The New York Court of Appeals holds that the state’s mandatory retirement age for judges — 70 years — is constitutional. The argument was that the retirement age — in place since 1777 — gets the kibosh due tot the
Wait A Second!
The blog "Wait A Second!" published by Bergstein & Ullrich focuses on detailed analyses of recent court decisions and legal principles primarily in employment law, civil rights, and public sector litigation. It covers topics such as employment discrimination, labor law exceptions like the ministerial exception, Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) claims, sexual harassment standards, and indemnification issues for public officials. The blog also discusses appellate court rulings on evidentiary matters, jury instructions, and the impact of Supreme Court decisions on lower court interpretations. It provides insights into how courts interpret statutes and doctrines affecting employees, employers, and public entities.
Latest from Wait A Second! - Page 4
Second Department takes a strong stand on AI hallucinations
The Appellate Division has imposed $11,000 in sanctions against a lawyer and his firm for submitting an appellate brief containing fake case citations, what the legal world now calls hallucinations. This appears to be the Second Department’s most extensive discussion…
Court scales back religious freedom law
The Supreme Court has held that a prisoner cannot sue prison guards for cutting off his religiously-inspired Rastafarian hair. This decision narrowly interprets the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, a religious freedom law which generally allows…
Supreme Court reinstates high profile child murder verdict
The Supreme Court has reinstated the criminal conviction of the man found guilty of the highly-publicized kidnapping and killing of a boy in New York City in 1979.The case is McCarthy v. Hernandez, issued on June 22. We have…
Second Circuit reinstates racial discrimination case
The Court of Appeals has reinstated a racial discrimination lawsuit, holding that the plaintiff alleged enough facts in her complaint to plausibly assert that she was denied a promotion and then terminated from her position because of her race.The case…
Bad court reporter! Bad!
During the criminal trial, the court reporter was unable to capture substantial portions of the trial proceedings. So the stenographer instead recorded, “blah, blah, blah,” “blah blah,” “omitted,” or undecipherable characters instead of the words actually spoken. This is what…
Second chance for murder defendant due to potential Batson violation
At this criminal trial, the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to remove a series of Black jurors from the case. The criminal defendant was convicted of capital murder but challenged the fairness of the trial due to what he claimed…
Supreme Court narrowly interprets Federal Arbitration Act for intrastate bakery drivers
The Supreme Court last week narrowly interpreted the Federal Arbitration Clause — which favors arbitration and usually produces court rulings for management, which does not want cases in court but instead through the private arbitration process — to mean that…
$76,000 First Amendment verdict is taken away
This case has been kicking around for quite some time. The plaintiff argues that the Town of Babylon (on Long Island) accused him of violating the Town’s rental permit requirements in violation of the First Amendment (he claimed the Town…
Disparate impact case for social workers' licensing exam is rejected on appeal
This race discrimination claim alleges that the licensing exam for certain social workers discriminates on the basis of race because Black and Hispanic test-takers perform significantly worse than white candidates but that the Association of Social Work Boards, which administers…