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S.C. high court hearing Certificate of Need case
Legal News |
2014/03/05 21:08
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South Carolina's highest court is gearing up for a debate over whether the state's health agency can end a program that regulates the building or expansion of medical facilities.
On Thursday, the state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments over the Certificate of Need program, an approvals process administered by the Department of Health and Environmental Control and required under state law for any medical facilities seeking to build or expand.
The program has been on hold since June, when Gov. Nikki Haley vetoed the $1.7 million needed to run it, saying she thinks it's an impediment to the free market and isn't needed. The House sustained Haley's veto after Ways and Means Chairman Brian White took the floor and said the veto was just about the money, not whether the program should continue.
Since that vote, some House Republicans have said they didn't intend to nix the program entirely, pointing out last summer that an executive decision to discontinue the program "may be contrary to law but is certainly contrary to the will and intent of the House of Representatives."
Three dozen states have similar programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
State law still requires medical facilities to acquire a Certificate of Need from DHEC before building, expanding, offering a new service or buying medical equipment costing more than $600,000. When Haley vetoed the funding, about three dozen projects worth about $100 million were being reviewed by DHEC.
Groups including the South Carolina Hospital Association sued over the issue, saying the state law requiring the review is still on the books and can't be suspended just because DHEC didn't set aside money to pay for it. Supporters also have argued that the Certificate of Need program is needed to keep costly medical services or hospital beds from going unused and that it ensures that rural communities keep access to health care. |
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UN court: Australia cannot use seized documents
Court Line |
2014/03/05 21:08
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The United Nations' highest court on Monday banned Australia from making any use of documents it seized from a lawyer working for East Timor in an arbitration case over a multibillion-dollar oil and gas deal between the two nations.
The International Court of Justice also ordered Canberra not to "interfere in any way in communications" between East Timor and its legal advisers in the arbitration or future negotiations on a maritime boundary between resources-rich Australia and its tiny, impoverished northern neighbor.
Australian agents in December raided the Canberra office of a legal adviser to East Timor and seized documents and data. That followed claims by a former Australian spy that his country bugged the East Timorese government ahead of negotiations on the Timor Sea Treaty that carves up revenue from oil and gas under the sea between the two countries.
East Timor wants to renegotiate the treaty, arguing that it is invalid because of the alleged bugging.
It went to the world court arguing the seizure was illegal. Monday's orders did not address that claim, which will be litigated later. |
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Supreme Court allows Stanford Ponzi scheme suits
Court Watch |
2014/02/28 22:10
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The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that victims of former Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford's massive Ponzi scheme can go forward with class-action lawsuits against the law firms, accountants and investment companies that allegedly aided the $7.2 billion fraud.
The decision is a loss for firms that claimed federal securities law insulated them from state class-action lawsuits and sought to have the cases thrown out. But it offers another avenue for more than 21,000 of Stanford's bilked investors to try to recover their lost savings.
Federal law says class-action lawsuits related to securities fraud cannot be filed under state law, as these cases were. But a federal appeals court said the cases could move forward because the main part of the fraud involved certificates of deposit, not stocks and other securities.
The high court agreed in a 7-2 decision, with the two dissenting justices warning that the ruling would lead to an explosion of state class-action lawsuits.
Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in prison after being convicted of bilking investors in a $7.2 billion scheme that involved the sale of fraudulent certificates of deposits from the Stanford International Bank. They supposedly were backed by safe investments in securities issued by governments, multinational companies and international banks, but those investments did not exist. |
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Supreme Court allows Stanford Ponzi scheme suits
Attorney News |
2014/02/28 22:10
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The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that victims of former Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford's massive Ponzi scheme can go forward with class-action lawsuits against the law firms, accountants and investment companies that allegedly aided the $7.2 billion fraud.
The decision is a loss for firms that claimed federal securities law insulated them from state class-action lawsuits and sought to have the cases thrown out. But it offers another avenue for more than 21,000 of Stanford's bilked investors to try to recover their lost savings.
Federal law says class-action lawsuits related to securities fraud cannot be filed under state law, as these cases were. But a federal appeals court said the cases could move forward because the main part of the fraud involved certificates of deposit, not stocks and other securities.
The high court agreed in a 7-2 decision, with the two dissenting justices warning that the ruling would lead to an explosion of state class-action lawsuits.
Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in prison after being convicted of bilking investors in a $7.2 billion scheme that involved the sale of fraudulent certificates of deposits from the Stanford International Bank. They supposedly were backed by safe investments in securities issued by governments, multinational companies and international banks, but those investments did not exist. |
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Arizona high court bars cuts to public pensions
Court Line |
2014/02/24 22:29
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The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Legislature can't cut cost-of-living increases promised to judges and state elected officials.
The court unanimously upheld a Superior Court judge's ruling in favor of retired judges who challenged the Legislature's 2011 decision to cut benefits increases for retirees in the state plan for judges and other elected officials.
The Legislature cut the cost-of-living increases after the judges' retirement system lost money in the Great Recession after gradually becoming underfunded in previous years.
Denying an appeal by state officials, the high court agreed the increases are part of a promised retirement benefit and are protected by the pension clause of the Arizona Constitution. That clause bars "diminishing or impairing" public retirement benefits.
Lawyers for the retired judges had argued that the clause protected both their retirement benefits and the increases to those benefits, while lawyers for the state argued that the protection only applied to benefits with increases calculated by current methods.
Arizona is not alone in grappling with the problem of underfunded public pensions. A proposed ballot initiative in California would allow cities to renegotiate public workers' future pension and retirement benefits. Oregon's Legislature passed a law similar to what Arizona passed in 2011 that cuts future cost-of-living adjustments.
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