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WADA faces court challenge in Belgium
International |
2009/01/27 11:11
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A group of Belgian athletes is challenging the rule requiring athletes to notify drug testers of their whereabouts, contending it violates privacy.
If the case is successful in Belgium, it could undermine the work of the World Anti-Doping Agency and be used as a precedent to contest the ruling in other courts around the world.
Lawyer Kristof De Saedeleer represents a group of 65 soccer and volleyball players and cyclists. He has filed the case with Belgium's Council of State high court, which could take up to six months to rule. Athletes are obligated to give their whereabouts up to three months in advance. Out-of-competition tests are essential in catching cheats since many illegal substances can become untraceable by the time competition starts. To perform such tests, WADA needs to know at all times where and when athletes can be traced. Under the latest WADA code, athletes must specify one hour each day where they can be located for testing. "It gives WADA a pass to invade the privacy of athletes," De Saedeleer said by telephone Tuesday. Three missed tests or three warnings for failing to file such information within an 18-month period constitute a doping violation and can lead to a ban. The Belgian challenge cites privacy provisions within the Belgian constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the Council of Europe. Although the athletes stress they do not object to out-of-competition doping, they claim the system is far too invasive, forcing them even to pinpoint when they go to the movies. |
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Cheerleading is a contact sport, Wis. court rules
Court Watch |
2009/01/27 11:11
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High school cheerleading is a contact sport and therefore its participants cannot be sued for accidentally causing injuries, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a case being closely watched in the cheerleading world. The court ruled that a former high school cheerleader cannot sue a teammate who failed to stop her fall while she was practicing a stunt. The court also said the injured cheerleader cannot sue her school district. The National Cheer Safety Foundation said the decision is the first of its kind in the nation. At issue in the case was whether cheerleaders qualify for immunity under a Wisconsin law that prevents participants in contact sports from suing each other for unintentional injuries. It does not spell out which sports are contact sports. The District 4 Court of Appeals ruled last year cheerleading doesn't qualify because there's no contact between opposing teams. But all seven members of the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to overturn that decision. In the opinion, Justice Annette Ziegler said cheerleading involves "a significant amount of physical contact between the cheerleaders." As an example, she cited stunts in which cheerleaders are tossed in the air. The lawsuit was brought by Brittany Noffke, who was a varsity cheerleader at Holmen High School in western Wisconsin. Practicing a stunt in 2004, Noffke fell backward off the shoulders of another cheerleader and suffered a serious head injury. |
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Gatehouse and New York Times Co. settle lawsuit
Court Watch |
2009/01/26 08:09
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An agreement has been reached in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by GateHouse Media against The New York Times Co.
GateHouse sued the Times, the parent company of The Boston Globe and its Boston.com Web Site, last month, claiming the Globe's new community Web sites use GateHouse's newspaper headlines and lead sentences without permission.
GateHouse claims Boston.com violates copyright and trademark laws by taking GateHouse material published on its "Wicked Local" Web sites. A clerk to U.S. District Judge William Young said the two sides reached an agreement over the weekend just before the case was set to go to trial Monday in U.S. District Court. No details have been announced. Lawyers for GateHouse declined comment Monday morning. |
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Court rules for worker over retaliation
Labor & Employment |
2009/01/26 08:07
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The Supreme Court has ruled that workers who cooperate with internal investigations of retaliation by their employers are sheltered by federal laws prohibiting job discrimination.
In an opinion Monday, the justices held that a longtime school system employee in Tennessee can pursue a civil rights lawsuit over her firing.
The court voted unanimously to reverse the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the anti-retaliation provision of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not apply to employees who merely cooperate with an internal probe rather than complain on their own or take part in a formal investigation. Vicky Crawford was fired in 2003 after more than 30 years as an employee of the school system for Nashville, Tenn., and Davidson County. She did not file a complaint about harassment by a school official. But she said she had been subject to unwanted sexual advances when she was interviewed by investigators for the school system who were looking into other employees' allegations against the director of employee relations. Crawford was fired months later. The official was not disciplined. She filed a federal lawsuit, but it was dismissed by a federal judge and upheld on appeal. |
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Court to consider how long lawyer request lasts
Legal Business |
2009/01/26 08:07
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The Supreme Court has agreed to clarify how long a suspected criminal's request for a lawyer during police interrogation should be valid.
The high court on Monday said it will consider allowing prosecutors in Maryland to use a confession from convicted child molester Michael Shatzer that he sexually abused his son.
Shatzer was imprisoned at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown for child sexual abuse in 2003 when police started investigating allegations concerning his son. Shatzer requested an attorney and the investigation was soon dropped. Three years later, the boy was old enough to offer details. According to court documents, when police questioned Shatzer again about the case, he was advised of his rights and signed a form waiving them before confessing. After Shatzer was charged, he filed a motion to suppress his statements, arguing that he had asked for an attorney in the case before. A lower court said the confession could be used, but the Maryland Court of Appeals agreed with Shatzer and threw out the confession. |
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US Supreme Court says passenger can be frisked
Breaking Legal News |
2009/01/26 08:07
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The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.
The court on Monday unanimously overruled an Arizona appeals court that threw out evidence found during such an encounter.
The case involved a 2002 pat-down search of an Eloy, Ariz., man by an Oro Valley police officer, who found a gun and marijuana. The justices accepted Arizona's argument that traffic stops are inherently dangerous for police and that pat-downs are permissible when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the passenger may be armed and dangerous. The pat-down is allowed if the police "harbor reasonable suspicion that a person subjected to the frisk is armed, and therefore dangerous to the safety of the police and public," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. |
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Court to hear 9/11 conspirator's appeal in Va.
Breaking Legal News |
2009/01/26 04:08
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A federal appeals court in Virginia is set to hear arguments for a new trial by Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui (zak-uh-REE'-uhs moo-SOW'-ee).
Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to helping plan the 2001 terrorist attacks. His lawyers now claim court-imposed secrecy undermined Moussaoui's ability to present an adequate defense, so the plea should be thrown out and a new trial granted.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Court of Appeals will conduct Monday's hearing in two parts. They'll meet in open court and then close the hearing for matters involving classified information. |
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