Eminent domain is one of the harshest tools government can assert to curtail property rights. Zoning regulates how a property owner may use their property, but eminent domain goes to their right to own the property itself. Traditionally victorious, the government occasionally is overzealous in its application of the doctrine against property owners. Recently, the Chicago Tribune wrote about a victory for property owners against a forfeiture action brought by the US government. The case involves a family owned motel in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.
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The EEOC, despite major budget cuts and a stated goal of suing on behalf of classes or employers engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination, decided to sue on behalf of a woman fired after only 2 days on the job allegedly because she had a prosthetic leg.
The EEOC is the federal administrative agency that authorizes individuals to sue for employment discrimination matters including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (29 U.S.C. § 621-629), and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.). The ACLU confirmed its latest victory in Illinois when Judge Hyman approved its settlement agreement with the Illinois Department of Public Health regarding the Department's prior policy of mandating gender reassignment surgery before it would consider reissuing changed birth certificates reflecting the applicant's new gender.
The ISBA reports today that a recent Seventh Circuit Decision in Bell v. Chicago Police Chief Keating, No. 11-2408 (September 10, 2012) has threatened a Chicago Municipal Code Ordinance, Section 8-4-010(d), which prohibits acts of disorderly conduct when individual knowingly fails to obey lawful police order under circumstances where three or more other persons are committing acts of disorderly conduct in immediate vicinity, and where said acts are likely to cause substantial harm or serious inconvenience, annoyance or alarm. The plaintiffs alleged that the Ordinance violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The District Court ruled that the plaintiff's lacked standing to bring a facial Constitutional challenge to the ordinance. The Seventh Circuit reversed the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division and concluded that there was standing.
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AuthorRishi Nair owns Nair Law LLC and practices as Of Counsel at Keener and Associates, P.C. Archives
October 2013
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