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Court: Red Bulls must pay $2.8M in property tax
Headline News |
2014/05/13 20:54
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A New Jersey appeals court ruled Monday that the state's Major League Soccer franchise is liable for nearly $3 million in property taxes to the town of Harrison.
The New York Red Bulls have played at Red Bull Arena in Harrison since 2010. During that time, the town billed the team for about $1.5 million for the 2010 tax year and about $1.3 million for 2011, according to court documents.
The team has paid the taxes, according to a team spokesman, but had filed a lawsuit to have them reimbursed.
In the lawsuit, the Red Bulls claimed they are exempt from paying taxes under state law because the property and stadium are devoted to "an essential public purpose."
The Red Bulls have the rights to all revenues from the stadium including naming rights, while the town and the Harrison Redevelopment Agency are allowed to use the stadium for events such as high school or college sports championships or public ceremonies.
Monday's appellate ruling held that while those other uses benefit the public, they are subordinate to the Red Bulls' uses of the stadium and therefore don't qualify the stadium for exemption under state law. |
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Court says final 'No' to Jewish restitution claim
Headline News |
2014/05/02 20:36
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The Czech Republic's highest court has confirmed the rejection of a restitution claim by the descendants of a Jewish man who owned a snap button factory that was taken over by the Nazis and then nationalized.
The Constitutional Court confirmed its 2010 verdict, which overturned a 2009 Supreme Court ruling and all previous rulings of lower courts that found in favor of three relatives of Zikmund Waldes, who owned the Koh-i-noor factory in Prague when the Nazis seized it in 1939 during their occupation of what was then Czechoslovakia. The heirs will also not get back a collection of some 20 paintings that were housed in the plant.
The latest verdict sent to The Associated Press by the court on Friday is final. It said the legal complaint by the heirs was "clearly baseless" because it didn't contain any new arguments. |
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High court to hear dispute about TV over Internet
Headline News |
2014/04/21 21:52
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Thirty years ago, big media companies failed to convince the Supreme Court of the threat posed by home video recordings.
Now they're back — and trying to rein in a different innovation that they say threatens their financial well-being.
The battle has moved out of viewers' living rooms, where people once marveled at their ability to pop a cassette into a recorder and capture their favorite programs or the sporting event they wouldn't be home to see.
The new legal fight shifts to the Supreme Court Tuesday with arguments against a startup business using Internet-based technology to give subscribers the ability to watch programs anywhere they can take portable devices.
Aereo takes free television signals from the airwaves and sends them over the Internet to paying subscribers in 11 cities. |
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Oklahoma gay-marriage case before US appeals court
Headline News |
2014/04/17 22:01
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Court arguments over Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage will center on whether voters singled out gay people for unfair treatment when they overwhelmingly defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Judges at a federal appeals court in Denver will hear arguments Thursday from lawyers representing a couple challenging Oklahoma's ban and the Tulsa County clerk who refused to grant them a license. The judges heard a similar case from Utah last week.
Oklahoma voters approved the ban in 2004 by a 3-1 margin. The Tulsa couple tried to obtain a marriage license shortly afterward.
A federal judge overturned the ban in January, saying it violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Lawyers for the state say voters have a right to set their own laws. |
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Supreme Court to hear class-action dispute
Headline News |
2014/04/08 19:10
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The Supreme Court will consider the requirements for transferring class-action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts.
The justices on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from a Michigan energy company that asserts it should be allowed to move a class-action case from Kansas state court to federal court. Federal law allows such transfers in cases involving more than $5 million.
A group of royalty owners sued the Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co. alleging they were underpaid royalties on oil and gas wells. The plaintiffs did not seek a specific damage amount, but the company claimed it would far exceed $5 million.
Video: Supreme Court Won’t Hear NSA Case Now
A federal judge rejected the transfer request because the company did not offer any evidentiary support. The company says the law does not require detailed evidence. |
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Court: Private email exempt from open records law
Headline News |
2014/04/03 23:03
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A California appeals court has ruled that private text messages, emails and other electronic communications sent and received by public officials on their own devices are not public records regardless of the topic.
The 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose ruled last week that the state's Public Records Act doesn't extend to officials' private devices.
The California Supreme Court is expected to be asked to step in and settle this long-simmering debate.
State laws do require the communications of elected officials and other officials involving public issues to be retained and turned over upon request.
Since the coming of email, activists and others in the state have been battling at all levels of government over whether public issues discussed on private devices with personal accounts are covered by the Public Records Act. Similar legal battles and political debates have sprung up across the country as well.
The March 27 ruling reverses a lower court decision in favor of environmental activist Ted Smith, who sought access to messages sent on private devices through private accounts of the San Jose mayor and City Council members
Smith's attorney James McManis said he will ask the state Supreme Court to review the case. If the high court refuses to take it, the appeals court ruling will stand. |
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Two men found guilty for selling U.S. company’s technology
Headline News |
2014/03/07 23:41
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A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.
The jury returned the verdicts against Robert Maegerle and Walter Liew.
They were accused of stealing Delaware-based DuPont Co.’s method for making titanium oxide, a chemical that fetches $17 billion a year in sales worldwide and is used to whiten everything from cars to the middle of Oreo cookies.
A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.
Prosecutors said DuPont was unwilling to sell its method to China, so it was stolen and sent to a company called Pangang Group Co. Ltd., according to testimony during the diplomatically dicey proceedings. The jury heard six weeks of testimony.
Prosecutors alleged that Pangang’s factory is the only facility inside China known to be producing titanium oxide the DuPont way, which uses chlorination. |
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