New York Schools Among Most Segregated

The Explore Charter School in Brooklyn is 92% Black

Why Don't We Have Any White Kids? - NY Times

by N.R. Kleinfeld

In the broad resegregation of the nation’s schools that has transpired over recent decades, New York’s public-school system looms as one of the most segregated. While the city’s public-school population looks diverse — 40.3 percent Hispanic, 32 percent black, 14.9 percent white and 13.7 percent Asian — many of its schools are nothing of the sort.

About 650 of the nearly 1,700 schools in the system have populations that are 70 percent a single race, a New York Times analysis of schools data for the 2009-10 school year found; more than half the city’s schools are at least 90 percent black and Hispanic.

OTHERWISE: Louis Pollak, federal judge, dies at 89

One of the great lawyers of the civil rights movement has died - Louis Pollak, judge and former Dean of Yale Law School.
OTHERWISE: Louis Pollak, federal judge, dies at 89:

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A.G. Eric Holder on the Passing of Former A.G.Nicholas Katzenbach

USDOJ: Statement of Attorney General Eric Holder on the Passing of Former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas DeBelleville Katzenbach:

“Today, we mourn the loss of Nicholas Katzenbach, one of our Nation's great champions of civil rights and equal justice.  Throughout a life that spanned 90 years, he served our country in many ways – as an attorney, activist, Presidential Advisor, U.S. Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, and U.S. Army Officer.  During WWII, Second Lieutenant Katzenbach battled oppression overseas – and survived more than a year in a German prison camp – before returning home to fight for the cause of equal opportunity.  Throughout one of the most challenging and consequential eras in American history, his extraordinary talents – and dedicated leadership of the Department of Justice – helped to guide our Nation forward from the dark days of segregation and to secure the successful passage of the landmark Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts .  

I am especially grateful for his work to ensure a peaceful end to the legendary “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door,” when – on June 11, 1963 – Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach faced down Governor George Wallace and personally assisted two African-American students, James Hood and Vivian Malone – a bright young woman who would later become my sister-in-law – in successfully integrating the University of Alabama.

“As we remember and honor his many achievements and contributions, our thoughts and prayers are with the Katzenbach family.  Although Nick Katzenbach will be sorely missed, there is much to celebrate in the life he lived, in the example he set, and in the inspiration he will continue to provide – for me, for my colleagues across the Department of Justice, and for the Nation he was so proud to serve.”

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James Fallows - On Obama's Gay Marriage Announcement - The Atlantic

My sentiments, exactly.  So nice to have James Fallows thinking and writing for me.  Makes it so much easier for me. - GWC
James Fallows - Authors - The Atlantic:

"... I am surprisingly moved by Barack Obama's discussion just now of his "evolved" position on same-sex marriage. I agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates's immediate reaction: that this was a particularly notable, humane, and leader-like stand for him to take on the day after North Carolina's landslide vote for Amendment One and against same-sex marriage.

This is a field where I understand the concept of "evolution." When I was a school kid, in the small-town America of the 1950s and 1960s, I had many gay friends -- but of course didn't know that, because it was undiscussable at the time. I am painfully embarrassed at thinking of the commonplace fag/queer jokes and schoolyard taunts of that time, but of course not as pained as my friends who had to laugh along with them.

It was not until I was in college that I was aware of having gay friends -- and over the years, as my wife and I have celebrated their marriages (where that was legal) and their non-married partnerships (where it was not), I've come to understand that it is pointless, cruel, unfair, and wrong to deny them the satisfactions, and responsibilities, of committed married life. And as for the idea that same-sex marriage is a "threat" to the stability of marriage as a whole: Come on! I defy anyone to demonstrate that it cracks the top 100 list of forces eroding the institution of marriage. "

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E.P.A. Chemist, Cate Jenkins, Who Warned of Ground Zero Dust, Wins Suit - NYTimes.com

E.P.A. Chemist, Cate Jenkins, Who Warned of Ground Zero Dust, Wins Suit - NYTimes.com: "A senior Environmental Protection Agency chemist who argued that she was removed from her job in retaliation for accusing the agency of underestimating the toxicity of dust at ground zero has been reinstated with back pay by an administrative board.

The federal Merit Systems Protection Board ruled late last week in Washington that the agency violated the due process rights of the chemist, Cate Jenkins, when she was fired in 2010 because she was not informed of all the charges against her"

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Judge approves BP settlement classes

Judge Carl Barbier, citing FRCP 23, has given "preliminary approval" to two settlement classes proposed by BP an the Plaintiffs Steering Committee (whose fees BP will pay - at 6% of benefits paid with a cap of $600 million).  The hold-back order is effectively rescinded and converted into instalment payments made by BP as claims settle.  Unlike other class actions the plaintiffs will pay contingent fees to their attorneys.
There will be fairness hearings in November.  Members of the class may be heard there and may opt-out to pursue their remedies.
Introductory slideshow HERE
For an outline of the settlement see HERE  Other resources are on the BP page to the right

Order approving medical benefits class

"Compensation for the “Specified Physical Conditions” ranges from $900 to $60,700, as
determined by the “Specified Physical Conditions Matrix” (Exhibit 8 to the Proposed Settlement, Rec. Doc. 6273-10).  Compensation amounts are based on the class member’s status as a CleanUp Worker, Zone A, or Zone B resident; whether the Specified Physical Condition is acute or chronic; and the type of proof that the Class Member submits to the Claims Administrator.  All but the lowest compensation level may be increased if there was overnight hospitalization and/or actual hospital expenses.

Periodic Medical Consultation Program” is available to all Clean-Up Workers and
Zone B Residents, as well as Zone A residents that qualify for compensation for a Specified Physical Condition. 

There is also a " `Back-End Litigation Option' [that] provides a mediation/litigation process for class members that manifest a physical  condition in the future claimed to be due to exposure to oil and/or chemical dispersant.  Class members must elect between choosing relief under this option or any applicable workers’ compensation law".

Order approving economic and property damage class

Generally speaking, the geographic bounds of the settlement are Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama, and certain coastal counties in eastern Texas and western Florida, as well as specified adjacent Gulf waters, bays, etc.  Individuals must have lived, worked, owned property, leased property, etc., in these areas between April 20, 2010 and April 16, 2012.  Similarly, entities must have conducted certain business activity in these areas between April 20, 2010 and April 16, 2012.
The Proposed Settlement recognizes six categories of damage:
(1) Economic Loss (including individual loss of wages, business economic loss, multifacility business economic loss, start-up business economic loss, failed business
economic loss, failed start-up business economic loss)
(2) Property damage (including loss of use/enjoyment of real property, coastal real
property damage, wetlands real property damage, realized real property sales loss),
(3) Vessel of Opportunity (“VoO”) Charter Payment
(4) Vessel Physical Damage
(5) Subsistence Damage
(6) Seafood Compensation Program

As the Times Picayune notes "local, state and federal government claims -- the big-ticket civil items that could cost BP as much as $18 billion more -- remain unresolved.  And whole groups of private plaintiffs have been left out of this particular settlement, including those who suffered injuries in the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion; those in the gaming, banking, insurance and defense industries; those who catch or process menhaden or "pogy" fish; people and businesses not located in coastal zones between Galveston, Texas, and Key West, Fla.; and BP-brand service stations. "

Achieving Procedural Goals Through Indirection: The Use of Ethics Doctrine to Justify Contingency Fee Caps in MDL Aggregate Settlements by Morris Ratner :: SSRN

Achieving Procedural Goals Through Indirection: The Use of Ethics Doctrine to Justify Contingency Fee Caps in MDL Aggregate Settlements by Morris Ratner :: SSRN:
Abstract

Recent non-class aggregate settlements of personal injury mass torts reached in multidistrict litigation (MDL) proceedings – including Vioxx, Guidant and Zyprexa - show that practice has outpaced the development of doctrine. Forced to improvise, trial courts have sought a firm foundation for exercising authority over these private, contractual settlements, specifically to justify and guide court control over attorneys’ fees. By imposing across-the-board limits on contingency fees recoverable by individually-retained counsel, the MDL trial courts have effectively re-written fee contracts between lawyers and clients in thousands of cases. The trial courts grounded the fee cap orders in their “inherent authority” to regulate members of the bar to enforce ethics rules. But these fee-capping decisions stray dramatically from the ethics doctrine that purportedly informs them, in the service of procedural goals (i.e., making room for enhanced attorneys’ fee payments to court-appointed common benefit counsel who achieved global settlements). Unresolved tension within the MDL governance regime partly explains this boundary-pushing reliance on ethics, one that potentially delays the development of clear answers to difficult procedural questions about the nature of MDL aggregation, and, relatedly, about the proper use of the attorneys’ fee lever as an MDL case management tool.

h/t John Steele/Legal Ethics Forum

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Worker's award for multiple injuries capped, Court of Appeals rules

Worker's award for multiple injuries capped, Court of Appeals rules: "May 2 (Reuters) - New York's high court has ruled that a weekly cap on workers' compensation awards applies even when a worker suffers from multiple, separate injuries.

In a 5-2 decision, the Court of Appeals on Tuesday held that "schedule awards" given for permanent partial disabilities and awards for temporary disabilities may not overlap if, when combined, they exceed a statutory $400 cap on weekly payments.

"A claimant entitled to a schedule award that is to be paid periodically must wait until his other disability payments have ceased, or have dipped below the cap, to be paid his schedule award," Judge Robert Smith wrote for the court.

A schedule award is granted when a worker loses partial or total use of a body part in a work-related injury.

The decision reverses a 2009 ruling from the Appellate Division, Third Department.

In 2005, mechanic Wayne Schmidt sustained three separate injuries while working for an upstate car dealership. A Workers' Compensation Law judge in 2008 granted Schmidt two compensation awards, each totaling $400 per week"

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The Lower Floor - U.S. v. Arizona - Linda Greenhouse - NYTimes.com

In Plane Wreck at Los Gatos, no one cared because "they were just deportees" sang Woodie Guthrie.  Linda Greenhouse - who has been to innumerable Supreme Court arguments - finds evidence of the same attitude among the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. - GWC
The Lower Floor - NYTimes.com: 
by Linda Greenhouse

"I found last week’s Supreme Court argument in the Arizona immigration case utterly depressing, and I’ve spent the intervening week puzzling over my reaction. It’s not simply that the federal government seems poised to lose: unlike the appeals court, the justices appear likely to find the heart of Arizona’s mean-spirited “attrition through enforcement” statute, S.B. 1070, permissible under federal law.
Poring over the argument transcript and the briefs, what finally came through as most deeply troubling was this: the failure of any participant in the argument, justice or advocate for either side, to affirm the simple humanity of Arizona’s several hundred thousand undocumented residents."

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Judge trims Madoff trustee's profit clawback suits

Judge trims Madoff trustee's profit clawback suits: "May 1 (Reuters) - A judge ruled that a trustee may try to claw back fictitious profits only from the last two years before the epic Madoff fraud was disclosed in December 2008, a ruling likely to affect claims against hundreds of former customers of Bernard Madoff.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff made a similar ruling last year when he reduced trustee Irving Picard's claims in a lawsuit against the principal owners of the New York Mets Major League Baseball team. Owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz agreed to settle the litigation, but it has yet to be approved by Rakoff."

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