High court to decide lawyer immunity question
Headline Legal News
The Supreme Court will decide whether private lawyers hired as outside counsels for governments can be sued.
The high court on Tuesday agreed to hear lawyer Steve Filarsky's appeal. He was hired by the city of Rialto, Calif., to investigate the possible misuse of sick leave.
Nicholas B. Delia, a firefighter suspected of working on his house while on sick leave, sued Filarsky after the investigation. Delia had said he had bought material to work on his house but never opened it. The fire chief then ordered Delia to bring the unopened material out of his house for inspection or face disciplinary action.
Delia said that order was an unconstitutional warrantless search and sued the city, the fire department and Filarsky.
A federal judge threw it all of Delia's lawsuits out, including the one against Filarsky. The judge ruled that Filarsky had the same immunity as the city's employees.
But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying its rulings had never extended to a nongovernment worker the same immunity government workers enjoy. A separate appeals court — the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — has extended immunity to nongovernment employees.
Related listings
-
Samsung seeks iPhone, iPad sale ban in Dutch court
Headline Legal News 09/24/2011Samsung asked a Dutch court Monday to slap an injunction on Apple Inc. to prevent it from selling iPhones and iPad tablets in the Netherlands, saying Apple does not have licenses to use 3G mobile technology in the devices. The legal battle is the lat...
-
Court rules that UBS trader should stay in custody
Headline Legal News 09/22/2011An alleged rogue trader accused of losing Swiss banking giant UBS about $2.3 billion is "sorry beyond words," his lawyer said Thursday, as a judge ordered him to be held in jail until a hearing next month. Kweku Adoboli, 31, is charged with four offe...
-
Guilty plea for Va. man in $318K Social Security fraud
Headline Legal News 09/09/2011A Bristol man has pleaded guilty to stealing Social Security benefits and making false statements in an attempt to hide the thefts. Seventy-one-year-old David Ross entered the plea Thursday in federal court in Abingdon. Ross faces a sentence of up to...
USCIS Issues Clarifying Guidance on NAFTA TN Status Eligibility for Economists
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it is clarifying policy guidance (PDF, 71 KB) on the specific work activities its officers should consider when determining whether an individual qualifies for TN nonimmigrant status as an economist.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) TN nonimmigrant status allows qualified Canadian and Mexican citizens to temporarily enter the U.S. to engage in specific professional activities, including the occupation of economist. The agreement, however, does not define the term economist, resulting in inconsistent decisions on whether certain analysts and financial professionals qualify for TN status as economists.
TN nonimmigrant status is intended to allow a limited number of professionals and specialists to work temporarily in certain specifically identified occupations in the United States. This updated guidance provides USCIS officers with a specific definition of one such category – economists – allowing them to adjudicate applications in a way that complies with the intent of the agreement. This policy update clarifies that professional economists requesting TN status must engage primarily in activities consistent with the profession of an economist. Individuals who work primarily in other occupations related to the field of economics — such as financial analysts, marketing analysts, and market research analysts — are not eligible for classification as a TN economist.