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Judges send Tyson workers’ virus lawsuit back to state court
Legal World News |
2022/01/03 18:44
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A federal appeals court has ruled that Tyson Foods can’t claim it was operating under the direction of the federal government when it tried to keep its processing plants open as the coronavirus spread rapidly within them during the early days of the pandemic.
So the Des Moines Register reports that a lawsuit filed by several families of four workers who died after contracting COVID-19 while working at Tyson’s pork processing plant in Waterloo will be heard in state court. The families allege that Tyson’s actions contributed to the deaths.
Tyson had sought to move the case to federal court because it said federal officials wanted it to keep its plants running. The company cited an executive order former President Donald Trump signed that designated meat processors as essential infrastructure.
“The fact that an entity — such as a meat processor — is subject to pervasive federal regulation alone is not sufficient to confer federal jurisdiction,” Judge Jane Kelly wrote in the decision.
The court also noted that Trump’s order was signed in late April 2020 after many of its workers were infected. More than 1,000 Tyson workers at the Waterloo plant tested positive for the virus that spring and at least six died.
Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said the Springdale, Arkansas-based company is disappointed in the court ruling, but he defended the steps Tyson took to keep workers safe during the pandemic.
“We’re saddened by the loss of any of our team members to COVID-19 and are committed to protecting the health and safety of our people,” Mickelson said. “We’ve implemented a host of protective measures in our facilities and in 2021 required all of our U.S. team members to be vaccinated.”
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Griffis beginning 8-year term on Mississippi Supreme Court
Legal World News |
2021/12/25 14:09
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The Mississippi Supreme Court is holding a ceremony Monday for Justice Kenny Griffis to begin a new term of office.
Griffis served 16 years on the state Court of Appeals. In February 2019, then-Gov. Phil Bryant appointed him to fill an open seat on the Supreme Court.
Griffis won an election to the Supreme Court in November 2020. The court has nine justices, and Griffis holds one of two seats with a delay of more than a year between the election and the beginning of the new term.
During the ceremony Monday at the Gartin Justice Building in Jackson, Griffis will take the oath for an eight-year term.
Griffis is a Meridian native who now lives in Ridgeland. He earned accounting and law degrees from the University of Mississippi. He is an adjunct professor at the Mississippi College School of Law and the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Griffis was chief judge of the 10-member Court of Appeals when Bryant moved him to the Supreme Court.
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Georgia high court says gov naming judge was legal
Legal World News |
2021/12/16 11:17
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The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision Tuesday dismissing a challenge to the governor’s appointment of a former state senator as a superior court judge.
The ruling allows Jesse Stone to remain a judge in the Augusta Judicial Circuit. His appointment by Gov. Brian Kemp had been challenged by lawyer Maureen Floyd, who argued Kemp had waited too long to appoint him to fill a vacancy on the court.
The vacancy was created when former judge Michael Annis sent a letter to the governor in December 2019 saying he intended to resign Feb. 1, 2020. The state’s Judicial Nominating Commission on Feb. 17, 2020, submitted a list of four potential candidates to fill the seat, including Stone. Kemp appointed Stone to the seat on Feb. 22, 2021, for a term to end Dec. 31, 2022.
Floyd argued Kemp had waited too long because Annis’ term expired at the end of 2020. Senior Judge Michael Karpf ruled Kemp had not violated the state constitution’s requirement that Kemp fill the vacancy “promptly” and wrote that it did not matter that Annis’ term had run out because previous case law stated that judicial terms of office are eliminated when judges resign.
The judge also rejected Floyd’s claims that Kemp manipulated the appointment process to give Stone a longer period in office before he had to face voters.
Karpf noted Stone will face voters in a nonpartisan election next year, the same time he would have gone before voters even if Kemp had appointed him in February 2020, because state law requires at least a six-month delay before an appointed judge faces voters. Judicial elections generally take place in May, not on the November ballot that includes partisan elected officials.
The high court upheld Karpf’s ruling and noted that removing Stone would prolong the vacancy of that office.
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New Mexico Supreme court mediates clash on pandemic aid
Legal World News |
2021/11/20 15:14
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New Mexico’s Supreme Court is considering whether state legislators should have a greater say in the spending more than $1 billion in federal pandemic aid.
Arguments in the case were scheduled for Wednesday morning at the five-seat high court. A bipartisan list of state senators is challenging Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham as she asserts authority over federal pandemic aid approved by President Joe Biden in March.
Lujan Grisham, a Democrat running for reelection in 2022, has used the relief funds to replenish the state unemployment insurance trust, underwrite millions of dollars in sweepstakes prizes for people who got vaccinated, prop up agriculture wages amid a shortage of chile pickers and provide incentives for the unemployed to return to work. Decisions still are pending on more than $1 billion in federal relief for New Mexico.
In a written court briefings, Lujan Grisham said a state Supreme Court decision nearly 50 years ago upheld the governor’s discretion over federal funding at universities and should hold true broadly regarding federal pandemic relief funds.
Republican Senate minority leader Gregory Baca of Belen and Democratic Sen. Jacob Candelaria of Albuquerque initiated efforts to challenge the governor’s spending authority.
Supportive legal briefs have been filed by state Treasurer Tim Eichenberg and four long-serving Democratic senators. Critics of the governor have said she has overstepped her constitutional authority, blocking the Legislature’s representation of diverse views on how to spend the pandemic relief money.
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