Court Digest

Maine
Lawsuit filed over marijuana retail licenses
BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Two small Maine-based marijuana businesses are suing the agency that oversees recreational marijuana operations, arguing state licenses were illegally awarded to out-of-state owners.

State law requires owners of marijuana operations to live in Maine and to have filed state income taxes for four years. But the Maine Office of Marijuana Policy ignored the requirement, based on the state attorney general’s conclusion that it’s unlikely to hold up to legal scrutiny.

The federal lawsuit contends out-of-state companies take away a competitive advantage for Maine business operators.

For the three-day holiday weekend following the start of recreational sales on Oct. 9, six of nine active licensed retail stores were open and sold more than $258,400 in products, with $25,841 in collected sales taxes, according to the Maine Office of Marijuana Policy.

Another lawsuit, in March, was behind that OMP’s decision to ignore the residency requirement, upon advice from Attorney General Aaron Frey. The state’s largest medical marijuana dispensary chain, the Wellness Connection, is 49% owned by a Delaware investor and had argued that the residency requirement restricted it from raising money to enter Maine’s recreational market, the Bangor Daily News reported.

James Monteleone, an attorney for the Maine-based plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Monday, said it’s nevertheless “not an option” for the state to fail to enforce its own law.

“We’re just looking for a fair shake,” Monteleone told the newspaper. “The Legislature adopted a law that says Maine companies are going to be the ones that are eligible for licenses.”

The lawsuit targets Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Affairs, which oversees the Office of Marijuana Policy, and department Commissioner Kirsten Figueroa.

Also named in the lawsuits are seven entities with out-of-state ownership.

Those include three businesses of Theory Wellness, which is partially owned by a Massachusetts company. The others, Cannabis Cured Cultivation, Mainely Baked and Spectrum Solutions, and Northland Botanicals all have an owner from New Hampshire.

New York
Judge rules NYC crosswalks fail to protect blind pedestrians
NEW YORK (AP) — Most crosswalks in New York City violate laws protecting people with disabilities by failing to properly protect blind and low-vision pedestrians, a judge ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer in Manhattan said the city has violated three laws protecting the disabled with its failure to equip most crosswalk signals to aid the blind or those with bad eyesight.

The judge said it is yet to be decided what the ramifications of the ruling will be because the first phase of the court proceeding was to assess liability.

The city is consistently working to make streets more accessible for those who are blind or have low vision, particularly by adding devices that communicate with sounds, speech or vibrating surfaces, city spokesperson Laura Feyer said.
The city will continue to work with the disabled community to make improvements, she said.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by a nonprofit corporation that represents people with vision disabilities.

In the decision, Engelmayer noted that New York City has the highest population density of any major American city.

“Pedestrians with visual disabilities often encounter danger, inconvenience, and humiliation while attempting to use the City’s crosswalks,” he wrote.

Of the city’s 120,000 pedestrian control signals, nearly all of 13,200 signals at 45,000 intersections only communicate crossing information in a visual format, the judge said. Those signals are inaccessible to the blind leaving fewer than 5% of signals that aid blind people, he said.

Oregon
Corrections employees file lawsuit against department
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Two employees at the Oregon Department of Corrections are suing the agency, accusing its leadership team of misleading lawmakers and creating a culture of bullying and intimidation.

Gina Raney-Eatherly and Merilee Nowak filed the lawsuit in Marion County, KATU-TV reported. The state filed a response in September denying the allegations.

Gina Raney-Eatherly and Nowak have four decades of experience at the agency between them. The women say the director and deputy director demoted them for speaking up and pushing back.

Raney-Eatherly was a research analyst, and Nowak was a policy analyst. Both are now executive assistants.

“If these kind of things continue, worse things are going to happen. An agency can’t continue to work like this,” said Nowak.

The lawsuit refers to a state legislative hearing from March 2019 in which the late Sen. Jackie Winters, R-Salem, asked Deputy Director Heidi Steward and Director Colette Peters if the agency’s drug treatment program reduced a person’s likelihood of re-offending.

“We lack researchers in our research unit, and so I don’t get that data historically on a regular basis, so in a couple slides I’m going to share with you what we’ve done to start tracking that information. So, I don’t have exact numbers for you today, but I can get them for you very soon,” Steward answered.

However, Raney-Eatherly, who said she watched the hearing as part of her job, said she’s the person who would have pulled that data.

“We could easily pull that. My staff could have done that in probably ten minutes,” Raney-Eatherly said. “She didn’t want the senator to know, or anyone else, that what that data was most likely going to show was that the recidivism is not being impacted.”

An agency spokesperson declined comment about corrections programs, citing the lawsuit. The agency did acknowledge these are, “serious allegations.” They denied ever misleading lawmakers.

The agency’s director sent a letter to that committee following the legislative hearing that said, “due to the lack of sufficient resources within our research unit, it has not been possible to conduct an in-depth analysis of our treatment programs,” but the director said the agency was developing tools to track it.

In September, the women each turned down an offer from the state of $50,001 to settle, according to an offer of judgment given to KATU by Raney-Eatherly.

A hearing is scheduled in late October in the case.

South Carolina
Family settles suit over death of prep football player
LEXINGTON, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina family has settled a lawsuit filed after a 14-year-old high school football player collapsed after an intense practice and died, news outlets reported.

The suit, filed against Lexington County School District 1 over the death River Bluff High School student Lewis Simpkins, was settled without a trial through a resolution process. The amount of money involved in the agreement wasn’t listed in court documents.

The complaint was filed in 2018, or two years after Lewis collapsed in August 2016 after a more than two-hour practice that included running and doing drills in full pads. Former players described the day as “the hardest practice they had ever had,” according to the complaint.

With the heat index around 95 degrees, the teen collapsed after drills and began gasping for air. He eventually became unresponsive.

The suit, filed by the youth’s parents, claimed officials failed to protect Lewis from dangerous conditions.

California
Man pleads guilty to stabbing his 3 sons to death
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles man was sentenced Tuesday to 78 years in prison after pleading guilty to stabbing his three sons to death inside the family’s car five years ago, according to a newspaper report.

Luiz Fuentes, 38, received his sentence immediately after entering his plea, the Los Angeles Times reported.

As part of the plea, Fuentes admitted to using a knife to kill his boys, ages 11, 9 and 8, the Times said.

The three children were found Sept. 9, 2015 in the father’s SUV, which was parked outside a South Los Angeles furniture warehouse. Fuentes was in the front seat with self-inflicted stab wounds.

In the months before the boys were killed, they lived with Fuentes in his SUV, according to a review of nearly 700 pages of case records released to the Times after the slayings.

The records detailed child protection workers’ dealings with Fuentes and portray the financial pressure and grief he faced after the boys’ mother died in 2008.

Over the years, the county had received anonymous calls that accused Fuentes of abusing the boys. The Department of Children and Family Services substantiated one accusation, a 2010 incident in which Fuentes beat his then-5-year-old son with a belt.

“I made a mistake,” he told caseworkers at the time, according to records cited by the Times.

Texas
Photographer sues over mascot’s pre-Bowl charge
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A photographer is suing the owners and handlers of the University of Texas’ live mascot for negligence, saying he suffered permanent neck and back injuries when the longhorn steer charged out of its pen and plowed into several people at the 2019 Sugar Bowl.

Nick Wagner, who was then a photographer for the Austin American-Statesman, filed a petition Friday in Travis Country district court, the newspaper reported.

According to the petition, Wagner was on one knee shooting photos of Georgia’s English bulldog mascot, Uga X, before the Texas-Georgia game at the New Orleans Superdome on Jan. 1, 2019, when the steer, Bevo XV, charged at the dog.

Uga X was quickly pulled out of harm’s way, but the steer’s head and horns appeared to make contact  with several people, including two photographers.

“Bevo XV rammed his longhorns twice into Plaintiff’s back causing permanent injury to Plaintiff’s neck and back,” the petition says.

Wagner, who left the newspaper in May, wants a jury trial and is seeking damages of $200,000 to $1 million.

John and Betty Baker, Bevo’s owners, are named as defendants along with the Silver Spurs Alumni Association. The group is in charge of handling the 1,700-pound (770-kilogram) steer, which has been the mascot for the University of Texas since the start of the 2016 season.

Wagner’s attorney Jon Powell said he has wracked up more than $24,000 in medical bills. Medical documents show Wagner suffered “loss of motion” and “impairment” in two areas of his spine.

The Silver Spurs Alumni Association carries a liability policy with Cincinnati Insurance. But Wagner’s claims for repayment of his medical bills have been met with “radio silence,” Powell said.

Edward Osuna, the San Antonio-based attorney of record for Cincinnati Insurance, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Bevo continues to attend games but his pen has been substantially renovated to keep him contained.


Texas
Former women’s coach disputes firing in lawsuit
Texas (AP) — Former Texas Tech women’s basketball coach Marlene Stollings, who was fired after USA Today published a report detailing players’ claims of physical and emotional abuse, has filed a lawsuit against the school and athletic director Kirby Hocutt.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Lubbock, Texas, claims breach of contract, fraud, fraudulent inducement, defamation and sex discrimination. Stollings was fired on Aug. 6, a day after the scathing report was published.
“This termination could not properly have been for cause,” the lawsuit said. “Texas Tech’s own internal reviews had found — accurately — that Coach Stollings had not taken any actions which were in violation of her employment contract.”

Eric Bentley, general counsel for the Texas Tech University System, said Wednesday that the claims by Stollings in her lawsuit were without merit.

The lawsuit claims the school’s decision to fire Stollings was based on discriminatory biases against female coaches. It said Texas Tech and Hocutt “regularly, and in this instance in particular,” penalized female coaches for employing the “same demanding and effective coaching techniques” that male coaches used without consequence.

Players made claims of abuse over the past two years in season-ending exit interviews that were obtained through an open records request by The Intercollegiate, an investigative media outlet for college sports. The details were published by USA Today.

That report indicated that players dreaded a heart monitoring system they said was misused in punitive ways, had to endure demeaning and threatening comments and were subject to sexually suggestive behavior from a strength coach who has since resigned.

Hocutt met with players after the report was published and said he realized “how deep the trust had been broken.” He then informed Stollings of her termination.

“At the center of of everything, it was just the lack of trust and of genuine relationships that existed, or did not exist,” he said.