Court Digest

Illinois
Father of Palestinian American boy  files wrongful death lawsuit
CHICAGO (AP) — The father of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy fatally stabbed in what authorities allege was a hate crime has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

Oday Al-Fayoume filed the lawsuit last month against the suburban Chicago landlord charged in the attack that left his child dead and the boy’s mother seriously wounded. The attack — which has renewed fears of anti-Islamic discrimination in the Chicago area’s large Palestinian community — has drawn condemnation from the White House.

Authorities allege Joseph Czuba, 71, targeted Wadea Al-Fayoume and his mother Hanaan Shahin, on Oct. 14 because of their Muslim faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas. Czuba pleaded not guilty in October to hate crime and murder charges.

The wrongful death lawsuit filed Nov. 21 in Will County names Czuba, his wife, Mary Czuba, both of Plainfield, and their property management company, Discerning Property Management.

Joseph Czuba allegedly told his wife to inform Shahin he wanted the family gone from the apartment where they’d lived for two years. He also allegedly said he was afraid Shahin’s “Palestinian friends were going to harm them,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims Mary Czuba and the management company “were indifferent and failed to recognize a threat and prevent serious bodily harm” to their tenants. A hearing is set for March 11.

“Justice comes in many forms … and there is, obviously, unbelievable loss in Wadea, but his mother also was injured seriously, and we believe that there are avenues to recover compensation for what the family’s been through,” said Ben Crane, Oday Al-Fayoume’s lawyer.

The Czubas do not yet have an attorney in the wrongful death case and Mary Czuba has filed paperwork to divorce Joseph Czuba, according to court records.

Czuba remains detained in Will County as he awaits a January hearing in the criminal case. His attorney, George Lenard, has said he won’t comment on the case outside court.


Massachusetts
Teen girl who says she discovered a camera in airplane bathroom sues American Airlines
BOSTON (AP) — The family of a North Carolina teenager is suing American Airlines, saying that a flight attendant taped an iPhone to an airplane toilet to record her using the restroom during a September flight.

Lawyers for the 14-year-old and her parents say that American “knew or should have known the flight attendant was a danger.” They say the failure of other crew members to confiscate the employee’s phone allowed him to destroy evidence.

The lawsuit against American and the unidentified flight attendant was filed Friday in U.S. district court in North Carolina.

American said the flight attendant was “withheld from service” immediately after the alleged incident and has not worked since.

“We take this matter very seriously and have been fully cooperating with law enforcement in their investigation, as safety and security are our highest priorities,” American said in a prepared statement.

According to the lawsuit, the incident happened on a Sept. 2 flight from Charlotte to Boston.

The girl said that while she was waiting to use a bathroom in the economy section, where her family was sitting, the flight attendant told her to use one in the first-class cabin. He entered the bathroom first, saying he needed to wash his hands, then emerged a minute later to tell the girl that the seat was broken but not to worry about it.

The girl said that after she used the toilet, she noticed an iPhone that was mostly hidden by red airline tape reading “Remove from service” — but the camera flash was glowing.

The girl “was shocked and scared,” according to the lawsuit. “It immediately occurred to her that someone had put the phone there to film her using the toilet.”

She took her own picture of the device.

Lawyers for the family suggested that the flight attendant removed the phone and erased images of the girl before letting her father see his iPhone photos.

The family said an FBI agent later told the girl’s mother they did not arrest the man because they did not find any incriminating images on his phone.

The family’s lawyers said they do not know the flight attendant’s name, where he lives or whether he still works for American. The 14-year-old is undergoing therapy for trauma, they said.

Neither the girl nor her family are identified in the lawsuit. The Associated Press does not name victims of sexual assault or abuse unless they come forward publicly.

American is based in Fort Worth, Texas, and has a major operation at the airport in Charlotte.

Wyoming
Family of killed Marine fails to win lawsuit against Baldwin
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Alec Baldwin didn’t have to pay anything to resolve a $25 million lawsuit filed by family members of a Marine killed in Afghanistan after the actor chastised them on social media over the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Baldwin’s attorney said.

U.S. Southern District of New York Judge Edgardo Ramos in August dismissed the lawsuit sought by the wife and sisters of Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, of Jackson, Wyoming, When the McCollum family didn’t file an amended lawsuit as Ramos invited to do before a September deadline, the judge closed the case in October.

Baldwin paid nothing to resolve the case, his attorney Luke Nikas said Wednesday in an email to The Associated Press.

The case has seen no activity since, according to court documents. Lawyers for both sides, including McCollum family attorney Dennis Postiglione, did not comment further on the case when contacted by email Thursday. Reached by email Wednesday, Postiglione declined to comment and said the McCollum family would not comment.

Rylee McCollum and 12 other Marines were killed in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in the last days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan in 2021. Baldwin sent the family a $5,000 check to help in the aftermath.

The lawsuit, filed initially in Wyoming and then New York, alleged Baldwin exposed the family to a flood of social media hatred in 2022 by claiming on Instagram that Roice McCollum was an “insurrectionist” for attending former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C., that preceded the insurrection that day.

Roice McCollum protested peacefully and legally, was not among those who stormed the U.S. Capitol, and never was arrested or charged after being interviewed by the FBI, according to the lawsuit.

Even so, she was a “limited public figure” under the law by talking about her brother’s death in the news media and by engaging with Baldwin, a well-known celebrity, on social media, Ramos ruled in dismissing the lawsuit.

To prove her case as a limited public figure, McCollum needed to show that Baldwin acted with malice toward her. She did not, so Baldwin’s comments were protected under his free-speech rights, Ramos ruled.

The lawsuit was filed as Baldwin faced legal peril for the death of a cinematographer on a New Mexico movie set in 2021. Baldwin was pointing a gun when it went off, killing Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

Special prosecutors initially dismissed an involuntary man­slaughter charge against Baldwin but now seek to recharge the actor after presenting new information to a grand jury.


Louisiana
Federal judge tosses lawsuit alleging environmental racism in St. James Parish
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that accused a south Louisiana parish of using land use policies to guide industries that pollute into communities with majority-Black populations.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana tossed the lawsuit on procedural grounds, saying that it was filed by community groups several years too late, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.

“Although plaintiffs’ claims are procedurally deficient, this court cannot say that their claims lack a basis in fact or rely on a meritless legal theory,” Barbier wrote in his Nov. 16 decision.

In March, Rise St. James, Inclusive Louisiana and Mt. Triumph Baptist Church of Chatman Town filed the lawsuit calling for the state’s first ban on new petrochemical plants to halt a decadeslong trend in St. James of concentrating petrochemical plants in areas with large minority populations “while explicitly sparing White residents from the risk of environmental harm.”

The groups will likely appeal Barbier’s decision, said attorney Bill Quigley, who helped the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic and the Center for Constitutional Rights in representing the groups.

“We felt that the judge really respected the concerns of our clients,” Quigley said Thursday. “He never said what folks are saying isn’t true, and the decision makes that clear. It’s essentially saying we were too late.”

The groups’ claims were based on the parish’s adoption in 2014 of a land-use plan that allowed plants to be built in some predominantly Black areas of St. James, resulting in reduced property values and increased health risks. While those claims may have merit, Louisiana’s one-year statute of limitations would have required the groups to file their legal challenge in 2015, Barbier wrote.

Rise and other groups have repeatedly asked for a halt to new plants in their communities, which include small towns and rural areas along the Mississippi River. But the only significant action parish officials have taken to limit the siting of industries has been against solar farms that were proposed in majority-White areas.

Last year, the parish banned large solar complexes after a proposed 3,900-acre project upset those living in the mostly White neighborhoods of Vacherie. Residents cited concerns over lower property values and the potential for flying debris during storms. Similar concerns were ignored when raised by Black residents about petrochemical plants, according to the lawsuit.

Parish officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Activists have had some success stemming the tide of plants in St. James. Rise and other groups helped block the development of the $1.9 billion Wanhua plastics complex and put a temporary halt on the $9.4 billion Formosa plastics complex planned near the Sunshine Bridge.