September 2011

Supplementing my earlier post on the Roberts v. Sea-Land Services, Inc. case, I have obtained copies of the cert-phase briefs from Claimant’s counsel.

Claimant’s Petition

U.S. Brief in Opposition

Claimant’s Reply

The Claimant sought review on the following Questions Presented:

The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 901-50 (“Longshore Act”) provides generally

In a case ripped from the tales of yore or the latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found that the U.S. courts had no in rem jurisdiction over a sunken Spanish ship.  The case is Odyssey Marine Exploration v. The Unidentified Shipwrecked Vessel, Its Apparel, Tackle, Appurtenances &

New Federal Tort Claims Act case from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The case involved an issue of whether the USA is entitled to an up-the-ladder immunity that companies enjoy under Kentucky state law.  The Sixth Circuit found that the USA was so entitled and affirmed the summary dismissal of the claimant’s lawsuit.  The case is Himes v. USA

New Ninth Circuit case involving a maritime tort claim against a cruise ship for injuries suffered during a port call.  The case is Samuels v. Holland American Line-USA Inc., et al. and it can be found here.

Facts:  The plaintiff was injured during a port call to Cabo San Lucas.  His injuries were caused by

Thinking About Terrorism

Thinking About Terrorism: The Threat to Civil Liberties in Times of National Emergency

Preface     vii
Acknowledgments     xiii
State-Sponsored Terrorism and Its Perpetrators     1
Defining Terrorism-History, Logic, France, and Mark Twain     1
How to Judge State-Sponsored Terror-Where to Stand and What to Do     13
Judicial Proceedings-Letelier-Moffitt     27
Judicial Proceedings-Pinochet, not Kissinger     31
Judicial Proceedings-the French Cases     45
Vichy France-The Background     46
The Crime Against Humanity     48

The ten-year anniversary of 9/11 prompted a vivid documentary about the boatlift of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers off Manhattan following the World Trade Center attacks. 

 

Alternative, less choppy video, here.

On the Coast Guard’s efforts, and the herculean response of the maritime community in New York, the Commandant of the U.S. Coast

Occasionally, I'll digress from the usual eclectic fare of this blog to share some interesting cases from around the country.

I posted earlier about the Stolen Valor Act case arising from California.  The case involved a man asserting his receipt of the Medal of Honor.  Per the Ninth Circuit:

Apparently, Alvarez makes a hobby of lying about himself to make people think he is “a psycho from the mental ward with Rambo stories.” The summer before his election to the water district board, a woman informed the FBI about Alvarez’s propensity for making false claims about his military past. Alvarez told her that he won the Medal of Honor for rescuing the American Ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis, and that he had been shot in the back as he returned to the embassy to save the American flag. Alvarez reportedly told another woman that he was a Vietnam veteran helicopter pilot who had been shot down but then, with the help of his buddies, was able to get the chopper back into the sky.

The Ninth Circuit reversed the conviction, here .  As predicted, the United States just petitioned for Supreme Court review (petition here).  

The Question Presented is: 

Section 704(B) of Title 18, United States Code, makes it a crime when anyone “falsely represents himself or herself, *** verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoaration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States.”  The Question Presented is Whether 18 U.S.C. 704(B) is facially invalid under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

Stay tuned.