Lawsuit

" We are angry . . . . " This was the reaction of the president of American Atheists last week upon learning that his organization's lawsuit to tear down the Ground Zero Cross and remove it from the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum had been thrown out by a federal judge. The news came just as these atheists were holding their annual convention over Easter weekend. The two intersecting steel beams in the shape of a cross was discovered among the wreckage from the devastating terrorists attacks of 9/11 . The...

DENVER — Colorado sheriffs upset with gun restrictions adopted in the aftermath of last year's mass shootings filed a federal lawsuit Friday, challenging the regulations as unconstitutional. The lawsuit involves sheriffs from 54 of Colorado's 64 counties, most representing rural, gun-friendly areas of the state. The sheriffs say the new state laws violate Second Amendment protections that guarantee the right to keep and bear arms. Opponents are criticizing the lawsuit as political maneuvering.

Remember that whole sour grapes law suit filed against Tesla Motors and Elon Musk by co-founder and former CEO Martin Eberhard? According to Eberhard's lawyer, he has dropped the suit but doesn't give any clarification as to why Eberhard dismissed the legal action, according to the San Jose Business Journal. We reported earlier this summer that Eberhard filed a lawsuit against Tesla and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, citing allegations of slander, libel and breach of contract. Eberhard made many outrageous accusations, alleging that Musk ?

WASHINGTON — A judge says eight suspended members of the nation's oldest black sorority should be reinstated and a multi-year lawsuit over issues involving sorority money ended. The members of the Chicago-based Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sued the sorority and leader Barbara McKinzie in Washington in 2009. They were suspended as a result shortly after. The sorority sisters questioned McKinzie's spending and payments to her. On Tuesday, a D.C. judge wrote in a 61-page opinion that the...

It reads like a John Grisham novel: Mysterious figures send dozens of anonymous e-mails alleging misdeeds by a boutique commercial real estate firm. Said e-mails flood the inbox of one of the firm's biggest clients, which investigates the allegations of underhanded dealings, resulting in a lawsuit that now has the real estate world buzzing. The client: Bethesda-based Host Hotels & Resorts, the largest hotel owner in the country. The real estate firm: Molinaro Koger, a Vienna brokerage house that has engineered more than $15 billion in...

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by Roy L. Pearson Jr., the former D.C. administrative law judge whose $54 million lawsuit against a dry-cleaning business generated international headlines. Pearson filed the suit in May 2008, alleging that the D.C. government broke the law in refusing to reappoint him to a 10-year term as an administrative law judge. The decision not to reappoint Pearson followed media reports describing Pearson's lawsuit against Custom Cleaners, which he claimed had misplaced a pair of his...

Two hearing-impaired women have sued the District's public housing agency, claiming that it has "routinely" denied them and other deaf residents sign-language interpreters as required under federal law. Jacqueline Young and Latheda Wilson filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The D.C. Housing Authority , they say, has subjected them to "degrading treatment" by forcing them to communicate with agency representatives through "scribbled notes, attempts at lip reading, or...

Loudoun Water has been dropped from a lawsuit filed by residents of Raspberry Falls, a community north of Leesburg, after a Loudoun County Circuit Court judge approved a motion made by the residents' attorney to file a nonsuit, according to a statement Friday by Loudoun Water. The Aug. 5 approval of the motion, which was made by the plaintiffs' attorney, Ted Yoakam, in June, means that the complaint against Loudoun Water is effectively dismissed but that the residents retain the right to refile the suit within six months.

CORRECTION: This article on a handgun lawsuit misstated the name of a list of handguns certified for registration in the District. The standard is the California Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale, also known as the California Roster of Handguns Determined Not to Be Unsafe. A D.C. woman filed suit in U.S. District Court yesterday, claiming that the city would not let her register a pistol because of its color. Tracey A. Hanson argued that her application to register a .45-caliber semiautomatic was denied because the gun...

A lawsuit can crush your business, and theres no foolproof way to prevent someone from suing you if he thinks youve made a mistake, breached a contract or caused him to have an accident while on your premises. The good news is lawsuits are costly and time-consuming, so most sane people wont waste the time and money to sue you if the claim is not substantial and you do everything you can to make yourself an unattractive target. Here are five ways to reduce your liability risk: Use your company as a shield.

WASHINGTON — An American imprisoned in Cuba settled a lawsuit Thursday against the company he was working for when arrested, a lawsuit that claimed he wasn't properly warned about or prepared for the risks of working in the communist nation. Alan Gross and his wife filed the lawsuit in November against the U.S. government and Bethesda, Md.,-based Development Alternatives Inc., a contractor for the government's U.S. Agency for International Development. The $60 million lawsuit...

NORFOLK, Va. — The owner of a hotel in Norfolk will pay nearly $11 million to settle a lawsuit over a toddler's fall from a walkway. Chelsye Clayton's lawsuit against Pride Group Inc. had sought $50 million in damages. The lawsuit says Clayton's son, Elijah Clayton, fell through an opening in a railway on a second-floor walkway at the company's Ramada hotel. The boy suffered permanent brain injuries. He was 2 years old at the time of the accident on Sept. 4,...

WASHINGTON — A District of Columbia judge said Wednesday in a ruling that he won't halt the planned closure of 15 public schools. Opponents of the school closure plan filed a lawsuit in March and asked U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg to halt the closures, which they said improperly discriminated against poor, minority and disabled students. But in a 31-page opinion released Wednesday, Boasberg wrote that there "is no evidence whatsoever" officials intended...

FARGO, N.D. — Abortion rights activists on Wednesday filed the first of what they expect will be several legal challenges to laws recently approved in North Dakota that would make that state the most restrictive in the country for women to terminate their pregnancies. The state's lone abortion clinic, backed by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, said it filed a lawsuit in state court that challenges a law that requires doctors who perform abortions to...

A $43 million lawsuit accuses Virginia Tech of negligence in its response to a warning that a student was suicidal. According to the lawsuit, Daniel Kim committed suicide on Dec. 9, 2007, about a month after the university closed its review. Kim's parents, Elizabeth and William Kim of Reston, filed the lawsuit last week in Fairfax County Circuit Court. The lawsuit claims the university didn't contact Kim, his parents, roommates or professors after a friend sent an e-mail to the school's health center saying the...

Regarding the Jan. 14 news article "4 GOP candidates lose lawsuit to get on Va. primary ballot" : Poor Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman. When their inept campaigns failed to place them on the Virginia primary ballot, did they say, "Oops!" and accept their fates? No. These stalwart Republicans filed a frivolous lawsuit, hoping that an activist judge would legislate from the bench and change the law to accommodate them. Can you say hypocrisy? Lois M. Akin, Gainesville

MEDFORD, Ore. — A federal judge has dismissed a movie company's Internet piracy complaint against 34 Oregonians, saying the company was unfairly using the court's subpoena power in a "reverse class-action suit" to save on legal expenses and possibly to intimidate defendants into paying thousands of dollars for viewing a movie that can be bought or rented for less than $10. The suit involves the 2012 movie "Maximum Conviction" starring Steven Seagal...