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Legal News Report 7-8-2016
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Jury Awards $5.1 Million in Case Against DuPont
Jul 6, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — DuPont acted with malice by dumping chemical-tainted water from its West Virginia plant into the Ohio River, a federal jury said Wednesday in awarding $5.1 million in compensatory damages to a man who developed cancer. -
New Russian Data Laws Worry Rights Activists, Telecom Companies
Jul 7, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Laura Mills
MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin signed bills into law Thursday that would help the government crack down on dissent online and demand unprecedented data-storage efforts from the country’s telecom companies. -
Putin signs new anti-terror law in Russia. Edward Snowden is upset.
Jul 7, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Andrew Roth
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed into law a controversial package of counterterrorism measures, including tougher sentences for extremism and heightened electronic surveillance of Russian citizens, that have provoked condemnation from rights activists here. -
Grade Point Three University of Texas professors sue to keep guns off campus
Jul 7, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Matthew Watkins
Three University of Texas at Austin professors sued the school and the state on Wednesday, claiming a new campus carry law is forcing the school to impose “overly-solicitous, dangerously-experimental gun policies” that violate the First and Second Amendments.
Legal News
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Jury Awards $5.1 Million in Case Against DuPont
Jul 6, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — DuPont acted with malice by dumping chemical-tainted water from its West Virginia plant into the Ohio River, a federal jury said Wednesday in awarding $5.1 million in compensatory damages to a man who developed cancer.
The jury will meet Thursday to begin deciding the amount of punitive damages to be handed out.
There are 3,500 lawsuits alleging a link between illnesses and the Wilmington, Del., chemical company’s discharging of the chemical C8 into the river.
The ill man, David Freeman, of Washington County, said he got testicular cancer because of C8, which was used to make Teflon.
Mr. Freeman, 56 years old, alleged that residents along the river suffered from C8 in tainted drinking water, which he blamed for his sickness.
DuPont maintains there were only small amounts of C8 in drinking water, not enough to be harmful. It declined to comment on the verdict Wednesday.
In a regulatory filing Wednesday, Chemours Co.—formerly a part of DuPont that was spun off last year—said the verdict would be appealed. Chemours said DuPont was the named defendant in the case and was directly liable for any judgment.
“In the event DuPont claims that it is entitled to indemnification from Chemours as to some or all of the judgment, Chemours retains its defenses to such claims,” Chemours said in the filing.
Shares of Chemours were hammered following the verdict Wednesday, closing down 22% at $5.93. Shares of DuPont fell 1.8% to close at $61.85.
Mr. Freeman’s case is among the first ones to be heard. In one now under appeal, jurors awarded $1.6 million to a woman who got cancer.
A former spokeswoman for DuPont’s Ohio River plant in Parkersburg, W. Va., testified she never knew of any concerns about C8 being dumped into the river when she told residents the water was safe to drink.
An attorney for Mr. Freeman showed the DuPont spokeswoman, Dawn Jackson, internal company documents and memos about concerns with C8, many of which she said she had never seen before.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/jury-awards-5-1-million-in-case-against-dupont-1467840856
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New Russian Data Laws Worry Rights Activists, Telecom Companies
Jul 7, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Laura Mills
MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin signed bills into law Thursday that would help the government crack down on dissent online and demand unprecedented data-storage efforts from the country’s telecom companies.
The government said the laws, which were pushed through parliament last week, were necessary to combat terrorism in Russia. But critics say they are designed to cow Kremlin opponents into silence ahead of parliamentary elections this fall. Russia’s largest mobile phone operators and internet providers have also railed against the legislation, which they say would drive costs through the roof and put many players out of business.
“The idea was to have at hand a big stick that was frightening and might help big companies be more cooperative,” said Andrei Soldatov, author of The Red Web, a book about Russia’s efforts to control the internet.
The laws would lower the age of responsibility for dozens of crimes to 14, and establish criminal liability for failing to report a potential crime or planning of a crime to the authorities.
In what critics say is a particularly chilling move against free speech, the laws also call for tougher sentencing for online commentary deemed by existing law as “an incitement to hatred or a violation of human dignity.” Such convictions now carries a minimum prison sentence of two years.
That and other anti-extremism laws have been widely applied in recent years, often in cases that rights groups say are designed to intimidate the broader internet-using public.
Sova group, a Moscow-based organization that monitors such cases, said there were 194 convictions for online comments dubbed hateful or extremist in 2015, up from 138 in 2014 and 103 in 2013.
Tanya Lokshina, Russia program director for Human Rights Watch, said in a post on the group’s website that the laws would “severely undermine freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and the right to privacy.”
In a move widely criticized even by some top government officials, the law would also force phone companies and internet service providers to retain up to six months of communications between users, and require companies to store metadata for up to three years.
Yulia Dorokhina, a representative for the country’s second-largest mobile operator MegaFon, said that equipment purchases and other costs in the first year alone would cost the company 230 billion rubles ($3.6 billion). Last year the company made about 50 billion rubles in net profit.
A representative for Tele2, another provider, said the company would likely have to raise prices by two or three times, if forced to undertake such measures.
Those worries were echoed around the industry, sparking a widespread selloff just minutes after the law was signed. MTS, the largest mobile provider, dropped 1.55% to its lowest levels since February, MegaFon dipped 1.27%, and the state-controlled telecommunications provider Rostelecom dropped 4.49%.
In a statement, the Kremlin called for “clarifying the stages of implementation of standards that would require significant financial resources.” The statement didn’t make clear when and how the law would be implemented.
Before Mr. Putin signed the laws, some executives expressed confidence the laws were unlikely to be enforced in the most sweeping manner.
“We have a lot of laws that, unfortunately, don’t work,” MegaFon CEO Sergey Soldatenkovsaid in an interview with the Russian business daily Kommersant. “In its current form, I believe that (this) law will also not work.”
The problem of enforcement isn’t a new one to Russia: a 2014 law required that companies store personal data of users from Russia within the country’s borders but went largely ignored by the major Western companies it targeted. The deadline companies were given to move their servers to Russia were repeatedly pushed back.
Unlike China, Russia has been a latecomer in its attempts to control the internet, and observers expect that it will continue to keep a closer rein on the web, primarily by selectively punishing those who do speak out.
“The Russian authorities are very slow, they’re not very advanced technically,” Mr. Soldatov, the Russian internet expert, said. “So they’ll continue to rely on this tactic of intimidation—it’s much easier for them.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-russian-data-laws-worry-rights-activists-telecom-companies-1467905452
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Putin signs new anti-terror law in Russia. Edward Snowden is upset.
Jul 7, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Andrew Roth
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed into law a controversial package of counterterrorism measures, including tougher sentences for extremism and heightened electronic surveillance of Russian citizens, that have provoked condemnation from rights activists here.
Among the critics was Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked details in 2013 of U.S. government telephone and Internet surveillance programs. Some measures in the Russian legislation resemble those U.S. programs.
Several of the amendments require telecommunications operators to store recordings of their customers’ phone calls and text messages for six months and order messaging services such as Facebook and Telegram to provide decryption keys to Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.
Others require Russians to inform authorities about potentially grave crimes or their planning, stiffen penalties for re-posting information deemed extremist on the Internet, and require postal employees to inspect packages.
[Edward Snowden declares mission accomplished]
“#Putin has signed a repressive new law that violates not only human rights, but common sense. Dark day for #Russia,” Snowden wrote Thursday in one of several Twitter messages about the “Yarovaya laws,” named for co-author and former prosecutor Irina Yarovaya.
It was Snowden’s most direct criticism of Putin since he received asylum in Russia three years ago. Opponents have accused him of leaking information to the Russian government and ignoring the country’s repressive Internet policies. Snowden has denied any agreement with Russia and says the U.S. government has annulled his passport and left him stranded.
“People ask if I fear retaliation for my criticism. I do. But it did not stop me from criticizing the @WhiteHouse, and will not stop me here,” he wrote Thursday.
After signing the law, Putin ordered the government to help minimize the costs of data storage, apparently as a concession telecom companies, which complained that compliance was “technically and economically impractical.”
Russia’s Presidential Council on Civil Society and Human Rights called on Putin to reject the laws because of the “unconstitutionality, contradictoriness and legal uncertainty of some of the legal norms contained in them.”
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, told reporters Thursday that “the government will keep a wary eye on the implementation of that law and will take relevant measures on the president’s order in case of any undesirable developments.”
The measures will impose tougher sanctions on mass unrest and limit proselytizing, to representatives of registered religious groups. Pacifist religious organizations, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, complain they have been targeted by laws aimed at violent groups.
Previous versions of the law would have allowed authorities to strip Russians of citizenship for crimes such as terrorism and extremism, and impose bans on international travel. Those amendments were omitted from the final version of the bill, which passed Russia’s parliament on its last day in session.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/putin-signs-law-to-bolster-russian-surveillance-angering-edward-snowden/2016/07/07/4d307aca-443e-11e6-a76d-3550dba926ac_story.html
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Grade Point Three University of Texas professors sue to keep guns off campus
Jul 7, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Matthew Watkins
Three University of Texas at Austin professors sued the school and the state on Wednesday, claiming a new campus carry law is forcing the school to impose “overly-solicitous, dangerously-experimental gun policies” that violate the First and Second Amendments.
Professors Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter are asking a federal judge to grant an injunction that would block the law, which allows concealed-handgun license holders to carry their weapons inside most public university buildings and classrooms, before it goes into effect Aug. 1.
The professors teach courses that touch emotional issues such as gay rights and abortion. The possibility of guns on campus could stifle class discussion, which is a violation of the First Amendment, the lawsuit argues.
“Compelling professors at a public university to allow, without any limitation or restriction, students to carry concealed guns in their classrooms chills their First Amendment rights to academic freedom,” the lawsuit says.
The complaint also cites the Second Amendment, which is usually used by gun-rights supporters to bolster ideas such as campus carry.
“The Second Amendment is not a one-way street,” it says. “It starts with the proposition that a ‘well-regulated militia,’ (emphasis added), is necessary to the security of a free state. The Supreme Court has explained that ‘well-regulated’ means ‘imposition of proper discipline and training.'”
The complaint adds: “If the state is to force them to admit guns into their classrooms, then the officials responsible for the compulsory policy must establish that there is a substantial reason for the policy and that their regulation of the concealed carrying of handguns on college campuses is ‘well-regulated.’ Current facts indicate that they cannot do so.”
The professors also claim that the law violates the 14th Amendment, which promises equal protection under the law.
The lawsuit is likely to be a long shot. Numerous states across the country have passed similar campus carry laws that haven’t been overturned by the courts.
A UT-Austin spokesman said the university has received a copy of the lawsuit and is reviewing it but has no immediate comment.
The university’s campus carry policies haven’t been finalized. In the coming days, the University of Texas System Board of Regents is expected to consider changes to the rules proposed by UT-Austin President Greg Fenves.
[Guns are okay in classrooms, not in dorms, University of Texas president says]
Fenves is named in the lawsuit. As the complaint notes, he has publicly stated that he does not think “that handguns belong on a university campus.”
A spokeswoman for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is also named in the suit, declined to comment, saying Paxton’s office hasn’t yet been served.
The group Students for Concealed Carry declined to comment on what it called the “absurd” constitutional arguments raised in the lawsuit.
But Antonia Okafor, southwest regional director for the group, said in a statement that the claim that the law is dangerously experimental is “on its face, laughable.” Campus carry has been allowed on more than 100 college campuses across the country, she said.
“To put it in terms these professors should understand, the clinical trials are over, and campus carry has been shown to pose little risk to public safety,” she said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/07/07/three-university-of-texas-professors-sue-to-keep-guns-off-campus/
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