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Nags Head homeowners get federal court victory
Court Watch |
2014/11/13 23:45
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Nags Head homeowners banned from repairing their beachfront property for five years because the town declared them a public nuisance are back at work, getting those homes renovated.
The Virginian-Pilot reported a U.S. District Court judge ruled last week for the homeowners on part of their claims, allowing them to start repairing their houses.
The dispute started with a winter storm in November 2009 that damaged parts of the town.
Nags Head wanted nine houses removed after the storm to protect the public and to maintain use of the beach, Town Manager Cliff Ogburn said. The homes take up most of the beach and block passage of rescue vehicles, he said.
"You can't walk north and south because of these houses," Ogburn said.
The town sent notices to homeowners saying the damaged houses sat on public trust property and would have to be removed or razed. Also, the town wouldn't issue building permits for repairs.
U.S. District Court Judge James Dever ruled the town is responsible for the homes becoming nuisances.
"But even assuming the damage from the November storm caused the cottages to become nuisances, no evidence suggests the cottages would have continued to be nuisances had the town allowed the owners to repair them, as North Carolina law obligated the town to do," Dever wrote in his decision, dated Nov. 6.
The decision involves a lawsuit brought by Roc Sansotta, owner of Cove Realty. He manages the nine cottages for the owners and has a partial ownership in five of them, the decision says. |
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Dominican Republic quits OAS's human rights court
Court Watch |
2014/11/05 20:54
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The Dominican Republic withdrew as a member of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Tuesday, leading rights activists to raise concerns about the welfare of migrants in the Caribbean country.
The announcement came just weeks after the human rights court found the Dominican Republic discriminates against Dominicans of Haitian descent, angering the government, which called the findings "unacceptable" and "biased."Last year, a Dominican court ruled that people born in the Dominican Republic to migrants living there illegally were not automatically entitled to citizenship, basically rendering thousands of people stateless.
The government has since pledged to resolve their status but has only offered residency and work permits under a new program.The Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court had given the Dominican government six months to invalidate the Dominican court's ruling.
In a 59-page ruling issued Tuesday night, the Constitutional Court said the country had to withdraw from the rights court because the Senate never issued a resolution to ratify the February 1999 agreement with the rights court as required by the Dominican constitution. |
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Nevada court says Strip club dancers are employees
Court Watch |
2014/11/04 22:38
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In a legal decision with wide implications for strip clubs in Sin City, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday that dancers at one Las Vegas club are employees, not independent contractors, and are entitled to be paid minimum wage.
The unanimous ruling Thursday in a 2009 class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of six dancers at Sapphire Gentlemen's Club could change the landscape statewide in a business where dancers have for decades depended on tips and even paid "house fees" to establishments that allowed them to work.
"Given that Sapphire bills itself as the 'World's Largest Strip Club,' and not, say, a sports bar or nightclub," the high court said, "we are confident that the women strip-dancing there are useful and indeed necessary to its operation."
Mick Rusing, the Tucson, Arizona, attorney who represented plaintiff Zuri-Kinshasa Maria Terry and five other dancers in the initial case, said the ruling might directly effect more than 6,500 current and former members of the affected class, dating to about 2006.
Rusing said they could be entitled to a combined $40 million in back wages, plus the return of house fees.
"And it keeps going up every month," Rusing said. "As employees, you get a lot of rights. The girls are entitled to be paid. At very least, minimum wage."
Sapphire officials and the attorneys who represented the company before the Supreme Court didn't immediately respond to messages.
The Supreme Court ruling, written by Justice Kristina Pickering, declared clubs are not exempt from provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
That includes worker compensation and sexual harassment rules, Rusing said. |
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Court in Va. examines death row isolation policy
Court Watch |
2014/10/27 21:48
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Virginia's practice of automatically holding death row inmates in solitary confinement will be reviewed by a federal appeals court in a case that experts say could have repercussions beyond the state's borders.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria ruled last year that around-the-clock isolation of condemned inmates is so onerous that the Virginia Department of Corrections must assess its necessity on a case-by-case basis. Failure to do so, she said, violates the inmates' due process rights.
The state appealed, arguing that the courts should defer to the judgment of prison officials on safety issues. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed by Alfredo Prieto, who was on California's death row for raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl when a DNA sample connected him to the 1988 slayings of George Washington University students Rachel Raver and Warren Fulton III in Reston. He also was sentenced to death in Virginia, where he has spent most of the last six years alone in a 71-square-foot cell at the Sussex I State Prison.
Some capital punishment experts say a victory by Prieto could prompt similar lawsuits by death row inmates elsewhere.
"It gives them a road map," said northern Virginia defense attorney Jonathan Sheldon, who noted that the due process claim succeeded where allegations of cruel and unusual punishment have routinely failed. "It's not that common to challenge conditions of confinement on due process grounds." |
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Italy court reopens probe into death of Pantani
Court Watch |
2014/08/05 22:24
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Italian prosecutors have reopened an investigation into the death of cyclist Marco Pantani after his family presented evidence contending the former Tour de France winner was murdered.
Pantani, who won both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France in 1998, was found dead in a Rimini hotel room on Feb. 14, 2004. A coroner ruled the 34-year-old Italian died from a cocaine overdose.
The cyclist's mother, Tonina Pantani, has always claimed her son was murdered, alleging that he was forced to drink a lethal dose of cocaine dissolved in liquid.
"It's an important day, but with a bittersweet taste," Tonina said. "On one side I'm glad, after many years, finally I'm not shouting into the wind anymore. But inside me there's also anger, anger and more anger.
"Why did it take all this time? Why were several things not in their place in 2004 and nobody did anything to give me answers? I'm tired."
Rimini's chief prosecutor, Paolo Giovagnoli, confirmed Pantani's file has been reopened but said it is an "obligatory move" in such matters. He has handed the case to a colleague, Elisa Milocco, who will study the dossier of evidence presented by Pantani's family before returning from holiday in September. |
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