November 2011

California: Appeals court sides with plaintiffs on court costs in Tulare County lunch meeting suit

Without comment a California appeals court reversed an order that the Times-Delta/Advance-Register and allies pay legal costs for Tulare County in a Brown Act suit. The newspaper and others had charged that the Tulare County Board of Supervisors violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, by conducting a series of lunch meetings closed to the public. The supervisors said the meetings were for morale-building, and a county judge agreed that the plaintiffs did

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A&A: Denied access to supervision records of high-risk parolee

Q: Message I’m trying to obtain records of supervision for a high-risk parolee who is accused of murder. I sent a public records request and received a rejection letter that cites dozens of government codes in its defense. But I wonder if there’s a way to fight that rejection. After all, that information has become public in several high-profile cases such as Phillip Garrido and John Albert Gardner. I have the letter of rejection if

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Pharmaceutical industry: Free speech rights run up against limits on product claims

Merck agreed to pay $950 million to settle a suit over its claims for the painkiller Vioxx withdrawn from sales for increasing the chance of heart attack. But companies are aggressively challenging the government in its attempts to held industries accountable for the truthfulness of their promotions. -db From the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 27, 2011, by David Sel. Full story  

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Tennessee airport loses fight to ban newspaper racks

After dropping nearly a million dollars in legal bills, the Raleigh-Durham International Airport came to an agreement with the newspapers  to allow coin-operated newspaper vending boxes back into the airport. A federal district court had ruled that the ban on news racks violated the First Amendment. -db From the News Observer, November 26, 2011, by Bruce Siceloff. Full story  

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