energy in 13 states. The electrical grid it manages is the largest in the United States.But now some elected leaders have concluded that decisions made by PJM are one of the main reasons utility bills have soared in recent years. They said the organization had been slow to add new solar, wind and battery projects that could help lower the cost of electricity. And they say the grid manager is paying existing power plants too much to supply electricity to their states.Some governors have been so incensed that they have sued PJM, drafted or signed laws to force changes at the organization, or threatened to pull their states out of the regional electric grid.The Democratic governors of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania sharply criticized the organization in recent interviews with The New York Times and in written statements. And the Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, called on the organization to fire its chief executive in a letter obtained by The Times.“PJM has lost the plot,” Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey said in an interview. In another interview, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland said about PJM, “I am angry.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justice Jackson Just Helped Reset the D.E.I. Debate

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      At the heart of the debate over diversity, equity and inclusion is a question: How much should the law treat a person as an individual rather than as a member of a group?For a very long time, American law and American institutions answered that question unequivocally. People were defined primarily by the group they belonged to, and if they happened to be Black or Native American or a woman, they were going to enjoy fewer rights, fewer privileges and fewer opportunities than the people who belonged to the categories white and male.That was — and remains — a grievous injustice. At a minimum, justice demands that a nation and its institutions cease and desist from malicious discrimination. But doesn’t justice demand more? Doesn’t it also require that a nation and its institutions actually try to provide assistance to targeted groups to help increase diversity in employment and education and help targeted groups overcome the systemic effects of centuries of discrimination?On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously decided a case that was directly relevant to the latter question, and while the outcome wasn’t surprising, the court’s unanimity — and the identity of the author of the court’s opinion — certainly was.The facts of the case, Ames v. Ohio, are simple. In 2004, the Ohio Department of Youth Services hired a heterosexual woman named Marlean Ames to work as an executive secretary. By 2019, she’d worked her way up to program administrator and set her sights higher — applying for a management position in the agency’s Office of Quality and Improvement.The department interviewed Ames for the job but decided to hire someone else, a lesbian. The department then demoted Ames and replaced her with a gay man. Believing she’d been discriminated against on the basis of her sexual orientation, she filed suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Can Restrict A.P. Journalists’ Access, Appeals Court Rules

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      By a 2-to-1 vote, a three-judge panel found that the president can bar the news outlet from small settings such as the Oval Office or Air Force One, reversing at least for now a lower court’s ruling.A federal appeals court on Friday paused a lower court’s ruling that had required the White House to allow journalists from The Associated Press to participate in covering President Trump’s daily events and travel alongside their peers from other major news outlets.By a 2-to-1 vote, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that many of the spaces in the White House complex or on Air Force One where members of the press have followed the president for decades are essentially invite-only, and not covered by First Amendment protections.“The White House therefore retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted,” wrote Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee. She was joined by Judge Gregory G. Katsas, who was also appointed by Mr. Trump.The ruling temporarily lifted the requirement that the White House give A.P. journalists the same access as other news media professionals while the appeal continues. But it was clouded by the fact that the situation facing The Associated Press has shifted considerably since the legal standoff began in February.The lawsuit was born of a dispute between The Associated Press and the White House over the outlet’s refusal to adopt language favored by Mr. Trump and refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.When The Associated Press refused to change its newsroom style and take up the new name, the White House began openly excluding the outlet’s journalists from covering Mr. Trump as part of a daily rotation system that news media companies have long used to deal with the limited space in some areas and share the cost and commitment of covering the president.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Return of Abrego Garcia Raises Questions About Trump’s Views of Justice

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      For the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against the man, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders to “facilitate” his release from El Salvador.When Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia had been returned to the United States to face criminal charges after being wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador, she sought to portray the move as the White House dutifully upholding the rule of law.“This,” she said, “is what American justice looks like.”Her assertion, however, failed to grapple with the fact that for the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against Mr. Abrego Garcia, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders — including one from the Supreme Court — to “facilitate” his release.While the indictment filed against Mr. Abrego Garcia contained serious allegations, accusing him of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants as a member of the street gang MS-13, it had no bearing on the issues that have sat at the heart of the case since his summary expulsion in March.Those were whether Mr. Abrego Garcia had received due process when he was plucked off the streets without a warrant and expelled days later to a prison in El Salvador, in what even Trump officials have repeatedly admitted was an error. And, moreover, whether administration officials should be held in contempt for repeatedly stonewalling a judge’s effort to get to the bottom of their actions.Well before Mr. Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit seeking to force the White House to release him from El Salvador, administration officials had tried all means at their disposal to keep him overseas as they figured out a solution to the problem they had created, The New York Times found in a recent investigation.Cesar Ábrego García, left, and Cecilia García, center, the brother and mother of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, participated in a press conference with Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, following his trip to El Salvador.Allison Bailey for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More