On Tuesday, June 5, 2018, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that all member countries of the European Union must recognize same-sex marriage with regard to providing the same right to live and work across the European Union's 28 countries as heterosexual spouses, regardless of any individual country's views on same-sex marriage. The six European Union countries that have not legalized same-sex marriage or civil unions are former Eastern Bloc countries that joined the European Union in the 21st century. The court stated that those six countries remain free not to legalize same-sex marriage or civil unions. However, the court expounded, countries "may not obstruct the freedom of residence of an E.U. citizen by refusing to grant his same-sex spouse, a national of a country that is not an E.U. member state, a derived right of residence in their territory."
Square, which owns meal delivery service Caviar, has reached a $2.2 million settlement with customers in a class action lawsuit claiming that the company collected gratuities from them when they placed food orders but didn't share the money with delivery drivers. Patrons who used Caviar between January 2012 and August 2015 are included in the class.
Jared Duda claims that Google is wrongfully trying to patent his asymmetric numerical systems (ANS) compression technique.
The two largest entities in the world of direct-to-consumer genetic testing services are set to collide in a California federal court. 23andMe, the second-largest company in this evolving industry, recently sued Ancestry.com, the largest company, based on alleged patent infringement. The patent at issue involves the way in which each company uses…
Aaron Persky, the Santa Clara County Superior Court judge who sentenced Stanford student Brock Turner to just six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, was recalled on Tuesday. This is the first time in 80 years that a judge has been recalled in California. The last time a judge was recalled in the United States was in Wisconsin over 40 years ago.
The Rhode Island Governor has signed legislation regulating bump stocks and instituting a "red flag" law, allowing law enforcement to remove weapons from high risk individuals.
Today, in a 7-2 opinion authored by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a baker who refused to create a cake for a gay couple. The Court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s actions violated the baker’s right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.
A handful of states have joined California and the other original states who filed a lawsuit challenging a Trump administration exception to the ACA's contraceptive mandate that would allow any business or corporation to deny contraception coverage based on any religious or moral ground. The case is currently before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
On Tuesday, May 29, 2018, the United States Supreme Court denied Planned Parenthood's petition for a writ of certiorari in Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma v. Jegley (8th Cir. 2017). At issue is an Arkansas abortion law that requires doctors who provide medication abortions to contract with a second doctor who has hospital admitting privileges. Arkansas has three abortion clinics, two of which only offer medication abortions; only the abortion clinic in Little Rock offers surgical abortions. Arkansas would become the seventh state to have only one abortion clinic should the law stand.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has released a report detailing widespread and severe alleged abuse of immigrant children by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents between 2009 and 2014. Among 30,000 pages of documents obtained in an open records lawsuit are details of minors reportedly being beaten, threatened, sexually abused, and denied food and medical care by border agents.
