Pennsylvania
Judge: $1.17B patent verdict for CMU stands
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A U.S. judge has declined to reduce a $1.17 billion patent infringement verdict that Carnegie Mellon University won against a California technology firm in 2012.
U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer previously rejected Marvell Technology Group’s bid for a retrial in the case involving the university’s 1998 patent on noise reduction technology in chips manufactured for computer hard drives.
In a 73-page opinion released late Tuesday, the judge also rejected Marvell’s argument that that the amount should be reduced by $620 million because of the university’s lack of diligence in protecting its patents.
Fischer said the university “inexcusably” waited five years before suing, but that delay was offset by Marvell’s “deliberate and sustained” infringement. She has yet to rule on university motions to increase damages.
Ohio
Judge dismisses French Goodyear workers’ lawsuit
CLEVELAND (AP) — A judge in Goodyear’s Ohio hometown has thrown out a lawsuit filed by French workers trying to save their jobs.
A federal judge in Akron ruled late Wednesday against workers who had sued to block the shutdown of their plant in Amiens. The judge said the class-action lawsuit failed to prove contract violations or interference by the parent company in its French operations.
Attorney Robert Gary represents the workers. He said Thursday the decision will be reviewed by French parties before a decision is made on an appeal.
The plant has become a symbol of labor tensions in France. Workers seized the plant’s director and human resources chief for two days in early January to demand bigger severance packages. The managers were released after police intervened.
Colorado
Listeria case farmers seek probation
DENVER (AP) — Two Colorado cantaloupe farmers who pleaded guilty to charges related to a deadly listeria outbreak are asking a federal judge for probation.
Attorneys for Eric and Ryan Jensen, the two brothers who owned and operated Jensen Farms in Holly, Colo., say jail time would be excessive.
The listeria outbreak traced to tainted fruit from the Jensens’ farm caused 33 deaths and sent scores of people to hospitals. Officials have said people in 28 states ate the contaminated fruit and 147 were hospitalized.
The Jensens pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce. The federal charges carry penalties of up to six years in prison and $1.5 million in fines. A sentencing hearing has been set for Jan. 28.
Nebraska
Advocates hope rulings spell doom for ban
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Recent federal court rulings overturning state gay marriage bans have will not prompt a civil rights organization to revive its challenge to Nebraska’s strict ban that forbids even same-sex civil unions. But gay marriage advocates are hoping the recent rulings will lead to U.S. Supreme Court to take on the issue and strike down such bans.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued Nebraska in 2003 over its same-sex union ban approved by voters in 2000, said Wednesday it does not plan another lawsuit in the wake of rulings striking down similar bans in Oklahoma and Utah.
But Ken Upton, an attorney for national civil rights organization Lambda Legal, says he thinks the U.S. Supreme Court “now has the appetite” to decide whether Nebraska and other state bans are constitutional.
Missouri
Appeals court to hear flag desecration case
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The constitutionality of Missouri’s flag desecration law is under consideration by a federal appeals court panel in St. Louis.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday heard oral arguments in the case of Cape Girardeau resident Frank Snider III.
Snider was arrested in 2009 for cutting up an American flag, throwing it into the street and trying to set it on fire. When that failed he used a knife to shred it.
Police arrested Snider, citing Missouri’s flag desecration statute. Prosecutors dismissed the charge after learning of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed a similar law in Texas unconstitutional.
In 2012, a federal judge in St. Louis ruled Missouri’s law was unconstitutional. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed to the 8th Circuit.
West Virginia
Attorney cheered by gay marriage rulings in U.S.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — An attorney whose group is challenging West Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriages said she was encouraged by recent federal rulings in Oklahoma and Utah.
Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights group, contends West Virginia’s Defense of Marriage Act violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It filed a complaint in federal court in October on behalf of three same-sex couples and the child of one couple.
West Virginia doesn’t allow same-sex marriage or recognize those that occurred in other states.
Judges in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Ohio and Utah have all ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. Gay marriages in Utah have been put on hold pending a decision from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Lambda Legal attorney Beth Littrell in Atlanta said Wednesday she believes the rulings give plaintiffs additional arguments to persuade Judge Robert C. Chambers that West Virginia’s ban is unconstitutional. She said the momentum was also in their favor.
“The decisions are well reasoned,” Littrell said. “They’re very meticulous in their analysis in constitutional protections and they come out on the side of marriage equality.”
Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office has intervened as a defendant in the case.
The initial lawsuit said the Kanawha and Cabell county clerks denied six adults marriage licenses under the state law, and that deprived them of shared health insurance, reduction of tax liabilities, family leave, caretaking decision power and death benefits.
The attorney general’s office contends the law does not cause the plaintiffs any immediate harm.
Chambers, a Democrat, isn’t bound by decisions in other federal districts. He is a former West Virginia House speaker who was nominated to his federal court seat in 1997 by former President Bill Clinton.
Twenty-seven states still have constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage. West Virginia is among four states that forbid such marriages through state laws.
