Suits and Litigation (Civil)

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      Why Botham Jean’s Family Won’t Get $100 Million Awarded by Jury

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      Cities have paid out billions of dollars in police misconduct cases, but depending on the case, families may not receive any money at all. A recent $100 million penalty for a police shooting case in Dallas may never lead to a payout.The family of George Floyd received $27 million after he was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. The family of Breonna Taylor got $12 million. Richard Cox, who was paralyzed after a ride in a police van in New Haven, Conn., got $46 million.But the family of Botham Shem Jean, who was killed by an off-duty officer, Amber R. Guyger, as he watched television in his apartment in Dallas in 2018, may never see a penny.That is not because the courts did not value his life. On Tuesday, a jury awarded his family almost $100 million. The difference lies, rather, in who was held responsible for his death.How do police violence cases usually work?In many high-profile cases of police violence, the city or county where the misconduct occurred is responsible for any payout connected to wrongful death or injury. Those taxpayer-funded payouts have amounted to billions of dollars: In 2023, New York City paid nearly $115 million in police misconduct settlements, according to an analysis by the Legal Aid Society.Awards to victims or their families can vary greatly, depending on factors such as the projected earnings over a victim’s lifetime, the sympathies of juries in a given jurisdiction and the amount of publicity generated by the case. Some families win money in civil rights claims even when the officers involved are not criminally charged or disciplined.But in order to have a successful case, plaintiffs must surmount at least two significant legal obstacles. First, officers are granted qualified immunity from lawsuits if victims cannot show that the officers have violated their “clearly established” rights. Second, municipalities can be held responsible only if the plaintiff’s rights were violated because of a negligent policy or practice — for example, if the police department had ignored previous bad behavior on the part of an officer or had failed to properly train its officers.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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      Urologist Who Sexually Abused Patients Is Sentenced to Life in Prison

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      Darius A. Paduch, a fertility specialist, assaulted men and boys for years at prominent New York hospitals, prosecutors said.A urologist convicted of sexually abusing seven patients, including five who were minors, was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday, prosecutors said.The doctor, Darius A. Paduch, a fertility specialist, molested boys and young men for years at two prominent New York hospitals, prosecutors said. Hundreds of other young men and boys have also accused Dr. Paduch, 57, of abuse spanning more than 15 years in scores of civil suits.Dr. Paduch “was a sexual predator who preyed on patients seeking treatment for sensitive medical issues,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement on Wednesday. “He used his position as a renowned urologist at prestigious hospitals to sexually assault vulnerable patients, including children, to gratify his own sexual desires.”In May, a jury found him guilty of five counts of inducing a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity and six counts of enticing people to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity. The trial lasted just two weeks.On Wednesday, his sentence was handed down by Judge Ronnie Abrams in federal court in Manhattan.Dr. Paduch, of North Bergen, N.J., was arrested last April. He has been barred from practicing in New York. Through the trial, he maintained his innocence. A lawyer who represented him, Michael Baldassare, said on Wednesday that “we are confident that one day he will be vindicated.”Once a urologist who specialized in treating patients with a genetic condition, Dr. Paduch worked at hospitals including NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill-Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan and Northwell Health on Long Island. According to prosecutors, he used his position at prominent hospitals “to make the victims believe that the sexual abuse he inflicted on them was medically necessary and appropriate, when, in fact, it was not.”The abuse continued over several years in some cases, as Dr. Paduch instructed the patients to return for follow-up appointments, where he continued to assault them. During appointments, the indictment said, Dr. Paduch told patients to masturbate in front of him, sometimes groping them or showing them pornography.During the course of the trial, 11 victims testified about abuse they had suffered under Dr. Paduch’s care, and dozens more wrote impact statements before he was sentenced Wednesday.Mallory Allen, a lawyer for a firm that represents 140 former patients who have filed civil suits against him, said in a statement that the sentence affirms that “heinous sexual abuse will not be overlooked.”Survivors of the abuse have also sued the hospitals where he worked under the Adult Survivors Act, which opened a yearlong window between 2022 and 2023 during which adult victims of abuse could file claims even after the statute of limitations had passed.“While no sentence can ever undo the pain and suffering endured by each and every survivor who experienced abuse at the hands of Dr. Darius Paduch, the sentencing closes an important chapter for these survivors,” Ms. Allen said in the statement. More

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      Wyoming’s Abortion Bans Are Unconstitutional, Judge Rules

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      The ruling found that two state laws — one barring use of abortion pills, and one banning all forms of abortion — violated the state Constitution’s “fundamental right to make health care decisions.” A Wyoming judge ruled on Monday that two state abortion bans — including the first state law specifically banning the use of pills for abortion — violated the Wyoming Constitution and could not be enforced.Judge Melissa Owens of Teton County District Court wrote in her ruling that both the ban on medication abortion and a broader ban against all methods of abortion “impede the fundamental right to make health care decisions for an entire class of people, pregnant women.” She added, “The abortion statutes suspend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions during the entire term of a pregnancy and are not reasonable or necessary to protect the health and general welfare of the people.”Enforcement of the two abortion bans, passed last year, had been temporarily halted by Judge Owens while the court case proceeded. Her decision on Monday blocks the laws permanently, although the state is expected to appeal. Efforts to reach the state attorney general’s office and the governor’s office were unsuccessful on Monday night.The suit to block the bans was filed by a group of plaintiffs that included two abortion providers in Wyoming; an obstetrician-gynecologist who often treats high-risk pregnancies; an emergency-room nurse; a fund that gives financing to abortion patients; and a woman who said her Jewish faith required access to abortion if a pregnant woman’s physical or mental health or life was in danger.An amendment to the Wyoming Constitution, approved by an overwhelming majority of the state’s voters in 2012, guarantees adults the right to make their own health care decisions.In court last year, the state, represented by Jay Jerde, a special assistant attorney general for Wyoming, argued that even though doctors and other health providers must be involved in abortions, there were many instances in which abortion was not “health care” because “it’s not restoring the woman’s body from pain, physical disease or sickness.”Mr. Jerde also argued that the constitutional amendment allowing people to make decisions about their own health care did not apply to abortion because terminating a pregnancy affected not just the woman making the decision, but the fetus as well.Judge Owens rejected both of those arguments. She wrote: “The uncontested facts establish that the abortion statutes fail to accomplish any of the asserted interests by the state. The state did not present any evidence refuting or challenging the extensive medical testimony presented by the plaintiffs.”Dr. Giovannina Anthony, an obstetrician-gynecologist and abortion provider who was one of the plaintiffs in the case, said on Monday night that she was “grateful and relieved that the judge agreed that abortion is health care and that abortion bans violate the rights of pregnant women.”Dr. Anthony said she expected the state to appeal. “This is not the end of the fight in Wyoming, but for now we can continue to provide evidence-based care without fear of a prison sentence.” More

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      Trump’s Pick for Pentagon Paid an Accuser but Denies It Was Sexual Assault

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      The Trump transition team was only recently alerted to the payment by Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for secretary of defense.President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, paid a woman who had accused him of sexual assault as part of a settlement agreement with a confidentiality clause, but Mr. Hegseth insists it was a consensual encounter, his lawyer said on Saturday.The Trump transition team was only recently alerted to the payment by Mr. Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The payment was reported earlier by The Washington Post.Mr. Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said that his client had done nothing wrong.“Mr. Hegseth is completely innocent,” he said. “Not only did she take advantage of him, but we believe she then extorted him knowing that at the height of the #MeToo movement the mere public allegation would likely result in his immediate termination from Fox News.”Mr. Parlatore said the woman began making statements about Mr. Hegseth that he said were false about two years after the alleged incident and that she had suggested to people that she might file a lawsuit against Mr. Hegseth. He sent the woman a cease-and-desist letter in early 2020. The settlement came months after that letter, although the amount was unclear.Mr. Trump shocked much of Washington with the pick of Mr. Hegseth earlier this week. The president-elect had leaned toward the selection a few days before it was announced, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.The Trump team was rocked earlier this week when a woman sent a memo to the transition claiming her friend had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Hegseth.Late on Thursday the Monterey Police Department in California said it had investigated an allegation of sexual assault involving Mr. Hegseth in 2017 at the address of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa. No charges were filed.Mr. Hegseth was a speaker at a conference of the California Federation of Republican Women at the Monterey hotel in early October 2017 when the encounter that led to the investigation occurred. The woman had been with the Republican women’s group.According to the police statement, the complaint was filed four days after the encounter, and the complainant had bruises to her thigh. The police report itself was not released.Mr. Trump has not moved off supporting Mr. Hegseth, despite claims that his team was reassessing the pick, according to several people close to the incoming president. Mr. Hegseth has been a favorite of Mr. Trump going back to his first term, when the president wanted to name him as secretary for Veteran Affairs.But when he received pushback, Mr. Trump looked elsewhere. More

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      Meta Fined $840 Million in Europe for Boosting Marketplace Unfairly

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      Meta said it would appeal the decision by the European Union, which said the company had abused its dominance in social networking to strengthen its shopping and classified ads service.​The European Union on Thursday fined Meta roughly $840 million for breaking competition laws with Facebook Marketplace, its shopping and classified ads platform, the latest action by regulators trying to limit the ability of tech giants to expand into new product areas.In issuing the 800 million euro fine, European regulators said Meta had given itself an unfair advantage over rival services by bundling Marketplace into Facebook’s wider social network, providing it with immediate access to millions of potential users. They added that Meta had abused its dominance in online advertising to impose unfair business terms on rival shopping services, allowing it to collect data that could be used to strengthen Marketplace.European regulators, led by Margrethe Vestager, the E.U. competition chief, have for years sought to limit the ability of tech companies to use their power in one area, like social networking, to gain a foothold in new markets such as shopping. Authorities in Europe have also accused Apple of using its dominance in smartphones to bolster music and payment services.In linking Marketplace to Facebook’s social network, the company gave itself “advantages that other online classified ads service providers could not match,” Ms. Vestager said in a statement. “This is illegal under E.U. antitrust rules. Meta must now stop this behavior.”The company said it would appeal the decision, setting up a legal battle that could drag out for years. Meta said Marketplace, introduced in 2016, was created in response to consumer demand and had not hindered competition from companies such as eBay and Vinted.On Marketplace, people buy, sell and trade items with others, including furniture, clothing, sports equipment, cars and home goods.“Facebook users can choose whether or not to engage with Marketplace, and many don’t,” the company said in a statement. “The reality is that people use Facebook Marketplace because they want to, not because they have to.”Meta has been a target of efforts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to crimp the power of the largest technology companies. Last year, the company was fined 1.2 billion euros, or about $1.26 billion, for violating regional data protection rules. In the United States, the company is being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for antitrust violations.Whether the United States and Europe will stay aligned on tech regulation with President-elect Donald J. Trump returning to office is an open question. Some of his supporters, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have raised concerns about the power of Silicon Valley firms like Meta and Google, while others have pushed for less regulation.The European Union started the Marketplace investigation in 2019. In 2023, the company reached a settlement with British regulators on a similar case, but was unable to find an agreement with E.U. authorities. More

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      Ben & Jerry’s Accuses Unilever of Seeking to Muzzle Its Gaza Stance

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      The ice cream maker claimed in a lawsuit that its parent company tried to stop it from expressing support for Palestinian refugees.Ben & Jerry’s on Wednesday sued its parent company, Unilever, accusing the consumer goods giant of censorship and threats over the ice cream maker’s attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees. The move ratchets up a longstanding conflict between the two that has flared since the start of the war in Gaza.The lawsuit claims that Unilever recently tried to dismantle Ben & Jerry’s independent board and sought to muzzle it to prevent the company from calling for a cease-fire and safe passage for refugees, from supporting U.S. students protesting civilian deaths in Gaza, and from urging an end to U.S. military aid to Israel.“Unilever has silenced each of these efforts,” Ben & Jerry’s said in the lawsuit. The company, which is based in South Burlington, Vt., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Unilever said that it would strongly defend itself against the accusations. “We reject the claims made by B&J’s social mission board,” it said in a statement.Hamas carried out a devastating attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year, and Israel responded by besieging Gaza, the territory that Hamas once controlled, with an offensive that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and created a humanitarian crisis.Unilever is one of a number of global multinationals like Starbucks that has been grappling with how to navigate business amid one of the most fraught issues in the world. The British conglomerate bought Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 and holds two of 11 seats on what is supposed to be an independent board.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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      Lahaina Fire Settlement is Caught up in Legal Fight With Insurers

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      Insurers that paid claims in Maui say a deal unfairly keeps them from recouping their own losses.The ashes of last summer’s devastating fire in Lahaina on Maui, which killed 102 people and destroyed the town, were still smoldering when talk turned to how fraught the rebuilding process would be.Fire victims would need help fast, and Hawaii officials pushed hard for a quick resolution to the avalanche of lawsuits filed against the entities that had caused the fire: the state’s electric utility, a school system and Maui County, among others.Just days shy of the fire’s one-year anniversary in August, a settlement was announced: Together, those responsible would pay $4 billion to settle more than 600 lawsuits; compensate over 10,000 homeowners, businesses and others; and — critically — keep key institutions, like the utility, solvent.But getting a deal done that quickly meant adopting an unorthodox approach to the insurance industry’s role in the settlement — one that the industry is challenging. Now, hopes for a timely payout are at the mercy of the courts.Typically, insurers pay claims and then sue whomever they blame for the damage — like the driver who might have caused a car accident — to recover some of what they paid. In the Lahaina settlement, the insurers are instead expected to seek repayment from the people and businesses they insured. A person who received a share of the $4 billion deal from a pain-and-suffering claim, for example, could have to pay a portion of that to the insurance company.The industry is balking at this idea, saying it upends a core piece of its business model. Insurers have turned to state and federal courts to try to block the deal, slowing it down and frustrating fire victims and Hawaii leaders.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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      California County to Pay $300,000 Over Butchering of Girl’s Goat

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      The girl and her family reached a settlement after accusing the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office of unlawfully seizing a pet goat that was sold and slaughtered.A California county’s sheriff’s office agreed to pay $300,000 after it seized a 9-year-old girl’s pet goat, which was later slaughtered, according to court documents made public Friday.Jessica Long, the girl’s mother, sued the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, the Shasta District Fair, which auctioned the goat, and some of its employees in 2022 for taking “a young girl’s beloved pet goat” to be sold and slaughtered, despite the family’s efforts to spare the animal, according to court records.Ms. Long bought the goat for her daughter, who called him Cedar or Cedes, so the girl could participate in a 4-H program, according to the family’s lawyer, Ryan Gordon.Ms. Long’s daughter, who is identified as E.L. in the lawsuit because she is a minor, initially raised the goat to be auctioned at the Shasta District Fair in Northern California.But as auction day approached, the girl, who had been feeding and walking with the goat on a leash everywhere, became attached to Cedar and did not want to sell him.The fair ignored the family’s pleas and sold Cedar for $902, of which the fair was owed $63 as part of the sale.The family offered to pay the fair the money it was owed, and as the dispute continued, offered to pay the full auction price. Fair officials refused to withdraw the sale, however, according to court documents.As the family attempted to keep Cedar, fair officials threatened criminal theft charges.During the dispute, Ms. Long took Cedar to a farm 200 miles away in Sonoma County to be kept safe, the lawsuit said.Two Shasta County sheriff’s deputies drove to the farm and seized the goat, though it remains unclear who got the deputies involved, Mr. Gordon said. Law enforcement did not have a warrant to search and seize Cedar from the farm, he added.Cedar was eventually slaughtered but where his remains ended up is still unknown, and the winning bidder never paid the $902, Mr. Gordon said.In settling with the girl and her family, Shasta County admitted no wrongdoing. The lawsuit against the Shasta District Fair and some of its workers remains pending. Representatives of Shasta County and the Shasta District Fair did not immediately return requests for comment.“They can never get justice for Cedar, he’s gone,” Mr. Gordon said. “But this is a good first step.”The money will be held in a trust until Ms. Long’s daughter, who is now 11, is a legal adult, he said.In a 2022 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Gordon, who is the co-director of Advancing Law for Animals, a nonprofit law firm specializing in complex cases of animal law, said the sheriff’s deputies were “not the judge” and had no right to deem who was Cedar’s rightful owner.When Ms. Long’s daughter learned of Cedar’s fate weeks after he was taken, she ran to her bed and cried under her covers, Ms. Long said. More