A federal judge in Washington, D.C., engaged in an extensive dressing down of the Trump administration during a Tuesday afternoon hearing that ended in a series of onerous directions to enforce compliance with a temporary restraining order that unfroze contract spending for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The order in the underlying case has been in place for 12 days. And, yet, to date, the government has not complied with the court’s directive to restore funding to worldwide aid programs.

U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali, a Joe Biden appointee, was well aware that his order — which actually covers two similar and since-consolidated cases — was being flouted by the government.

On Tuesday, the judge lost patience with the unlucky government lawyer tasked with defending the administration’s conduct.

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Judiciary

Federal appeals judge, 97, loses bid to unseal documents about her suspension

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 4, 2025, 9:30 am CST

Federal law does not permit a 97-year-old federal appeals judge to unseal documents about her suspension absent consent of the chief judge of her circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Monday.

Judge Pauline Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit wanted to unseal the documents in an appeal of a federal judge’s July ruling dismissing her challenge to the disability law governing her case, Law360 reports.

Newman was suspended in September 2023 for refusing to participate in medical evaluations to determine her mental fitness.

Newman had told the D.C. Circuit that the only confidential information in the documents concern her medical history, Law360 reported. The Federal Circuit countered that the documents were of “questionable relevance” and will soon be released with redactions.

Newman was investigated after evidence was said to show “troubling signs” of her cognitive decline. Her expert, an editor of the principal neurosurgery textbook, said Newman had an “extraordinarily high level of cognitive ability” and appears to be a “super-ager.”

The D.C. Circuit said the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act generally does not permit disclosure of records related to investigations unless written consent is obtained from the judge under investigation and the chief judge of the relevant circuit.

See also:

97-year-old federal appeals judge should be suspended another year for exam refusal, panel says

Federal appeals judge, 97, who refused to cooperate in fitness probe loses challenge to disability law

Investigations of federal judges are rare and should happen more, former clerk says

Federal appeals judge, 96, fails to overturn suspension order for refusing to cooperate in fitness probe

Speaking at ABA meeting, federal appeals judge, 96, doesn’t address her suspension but mentions opinion pace

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A Florida judge ruled in favor of a school district that prevented a mom who modeled for the adult website OnlyFans from volunteering at her kids’ elementary school after it learned what she did for a living.

Victoria Triece sued Orange County Public Schools for $1 million in 2023 after the school district said she would no longer volunteer Sand Lake Elementary School because of her occupation. The principal received an anonymous email in 2021 from a “concerned parent” along with two explicit photos of Triece.

“It has come to several parents at Sand Lake Elementary that one of the room mothers that spends time at the school is publically (sic) posting pornography thru various sources on the internet. This woman is constantly around our children and her public profiles are well known. This is the not the content or subject matter that our children need to be exposed to,” the email read.

The school’s principal, Kathleen Phillips, alerted her boss. Ultimately, the school said she could no longer volunteer. Triece sued, arguing that she was robbed of her due process and privacy rights.

After filing the lawsuit, Triece spoke to the media at attorney Mark NeJame’s office, saying she felt “humiliated.”

“Nobody has the right to judge what other people do for a living. I feel judged, and so isolated,” she said, according to Orlando NBC affiliate WESH.

But Orange County Circuit Judge Brian S. Sandor wrote in a 22-page opinion filed Jan. 29 that Triece does not have a “substantive due process right” to volunteer in the program. Sandor also noted that Triece never appealed the decision with the school district itself. There’s nothing in the district’s policy that says parents have a right to volunteer, the judge argued.

“That policy … does not include any language that confers any right or benefit upon an individual to participate in the program, to remain in the program, or to appeal a removal decision. On these points, the policy is silent,” Sandor wrote.

Triece also stated in her suit that the sexually explicit images attached to the email were distributed among staff within the school and district. The images also were disseminated to media organizations who filed public records requests. The images were public record, according to Sandor.

“Finding that the images are public records that are subject to public disclosure, the Court also finds that on the record presented, Plaintiff cannot prevail on her claim that OCPS invaded her right to privacy by disclosing the images within OCPS, to those OCPS employees who needed the information to respond to public records requests,” Sandor wrote.

Sandor granted the school district’s motion for summary judgement on all accounts.

NeJame did not respond to a request for comment from local CBS affiliate WKMG.

The judge overseeing the Georgia racketeering (RICO) and election interference case against Donald Trump denied a motion by the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party to dismiss election subversion charges based around the fake electors scheme.

David Shafer, the erstwhile Peach State GOP head, was charged in the August 2023 indictment with eight counts including impersonating a public officer, forgery in the first degree, false statements and writings, and criminal attempt to commit filing false documents.

In motions, and during a late March hearing in Fulton County, Shafer’s attorney, Craig Gillen, argued the indictment was defective because of the way prosecutors referred to the legally-suspect effort to have alternate, “contingent,” or fake electors deliver Electoral College votes to the 45th president instead of Joe Biden in several swing states.

“While special demurrers typically contend the charging instrument contains insufficient detail, here, the Defendant does not complain that the indictment is defective because it lacks necessary information,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee explained in the April 4 denial order. “Instead, he suggests certain charges must be dismissed because they contain too much, and that what they contain is legally inaccurate.”

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Disability Law

Coca-Cola delivery man who used slurs as result of Tourette syndrome loses disability suit after job transfer

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 21, 2024, 12:37 pm CST

A Coca-Cola delivery man whose Tourette syndrome caused him to use profanity and racial slurs when stocking customer stores was not entitled to keep that job under the Americans With Disabilities Act, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati ruled against Tennessee driver Cameron Cooper in a Feb. 15 opinion.

HR Dive has coverage, the Volokh Conspiracy has opinion highlights, and the National Law Review has an analysis.

Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, plaintiffs must show that they are disabled. They also must show that they are otherwise qualified for their position without accommodations, with the elimination of a job requirement, or with a reasonable accommodation.

To win the ADA case, the employer then must show that the challenged job requirement is essential and a business necessity, and that any proposed accommodation would be an undue hardship.

Coca-Cola had received at least two complaints from store managers about Cooper’s profanity and racial slurs.

Coca-Cola approved two medical leaves for Cooper; adjusted his route, so that he wouldn’t have to visit Dollar General stores; and allowed him to have a seasonal position as a delivery helper. In December 2019, Coca-Cola moved Cooper to a warehouse position, with negotiated pay of $18.96 per hour instead of the $20.38 per hour that he made as a delivery driver.

Cooper had alleged that the transfer was discriminatory because he was otherwise qualified for the delivery position without an accommodation or, in the alternative, that he was qualified for the position with a reasonable accommodation—an alternative route that was not customer-facing.

The appeals court rejected the arguments in upholding a grant of summary judgment to Coca-Cola.

First, the 6th Circuit determined that “excellent customer service” was an essential function of Cooper’s position. Coca-Cola had identified “excellent customer services skills” in its written job description for Cooper’s job, and Cooper stipulated that those skills were an essential function of the position.

Next, the appeals court concluded that Cooper could not have provided excellent customer service without an accommodation.

“It is undisputed that Cooper used racial slurs, those slurs were decipherable to at least some customers, and the decipherable slurs offended customers,” the 6th Circuit said. “Cooper’s own doctor also stated that Cooper needed an accommodation to perform his job. Based on these facts, the district court did not err in finding that, as a matter of law, Cooper could not provide excellent customer service without an accommodation.”

Finally, the appeals court said Cooper did not identify a reasonable accommodation. He had sought a position that didn’t involve customer interaction, but none was available.

The National Law Review article, written by law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, said the decision has a lesson for employers.

“Although the thought of updating and adding more detail to your written job descriptions may make your HR department grumble, this case demonstrates why good job descriptions are extremely important,” the article said.

“Even something that would seem to be common sense—being able to effectively relate and not offend your customers—may be the key to defending your next lawsuit. [Coca-Cola] defeated this lawsuit because it was able to point to that essential function in the job description, as well as their attempts to figure out any way to accommodate Cooper’s disability.”

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Careers

Legal sector loses 4,400 jobs in January after reaching employment high-water mark in December

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 5, 2024, 9:39 am CST

The legal services sector lost 4,400 jobs in January after reaching all-time highs in November and December, according to seasonally adjusted and preliminary figures released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The sector had 1,187,800 jobs in January and 1,192,200 jobs number in December, a figure that was revised upward from the initial December number reported last month.

The December number—as well as the revised November number of 1,188,100 jobs—outpaced the previous high of 1,187,900 jobs set in July 2022.

The sector gained 3,100 jobs in November and 4,100 jobs in December before losing 4,400 jobs in January, according to the revised figures. The numbers for January and December are still preliminary.

The jobs number is based on payroll jobs for attorneys and staff members working at law firms providing legal services. The jobs data can change in recent monthly revisions, as well as the annual look-back process.

Reuters and Law360 are among the publications covering the jobs report.

The Florida hospital that was recently found civilly liable for medically kidnapping a young girl to the point it drove her mother to suicide lost its first bid for a new trial on Wednesday afternoon.

The new trial motion was based on shocking allegations of juror misconduct allegedly committed by Juror Number 1.

Chief among those claims was the notion that the juror had an extreme dislike of one of the defense witnesses, a hospital employee named Sally Smith. In a headline-generating filing, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg suggested that Juror No. 1 likened Smith to the Nazi Schutzstaffel, widely known by their initials, SS.

Before the hearing, the court severely cabined the line of questioning that the juror would be subject to — entirely short-circuiting the hospital’s efforts to bring up the Nazi-Smith imagery allegations.

Whither Child Services?

The questioning began with Judge Hunter W. Carroll showing the juror a court filing submitted by his then-wife in 2002. Both agreed the case was more or less over before it began. The juror was served, and his then-wife never showed up for a scheduled hearing.

That 20-plus-year filing had something to do with minors — because the couple had three children at the time, judge and juror established. Carroll then asked Juror No. 1 some pointed questions.

First, the judge wanted to know if the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) had any involvement with the three minor children.

The juror said he did not.

Then, the judge asked if the DCF ever sheltered his children.

Again, the answer from the juror was a “No.”

In their first supplemental motion for a new trial, hospital attorneys argued Juror No. 1 “may have harbored ill feelings” toward DCF.

So, the judge asked the juror if, at the time the Kowalskis filed their lawsuit, he had any “strongly held opinions” about the DCF.

The juror said he did not. The judge got slightly more specific.

“How about the government’s ability to remove children from the care of their parents?” Carroll asked.

To which the juror replied: “No opinion at all.”

Debra Salisbury, J.D.

An even shorter series of inquiries concerned a Sarasota-based attorney named Debra Salisbury, who represented the Kowalski family while Maya was still being kept away from her family.

The hospital claims that Salisbury represented or was otherwise involved with the juror’s current wife during a 2007 case.

That case did not include the juror — he married his wife in 2016.

In response to Carroll’s questions, the juror said he did not know Salisbury, had never heard about her until All Children’s made their allegations in the new trial motions, and that he has, to his knowledge, never been around Salisbury in any kind of official proceeding.

The Court’s Instructions

Questioning then turned to wider and more specific issues about the instructions Carroll gave jurors when the proceedings began.

In response to a question, Juror No. 1 said he followed all the court’s instructions. Pressed by the judge, the juror said he did not speak with anyone, including his wife, about the case while it was in progress.

Earlier efforts by the hospital to win a new trial included allegations that Juror No. 1 shared information about the case with his wife, who then shared the information in online, pro-plaintiff communities.

“Are you able to tell me for sure that your wife — or no one else — no one gave you any information about this case at all?” Carroll asked.

“No one,” the juror replied. “And I did not seek out any information.”

Other questions about outside information — either coming or going — resulted in the juror saying that he did not obtain any information about the case while it was going on in any other way. Specifically, when asked, he said he never saw the website of one of Maya’s primary care physicians — stressing that he neither searched for it himself nor saw it when someone else searched for it.

Juror No. 1 Leaves

With the juror outside the courtroom, the hospital asked for a few additional questions to be leveled against Juror No. 1.

An attorney for the hospital explained that the juror’s wife came into court one day during the trial and watched the proceedings.

The hospital wanted the judge to inquire as to whether (1) the juror had any discussions with her about her attendance beforehand, (2) whether the juror saw his wife in court that day, (3) whether the juror and his wife communicated in any way during the trial that day; (4) whether they had lunch together that day; and (5) whether or not the couple talked about the day’s proceedings after the fact.

An attorney for the Kowalski family objected to all of the questions offered by All Children’s — noting that the court did not order anyone to be mute with their wife or not to look at their wife.

“We believe that these questions are completely inappropriate and lead us nowhere,” the plaintiff’s attorney said.

The judge did pare the questions down a bit.

Juror No. 1 Returns

Upon returning to the stand, the juror and judge established that the man’s wife appeared in court the day before he dyed his hair orange for Halloween — a significant point only for memory’s sake.

Asked whether he saw his wife in court that day, the juror said he did not — because he suffers from various issues with his vision.

Then, Carroll asked Juror No. 1 if he knew his wife was coming to court that day. He said he did know that she was coming. The juror said his wife expressed interest in attending that same morning — and that he acknowledged her request: “I said ‘fine with me’ and that was the end of the conversation.”

The juror said there was no communication between himself and his wife — visual or non-visual — in court that day.

The juror was then released.

Closing arguments

Closing arguments were exceptionally quick.

An attorney for the hospital said the defense’s argument comes down to credibility. He said their side wanted to ask additional questions but understood the court foreclosed against them.

The Kowalski family’s attorney was also succinct.

“The court essentially wrote our argument,” the plaintiff’s attorney said. “It’s time to put this to bed.”

The judge then tersely ruled in favor of the Kowalskis.

“At the end of the day, the defense has failed to demonstrate any juror misconduct,” Carroll ruled. “The court will therefore deny the motion for new trial based on juror misconduct.”

The ordeal suffered by then-10-year-old Maya Kowalski and her family is famously depicted in the popular and critically acclaimed Netflix documentary, “Take Care of Maya.” A roughly two-month-long civil trial earlier this year reprised the claims made in that film against the hospital for the way staff there treated the chronically ill girl — and then some — including her false imprisonment and battery.

In November, a six-person jury in Sarasota County unanimously found Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg liable for the incidents leading up to the January 2017 death of Beata Kowalski, 43. Jurors awarded the Kowalski family far more than they even requested — a total of $261 million in compensatory and punitive damages to make up for their loss and to punish the hospital.

With the juror issue now off the table, other new trial motions are left to be dealt with. Caroll said he hopes to have more answers to various outstanding motions by Jan. 22.

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An Ohio police officer has lost his defamation claims against several racial justice activists who accused him of being a racist and “white supremacist” during a dispute after a city council meeting in 2020.

A three-judge panel on Ohio’s First District Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a defamation case brought by Cincinnati police officer Ryan Olthaus in a 16-page opinion released on Wednesday.

In July 2020, Olthaus, at first anonymously, filed a lawsuit complaining that Julie Niesen, Terhas White, Allisa Gilley, James Noe, and several other unnamed Does defamed him over his use of the “OK” hand gesture – where one’s thumb and forefinger connect in a circular shape while the three remaining fingers are extended.

A trial court initially allowed Olthaus to remain anonymous in court filings – though his identity was broadly known. The Ohio Supreme Court later made the officer’s name a matter of public record.