Court Digest

Florida
CDC says lawsuit imperils summer cruises to Alaska
U.S. officials say Florida’s lawsuit against the federal government over conditions for cruise lines to resume sailing could threaten plans to restart cruising in Alaska.

Florida sued the Biden administration to throw out requirements, called a conditional sailing order, that were imposed on cruise lines before they can sail in U.S. water for the first time since March 2020.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that Congress effectively ratified the conditional sailing order when  it passed a law last month to let large cruise ships resume trips from Washington state to Alaska this summer.

If Florida wins an injunction blocking the CDC order, it would “end cruising in Alaska for the season,” lawyers for the agency say because the bill pushed by Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation hinges on the CDC order being in effect. Several cruise lines have announced plans to sail to Alaska with vaccinated crew members and passengers starting in a few weeks.

Alaska estimates that cruising contributes $3 billion a year to the state economy. Alaska and Texas, another state with a sizeable cruising industry, sided with Florida early in the case.

Alaska’s attorney general’s office complained in a court filing this week about the CDC’s “constantly-morphing orders, restrictions and guidance” for large cruise ships.

Federal lawyers also said in a filing this week that granting Florida’s wish to block the CDC’s regulation of the cruising restart would undermine public confidence in cruising, “particularly in the state of Florida, which is publicly battling with the industry over its own laws.”

That was a reference to concern among cruise lines that a state law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that would prohibit the companies from requiring that passengers be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The federal judge overseeing Florida’s lawsuit against the Biden administration ordered both sides into mediation, which has failed to end the standoff.

Virginia
Falwell: Liberty University lawsuit is excuse to shame him
LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) — Jerry Falwell Jr. is asking a court in Virginia to dismiss a lawsuit Liberty University filed over his headline-grabbing departure last year as leader of the evangelical school his father founded.

Falwell claims in a court filing that much of Liberty’s suit serves only to keep shaming him after a provocative photo of him came to light and revelations surfaced of his wife’s extramarital affair, The News & Advance in Lynchburg reported Thursday.

Falwell claims the suit focuses on his wife’s personal life while not addressing his “actions as the leader of Liberty.”

“The rehashing of these events and protected defamation of Falwell through litigation serves one mission — ruining Falwell’s reputation through mischaracterization of events and public shaming through out-of-context pictures filed in a public complaint,” according to Tuesday’s filing in Lynchburg Circuit Court.

Falwell’s departure in August came after a news outlet published an interview with a man who said he had a years-long sexual relationship with Becki Falwell and that Jerry Falwell participated in some of the liaisons as a voyeur. Falwell denied the report.

The school filed its suit in April, seeking tens of millions in damages. Liberty claims Falwell crafted a “well-resourced exit strategy” from his role as president and chancellor in the form of a lucrative 2019 employment agreement while withholding damaging information about the personal scandal that exploded into public view the following year.

The agreement included a $1.5 million raise and a $2.5 million severance package.

“Despite his clear duties as an executive and officer at Liberty, Falwell Jr. chose personal protection,” the lawsuit says.

The suit also alleges that Falwell failed to disclose and address “the issue of his personal impairment by alcohol” and has refused to fully return confidential information and other personal property belonging to Liberty.

Falwell said in Tuesday’s filing that he had no duty to tell the university about private matters.

Connecticut
Suit wants high-security wing at state hospital to stay open
A lawsuit on behalf of patients was filed Thursday seeking to prevent the closure of a high-security unit at the Connecticut mental hospital that treats those acquitted of crimes by reason of insanity.

Lawyers with the advocacy groups Disability Rights Connecticut and the Connecticut Legal Rights Project allege that closing the unit at Whiting Forensic Hospital in Middletown would create “likely and imminent irreparable harm” to patients, who they say will be transferred to units that cannot provide the care they need.

The state recently decided to close the unit and consolidate other services at the hospital amid staff shortages, according to the lawsuit.

The state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which runs Whiting, said it could not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, alleges, among other things, that as result of the closure and recent merger of two units at Whiting, “some patients with a history of conflicts, including past assaults, and thereafter placed in separate units, are now being placed together in the same unit, increasing the ‘risk of serious harm.’”

The plaintiffs are asking for a temporary restraining order, saying the moves violate a January 1991 consent decree, an agreement between the state and lawyers for patients that outlines treatment and other conditions at Whiting.

That decree was part of the fallout from a 1989 case in which a patient, David Peterson, escaped from Whiting and stabbed a 9-year-old girl to death during a street fair in downtown Middletown.

As a result of the escape and killing, the hospital confined all forensic patients to the hospital building regardless of risk. Lawyers for patients sued, eventually entering into the subsequent consent decree.

The provisions of that agreement require that all of the decisions regarding patients’ treatment be made based on clinical assessments and through a comprehensive treatment planning process, according to the lawsuit.

“The legal protections are designed to ensure that patients’ therapeutic needs are treated as a core concern rather than an afterthought based on administrative convenience,” Deborah Dorfman, executive director of Disability Rights Connecticut, said in a release.

New York
Appeals court upholds guilty verdicts in NCAA bribes case
NEW YORK (AP) — The convictions of a sports business manager and an amateur basketball coach in a conspiracy to bribe top college coaches to get them to steer NBA-bound athletes to favored handlers were upheld Friday by an appeals court.

The ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan affirmed the 2019 convictions of Christian Dawkins and youth basketball coach Merl Code on a single conspiracy count. Dawkins was also convicted of bribery. They were acquitted of some other charges.

The prosecution resulted from a criminal probe that exposed how financial advisers and business managers paid tens of thousands of dollars to college coaches and athletes’ families to steer highly regarded high school players to big-program colleges, sometimes with the help of apparel makers who signed sponsorship deals with schools.

During the trial, universities were portrayed by prosecutors as victims of greedy financial advisers and coaches while defense lawyers asserted that schools were complicit in any corruption that occurred in 2016 and 2017.

Circuit Judge William J. Nardini, writing for a three-judge panel, said the judges rejected arguments that the law used to convict the men was unconstitutionally applied and that various rulings about evidence and other matters by the trial judge were erroneous.

“We are unpersuaded by these arguments,” Nardini wrote, saying the judges did not agree with arguments that the federal law used to convict the men should be limited as it pertains to the universe of “agents” to be influenced or the business of the federally funded organizations involved.

The 2nd Circuit said Congress purposefully wrote the law broadly to preserve the integrity of organizations that receive federal dollars by outlawing bribery, and it is not the role of courts to interpret it in a restrictive manner.

A lawyer who argued the appeals case on behalf of the men declined comment Friday.

Dawkins, 28, of Atlanta, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison while Code, 47, of Greer, South Carolina, a Clemson point guard in the 1990s who later worked with Nike and Adidas, was sentenced to three months in prison.

Earlier this year, the appeals court upheld the 2018 convictions at a separate trial of Code and Dawkins on similar charges related to payments made to players’ families rather than coaches. They were each sentenced to six months in prison for that conviction.

The convictions grew from a prosecution that resulted in 10 arrests, including four former assistant basketball coaches who eventually pleaded guilty to bribery conspiracy without a trial and were treated leniently at sentencings.

The second trial of Code and Dawkins featured some surprises, including claims that some bribes were paid to secure NFL-bound athletes at major schools as clients.

Prosecution witness Louis Martin Blazer, a financial adviser, testified he paid football players from $100 to $3,000 to ensure they would eventually hire him while they were at schools including Pittsburgh, Penn State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Northwestern, North Carolina and Alabama. He testified after pleading guilty to stealing from clients, including NFL players, to invest in film and music projects.


Washington
State to pay $3.25M in death of prisoner
SEATTLE (AP) — The Washington state Department of Corrections has agreed to pay $3.25 million to the family of a man who died at Monroe Correctional Complex after not receiving adequate medical care.

A lawsuit filed by Julia Kleutsch said her husband, John Kleutsch, 57, died of an abdominal wound that staff failed to properly treat, while offering him only Tylenol, The Seattle Times reported  Wednesday.

The settlement filed Tuesday in King County Superior Court is the latest fallout from the tenure of former prison medical director Dr. Julia Barnett. Barnett, who was hired in 2017 without some qualifications, was fired in 2019 after an internal investigation found the medical care she provided and supervised contributed to the suffering and deaths of several men at the prison, including Kleutsch.

The lawsuit said Kleutsch was recovering from outpatient cancer surgery when he was sent to the prison infirmary to recover but failed to receive proper care. It says Kleutsch asked staff to help when his wound became puffy, oozing and tender and reported excruciating pain in the 26 days before his death.

The lawsuit alleges at least one nurse asked Barnett to transfer him to a hospital but she refused.

Kleutsch, who was serving a sentence for child molestation, died on Aug. 28, 2018, of septic shock, acute pancreatitis and a perforated intestine — conditions never diagnosed at the prison, according to the lawsuit.

“John was treated inhumanely and suffered terribly before he died,” Julia Kleutsch said. “The Department told me nothing about Dr. Barnett failing to provide basic medical care to John or that it caused his death.”

Marta O’Brien, an attorney for Julia Kleutsch, on Tuesday called the case “one of the worst medical malpractice cases I have encountered” and said it showed “a systemic failure” by the Department of Corrections.

“My heart goes out to Mrs. Kleutsch for her loss,” Barnett said in a statement. “By its actions in replacing me with 3 physicians, DOC has acknowledged the unacceptable level of risk it placed solely on my shoulders. Systemically, the DOC chose to have too few providers, despite my and the inmates’ begging for more.”

As a result of the complaint, the Washington Medical Commission indefinitely suspended Barnett’s medical license.

“Our deepest sympathies go out to the Kleutsch family for the pain they suffer over the loss of a loved one,” said newly appointed Department of Corrections Secretary Cheryl Strange. “We know a settlement can never truly compensate for the pain of losing a family member and hope this resolution will bring some solace in the years to come.”