Court Roundup

Idaho
Judge sides with conservationists in megaload case
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge has sided with environmentalists and ruled the U.S. Forest Service erred by not exercising its regulatory authority when the state allowed huge trucks to haul giant oil refinery equipment along U.S. Highway 12.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued a decision Thursday that handed Idaho Rivers United a victory in the case.
The group sued the government in 2011 after the state allowed ExxonMobil’s Canadian unit to ship hundreds of so-called mega-loads from Idaho’s Port of Lewiston along the two-lane highway. The roadway runs through a scenic corridor protected by the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
IRU claimed the forest service neglected its duty by not getting involved in the decision-making process.
Winmill agreed, saying the agency has the authority to intervene in such cases.

Maryland
Perdue, grower seek attorney fees for failed lawsuit
BALTIMORE (AP) — Perdue Farms and an Eastern Shore contract grower who successfully defended a poultry pollution suit should be awarded attorney fees to discourage similar suits in the future, attorneys said in filings Thursday.
A federal judge tossed out the suit in December, chastising the Waterkeeper Alliance, the environmental group that filed the suit, for not conducting adequate sampling to identify the source of pollution found near Alan Hudson’s Berlin farm.
Perdue said awarding reasonable fees is appropriate because the alliance “should not be permitted to walk away having lost nothing, not even the ability to assert an identical claim against another farm, after having caused the defendants to suffer financial and emotional pain and loss.”
Perdue has said it is seeking up to $2.5 million in costs in the case. The latest filings in U.S. District Court said the company paid attorneys for more than 10,000 hours of work. The attorney for contract grower Alan Hudson said the Hudsons accumulated about $500,000 in fees, which would have bankrupted them without the assistance of the community and fellow farmers.
The filing notes that while it is in the public’s interest to allow plaintiffs who win to collect fees and costs, it is also in the public interest to award those costs to defendants with limited resources. If not, there will be less incentive to defend meritless cases, the filing said.

New York
Court: Gyms with defibrillators not required to help
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Even though state law requires New York health clubs to have defibrillators and staff trained in their operation, they aren’t required to actually use them on a stricken patron, the state’s highest court ruled Thursday.
The Court of Appeals ruling comes in a negligence lawsuit over the 2007 death of Gregory Miglino Sr., who collapsed in cardiac arrest at a Long Island health club owned by Bally Total Fitness of Greater New York.
Gym staff called 911, broadcast an in-house request for anyone with medical training and brought the club’s Automatic External Defibrillator to Miglino’s side, where a trainer detected breathing and a pulse and didn’t use the AED, according to court affidavits. A doctor and medical student began cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, then paramedics arrived and shocked Miglino, but he died.
The court ruled the lawsuit can proceed but the gym’s duty is limited. In the majority opinion, Judge Susan Read wrote that the AED law “does not create a duty running from a health club to its members to use an AED.” Judges Victoria Graffeo, Robert Smith and Eugene Pigott Jr. agreed.
“A law that mandates the presence of AEDs and trained individuals at health clubs is easy to obey and enforce,” Read wrote. Any “implied duty” would be neither, according to Read.
“Such a duty would engender a whole new field of tort litigation, saddling health clubs with new costs and generating uncertainty,” Read wrote.

Minnesota
Prosecutors charge ex-DNR official in data breach
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Department of Natural Resources middle manager illegally accessed driver’s license data belonging to thousands of Minnesota women and kept encrypted pictures of 172 of them on a work computer before he was fired, prosecutors alleged in charges filed Thursday.
John Austin Hunt, 48, of Woodbury was charged with six counts, including misconduct by a public employee, unauthorized computer access, using encryption to conceal a crime and unlawful use of public data. The charges are misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors. The most serious counts carry a potential sentence of up to a year in jail and a $3,000 fine.
Over 90 percent of the people whose privacy was violated were women, the complaint alleges, adding they include federal and state politicians, state legislators, appellate and district court judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, Twin Cities TV news reporters, and past and current DNR employees and their family members.
Those queries “clearly exceeded the scope of his employment duties and authority as a DNR employee,” the complaint alleges.
The complaint also alleges Hunt kept an encrypted file on a work computer called “Mug Shot” with license photos of 172 women, and that a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent also found 26 other license photos of women elsewhere on the computer. The agent determined the photos all were downloaded between March and October last year.

Wisconsin
Court finds in favor of woman denied minimum wage
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin appeals court has ruled in favor of a former manager of an Italian restaurant who said the company did not pay her the required minimum wage.
The 2nd District Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled Shawn Johnson of Waterford deserves more than the $10,000 in wages and attorneys’ fees a lower court awarded her in a 2007 lawsuit. The appellate court sent the case back to the Racine County Circuit Court to reconsider what she is owed.
The dispute began after Johnson filed a complaint with the state Department of Workforce Development in 2006. She claimed Roma II - Waterford LLC and Roma’s E.T., Inc., underpaid her in violation of both federal and state laws when she worked at Waterford-based Roma II Pizza & Pasta.
Johnson’s attorney, Sally Piefer, said Roma’s owner agreed to pay her $500 per week but failed to do so.
Court documents say Johnson had a relationship with the owner when she was working as the restaurant manager.
The Department of Workforce Development sided with Johnson and asked that Roma pay her more than $8,000. The restaurant refused and Johnson sued. After two trials in 2010, a jury found Roma was liable for more than $12,000 in unpaid wages and related damages.