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Burlington Northern’s two attorneys did not return calls seeking comment. Company spokeswoman Lena Kent said railway officials had not had a chance to review the entire decision but were disappointed by the verdict.

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A metrolink conductor who said his drinking problems resumed after the Placentia train crash in 2002 will receive $8.5 million to settle his lawsuit against one of the nations largest railroads.
Patrick Phillips of Riverside agreed Tuesday to settle his suit against Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. The case was set to go to trial next week in Orange County Superior Court.
Phillips, now 52, suffered minor head injuries the morning of April 23, 2002 when a Burlington Northern Freight train crashed into a Metrolink commuter train in Placentia. Three people died and more than 260 were injured in the early morning crash.
Though his injuries were slight, the conductor alleged that the trauma was serious enough to trigger a resurgence of his severe alcoholism, which he said he had controlled since rehabilitation in the early 1990’s.
“I have never seen a case like this in 30 years, yet it is indeed what happened here,” said Jerome L. Ringler, Phillips’ attorney.
“We had extensive medical evaluations by a variety of neurological specialists. All were in accord that his injury, although minor, changed his behavior.”
After the train crash, Phillips was hospitalized for evaluation but released about two hours later, Ringler said. In the months after the crash, however, Phillips allegedly resumed his alcohol abuse, resulting in at least two other hospitalizations.
Ringler said his client was finally diagnosed with alcohol-related dementia, a sever mental deficiency.
Phillips, who is now disabled after working 12 years for Metrolink, was unavailable for comment. He is living with a sister in Riverside.
Under terms of the settlement, Phillips will receive $8.5 million, including interest, paid out over 20 years. The amount is worth about $4.5 million in today’s dollars.
Officials for Burlington Northern Santa Fe, one of the nations four largest railroads, confirmed the settlement but declined to discuss the case.
Phillips’ lawsuit is one of more than 100 Civil cases stemming from the Placentia crash, which federal investigators said was caused by an inattentive Burlington Norther crew that missed a warning signal.
The lawsuits allege the collision could have been prevented by an automatic braking system, long sought by the federal National Transportation Safety Board.
They also contend that the freight train crew was fatigued by overwork and that the Burlington Northern conductor had a history of losing track of signals.
In December, an Orange County jury awarded Pamela Macek, 53, also of Riverside, about $9 million in damages for psychological and physical injuries suffered in the crash. Her case was the first to go to trial.

Dr. Dennis Nigro is the subject of a hearing at the state building in which he is accused of having sex with a patient.

Nigro admitted to having a brief affair with a woman in 2003, but said she was no longer in his care during their relationship.

Nigro’s lawyer, medicare defense attorney Michael Khouri, said, “The woman does not believe Dr. Nigro was her doctor when the sex occurred.”

“There is documentation required to terminate relationship. It was not done in this case,” said Deputy Attorney General Mary Agnes Matyszewski.

An administrative law judge will issue a proposed decision that will be sent to the state medical board for final disposition.

Nigro’s license could be suspended if discipline is deemed necessary.

On the subject of the “worst five things a doctor can do,” Steve Alexander provided the Investigation Team the list of the “worst five” and then commented on each individual item. There were no specific cases or doctors mentioned in the course of this interview. Among the items provided by Mr. Alexander as one of the “worst five things a doctor can do,” was a sexual relationship between a doctor and his or her patient. Clearly, in reporting the allegations against Dr. Dennis Nigro there was no intention or effort to tie Alexander’s separate interview specifcally to the Dr. Dennis Nigro case.

http://www.khourilaw.com/news.html

http://www.khourilaw.com/attorney-profile.html

NSW District Court judge Judith Gibson struck out Mr Habib’s defamation action against Radio 2UE and Macquarie Radio Network, ruling it was “an abuse of process”.

He had sued over three broadcasts – by 2UE’s John Laws and Steve Price, and 2GB’s Ray Hadley – all made on August 18, 2005, saying they defamed him by implying he was trying to deceive Centrelink by seeking a disability pension when he was not disabled.

In a separate case, Mr Habib is suing the Australian Government in the Federal Court for compensation on many grounds, including that they were complicit in his mistreatment.

Federal Court judge Rodney Madgwick yesterday ruled on only one issue in the ongoing case, concluding that Mr Habib was mistaken in his belief that one of the places that he was interrogated and tortured while in Islamabad in 2001 was the Australian High Commission.

Mr Habib met Australian government officers in the Pakistan capital in October 2001 after his arrest and detention, but not in a place under the Australian government’s control.

Justice Madgwick stressed his ruling should not result in Mr Habib being discredited on any other factual issue in his compensation case against the federal Government.

“I find only that he was in one respect inaccurate about events that befell him at a time when he was sorely tried and ill-used.”

In his ruling, Justice Madgwick said that Mr Habib had been dragged around the world against his will ending up in Guantanamo Bay, which he described as “no ornament of Western civilisation”, without ever being charged.

“It is notorious that he and his family have, nevertheless, thereafter had to endure in Australia often-voiced suspicions that he was an Islamist terrorist or fellow traveller or one who would give aid and comfort to such evildoers,” the judge said.

Since the September 11 attacks in the US there had been unfortunate instances of irrational over-reactions, hubris and the discarding of tried and tested standards of public conduct and respect for traditional civil rights by various Western governments and their employees, Justice Madgwick said.

“Any assumption that a similarly chaotic approach mightnot … have also afflicted one or more branches of the Australian Government would be imprudent.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23552118-7582,00.html?from=public_rss

But the doctor, who has tended to patients here in the Susquehanna Valley for more than a decade, is instead battling a deportation order along with his wife.

The Servanos are among a growing group of legal immigrants who reach for the prize and permanence of citizenship, only to run afoul of highly technical immigration statutes that carry the severe penalty of expulsion from the country. For the Servanos, the problem has been a legal hitch involving their marital status when they came from the Philippines some 25 years ago.

Largely overlooked in the charged debate over illegal immigration, many of these are long-term legal immigrants in the United States who were confident of success when they applied for naturalization, and would have continued to live here legally had they not sought to become citizens.

”It’s no wonder there are so many illegal immigrants,” said Brad Darnell, an electrical engineer from Canada living in California who applied for citizenship but is also now fighting deportation. ”The legal method is so intolerant and confusing.”

A legal immigrant since 1991, Mr. Darnell is married to an American and has two American-born sons. But after he presented his naturalization application last year, Mr. Darnell discovered that a 10-year-old conviction for domestic violence involving a former girlfriend, even though it had been reduced to a misdemeanor and erased from his public record, made him ineligible to become a citizen — or even to continue living in the United States.

Since 1996, when an immigration law overhaul first brought intensified scrutiny of citizenship applications, at least 85,000 naturalizations have been turned down each year.

The record year was 2000, when 399,670 applications were denied, one-third of those presented, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization. More recent denial rates remain high, but have fallen from the peak because more immigrants have prepared with civics classes and immigrant advocates before applying to become citizens, researchers said.

In three recent cases in Florida, aspiring citizens thought their green cards entitled them to vote or register to vote before they were sworn in as Americans. When the immigrants reported their elections activities on their applications, not only were their naturalizations rejected, but they were also ordered to leave the country, according to their lawyer, Jeffrey Brauwerman.

In a current Florida case, a British-born businessman saw his naturalization derailed and was detained for deportation because he forgot to update his home address with the immigration agency, Mr. Brauwerman said. He was charged with ignoring a notice in which immigration examiners mistakenly accused him of a felony he had never committed.

In a case that drew Congressional attention this year in Illinois, Marin Turcinovic, an immigrant from Croatia, was twice denied citizenship because he did not show up at the immigration office to be fingerprinted. As his lawyer explained to no avail, Mr. Turcinovic was a quadriplegic, dependent on a ventilator and unable to leave his home.

Mr. Turcinovic died in April 2004 without becoming a citizen, creating an immigration crisis for his French widow, Corina, who had taken care of him. In January Representative Daniel Lipinski, Democrat of Illinois, presented a bill that halted her deportation.

Immigration officials say denials have increased in the last decade because naturalization applications are increasing. They note that approvals are rising as well. In 1996 naturalizations soared for the first time to more than one million, and they remained above 450,000 each year through 2007.

”Whenever we see a period when large numbers decide to apply, there tend to be larger numbers of people who are not ready or might not meet the requirements,” said Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Officials said the majority of denials went to applicants who failed a required civics and English language test or fell short of residency requirements. Those immigrants generally can try again.

But as the case of the Servano family illustrates, some denials come as a shock to both the applicants and the communities they call home.

Dr. Servano’s mother, five siblings and eight of his wife’s siblings became naturalized citizens, including one brother and two brothers-in-law who made careers in the Navy. His four children are Americans by virtue of being born here. He has been a legal immigrant in the United States for 25 years.

Following an outcry from neighbors, patients and local officials, Department of Homeland Security officials in December temporarily suspended the Servanos’ deportation. The Servanos and their supporters, including Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, are using the unusual reprieve to pursue new legal efforts to resolve the couple’s case.

Dr. Servano and his wife, Salvacion, lived for years in the United States with no inkling they might have violated the law. They met in the Philippines when she was a nurse and he was a young traveling doctor. Her strict father insisted she marry, they said, but his family wanted him to wait.

In the early 1980s, their mothers came separately to the United States as legal immigrants and petitioned for residence visas, known as green cards, for Pedro and Salvacion under the category of unmarried children. But between the time the visas were requested and when they were issued in 1985, Pedro and Salvacion, hoping to escape conflicting parental demands, secretly married in the Philippines.

Unaware that their marriage could have violated the terms of their green cards, the Servanos settled in the United States. He completed a second medical residency here and began to practice in blue-collar towns where he made house calls and was known for attention to everyday ills. He and Salvacion married in New Jersey in 1987. They renewed their green cards punctually.

”My goal is to be fully functional and integrated into the society,” Dr. Servano said. They presented their 1991 naturalization applications without seeking a lawyer.

http://www.legalnewsjournal.com/entry/Legal-Immigrants-Until-They-Applied-For-Citizenship

In another student free speech case, the US Supreme Court held last year in Morse v. Frederick that public schools do not violate the First Amendment rights of students by sanctioning them for speech during a school-sanctioned activity that may be reasonably interpreted to promote the use of illegal substances. A high school student was suspended after he displayed a banner with the message “Bong hits 4 Jesus” during a televised parade on a school day. The student subsequently sued his principal, arguing that the principal unreasonably restricted his right to free speech.

http://dailybarnews.com/entry/Fed-Appeals-Court-Dismisses-Free-Speech-Case

An individual retains a modicum of constitutional protection while incarcerated. However, “many rights and privileges are subject to limitation in penal institutions because of paramount institutional goals and policies.” Therefore, in accord with holdings from other jurisdictions, we conclude that McNabb retains a limited right of privacy, including the limited right to refuse artificial means of nutrition and hydration subject to the goals and policies of the prison system…

We conclude that the State’s interests in applying DOC’s force-feeding policy to McNabb outweigh his right to refuse artificial means of nutrition and hydration.

First, the State has a compelling interest in maintaining security and orderly administration in its prison system…

Second, the State has a strong interest in the preservation of life where medical treatment will in fact save the patient’s life…

Third, the State has a compelling interest in protecting innocent third parties…

Typically, the court considers the interests of the patient’s dependents and family members…

Fourth, the State has a compelling interest in the prevention of suicide…

Fifth, the State has a compelling interest in the maintenance of the ethical integrity of the medical profession.

Only one justice dissented, writing that “force-feeding will not rehabilitate McNabb or contribute to his welfare; by contrast, force-feeding is degrading and cruel.”

McNabb pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and arson after he set fire to the house of his estranged wife, and received a sentence of 14 years. He first stopped eating while detained before trial, apparently in an attempt to starve himself to death out of remorse. Prison officials began to force-feed McNabb after attempting to convince him to eat on his own. The Spokesman Review has more.

http://legalnewspost.com/entry/Court-rules-inmate-has-no-right-to-starve-himself

Worthy, a prosecutor, and Webb, a defense attorney, have emerged as the legal faces of a text-messaging sex scandal that has embroiled Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former top aide.

Worthy, the first black attorney and first woman to head the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, is seeking to prove Kilpatrick lied under oath. Webb is a high-priced litigation gunslinger aiming to keep the mayor out of prison.

Slight of build, the 62-year-old Webb is considered a legal heavyweight in the courtroom, ranked among the nation’s top trial lawyers by several publications.

“I hate failing. That’s more of my driving force, why I work as hard as I do,” he said last week while preparing other cases in San Francisco, Las Vegas and St. Louis.

A big part of Worthy’s success is her focus. That’s what she preaches to the team of assistant prosecutors preparing for Kilpatrick’s next court hearing.

“I spent most of my weekends and holidays here in the library,” said Worthy, 52, looking back at her career. “I tried to cross every ‘T’ and dot every ‘I.’ Too many things can go wrong in a trial.”

Kilpatrick has been besieged since late January, when the Detroit Free Press published excerpts of sexually explicit and embarrassing text messages left on the city-issued pager of his then-Chief of Staff Christine Beatty.

The messages contradict testimony both gave last summer during a whistle-blowers’ lawsuit when Kilpatrick and Beatty denied having a romantic relationship in 2002 and 2003. Kilpatrick also is accused of lying under oath about his role in the firing of a top police official.

The text messages also were referenced in a confidential agreement that led to the city settling that lawsuit and a second whistle-blowers’ suit for $8.4 million.

After a two-month investigation, Worthy filed multiple felony perjury, misconduct and obstruction of justice charges against Kilpatrick and Beatty. Convictions could send each to prison, and force Kilpatrick from his perch as Detroit mayor.

The embattled mayor is the latest of Webb’s high-profile clients. He’s represented tobacco giant Philip Morris on racketeering charges and computer giant Microsoft in an antitrust trial.

Former U.S. Attorney Patrick Collins crossed swords with Webb in a six-month corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who is serving a prison sentence on a fraud and racketeering conviction.

“Dan is a tenacious competitor,” said Collins, now a defense attorney. “He’s a competition junkie, and I think he loves the action and he’s very good at his craft.”

Worthy, who moved often while growing up with her military father and earned her law degree from the University of Notre Dame, pursued a law career because of what she didn’t see.

“I can only say my father told me I could do anything I wanted,” she said. “There were no lawyers in my family. When I watched TV, I didn’t see any African American lawyers. They didn’t even have black police officers on TV back then.”

After two years as a contract worker for the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, she was hired on as an assistant prosecutor in 1986. In 1992, an unemployed black steel worker named Malice Green was beaten to death during a confrontation with several white Detroit police officers.

The case put the young, black, female assistant prosecutor on the nation’s stage and in the daily glare of cable television. She won second-degree murder convictions against two of the officers.

“She is highly skilled and she could work the courtroom. She prepares as well, if not better, than anybody,” Detroit defense attorney Carole Stanyar said.

Webb also is no stranger to the spotlight. He’s cross-examined former President Ronald Reagan and won a conviction against U.S. Navy Admiral John Poindexter in the Iran-Contra affair.

Although he would have preferred playing second base for the St. Louis Cardinals, Webb said he discovered his love for law growing up in the small farming community of Bushnell, Ill., about 170 miles southwest of Chicago.

“Somewhere before I got out of high school, I decided I was going to be a trial lawyer come hell or high water,” said Webb, who took law classes at night at Loyola University while holding full-time banking jobs.

“I didn’t have any money. I was broke,” Webb joked. “That’s why I worked my way through law school. I knew I didn’t want to do banking work.”

http://www.clickthelaw.com/entry/Two-Attorneys-Emerge-in-Detroit-Mayor-Case