Public Justice

May 1, 2012 In Updates

Female Coach Fired for Questioning Sports Equity at High School Reaches Settlement, Is Reinstated

A female lacrosse coach who was fired after raising questions about whether the athletic program at a south Florida high school was being fair to female athletes has been reinstated and her team will get to play in the school’s best athletic facility under terms…

May 1, 2012 In Updates

‘Bleed Air’ Case Against Airlplane Manufacturers Settles

Terry Williams, above left, a 42-year-old mother of two, is now permanently disabled. Years ago, this former flight attendant for American Airlines suffered severe injury to her central nervous system after being exposed to toxic “bleed air” — engine oil fumes emitted from a defectively…

May 1, 2012 In Updates

Motion to Intervene Filed in Remington Rifle Court Secrecy Case in Mont

In 1995, a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer Remington was settled quietly in Montana. The case involved a dangerous defect in Remington’s 700-series rifles: it caused the guns to fire without anyone pulling the trigger. But few consumers have ever known about Aleksich because there…

May 1, 2012 In Updates

Public Justice Wins Legal Fight Against Health Insurer’s Attempt to Seize Benefits from Injury Victim; Third Circuit Rejects ‘Windfall’

Noting that “equity abhors a windfall,” the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held Wednesday that an employer-based health insurance plan is not entitled to 100 percent reimbursement of medical expenses when injured employees recover only a portion of their damages from a third party.The ruling…

April 30, 2012 In Updates

BASF and Corporate Law Firm Claim They Can’t Be Sued for Lying to Victims and Courts about Asbestos in Talc; Public Justice Challenges Claim of Immunity with Amicus Brief

An international chemical company and its corporate lawyers should not be allowed to get away with lying about potentially deadly asbestos in the company’s talc, says a Public Justice brief filed in New Jersey federal court on Wednesday.Public Justice’s amicus brief was filed in Williams,…

April 30, 2012 In Updates

Coal Company Will Clean Up “Biologically Impaired” Stream

The Sierra Club and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, both represented by Public Justice’s Jim Hecker, have entered into a settlement with Fola Coal Company requiring Fola, a subsidiary of CONSOL Energy, to clean up pollution in Boardtree Branch, a tributary of Twentymile Creek (pictured) in…

April 30, 2012 In Updates

EPA Urged to Shut Down Dangerous Asbestos Removal Method

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General has just signed an “Early Warning Report” that will shut down a dangerous and unapproved asbestos removal method that two EPA offices have been testing for the past seven years.The report supports what Public Justice has been arguing…

April 30, 2012 In Updates

National Labor Relations Board Rules Workplace Class Action Bans Are Unfair Labor Practice

In early January, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided, as Public Justice urged, that workers must be allowed to pursue legal claims as a group. The NLRB issued its decision that employers cannot require their employees to sign arbitration agreements forcing them to pursue…

April 30, 2012 In Updates

Public Justice Wins Strict New Limits on Mountaintop Removal Mine Permits

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has decided to renew a “nationwide permit” (NWP) for coal mining in Appalachia — a permit Public Justice first challenged in 1999 — with severe restrictions preventing its use for most mountaintop removal operations.For years, the Corps rubber-stamped NWPs…

April 30, 2012 In Updates

Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Nuclear Plant Operator Near NYC Failed to Consider Impact of Severe Accidents on Low-Income, Minority Populations

Public Justice’s environmental team announced today that the adjudication division of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has affirmed that all evidence submitted by the environmental group Hudson River Sloop Clearwater to show that the NRC failed to properly consider the disproportionate impact of severe accidents…