Posts on ‘February 19th, 2010’

Along with lifetime tenure and broad legal authority, federal judges decide for themselves whether they should step down from a case because of biases that might influence the outcome. A leading proposal in Congress would require that recusal motions be heard before a second judge, which is similar to what has been adopted by at least 21 states. Another idea, now used in at least 19 states, would give each side a “strike” mandating a judge step aside when there are questions about impartiality.

Under scrutiny from a U.S. House committee and with its president set to testify on Capitol Hill next week, Toyota has turned to a King & Spalding lawyer with a long history of representing corporations under congressional investigation. Washington, D.C., partner Theodore Hester is representing the troubled Japanese automaker, congressional aides say. A decade ago, Hester was involved in another inquiry into auto safety when he helped Bridgestone/Firestone after the company recalled 6.5 million tires.

In a recent decision a Delaware court found a defendant in contempt of court for wiping the unallocated space of the hard drive of his work computer. Attorney Leonard Deutchman argues the order is suspect and places a dubious value on the computer equivalent of a wastepaper basket.

The first batch of formerly confidential papers filed with Judge Jed Rakoff in the SEC’s case against Bank of America shows that Wachtell and BofA agreed fairly quickly that the bank did not have to disclose that estimates of Merrill’s fourth-quarter 2008 losses rose from $5 billion to $15 billion as a shareholder vote approached on whether to approve the Merrill acquisition. This contrasts with the narrative that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has presented in his lawsuit against BofA and three top executives.

In a case that has set the blogosphere abuzz, a federal lawsuit filed in Philadelphia alleges that 1,800 students were given laptop computers equipped with webcams, which — unbeknownst to the students or their parents — could be activated at any time by school officials to spy on the students and their families in their homes. The suit claims that word of the alleged surveillance got out after a school official confronted a student, now the lead plaintiff, with a webcam photo in which he displayed “improper behavior.”

A U.S. House committee has demanded that Dimitrios Biller turn over internal documents that the former in-house attorney says would substantiate his allegation that Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. routinely destroyed and hid evidence in personal injury cases, Biller’s lawyer said on Thursday. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been investigating Toyota’s recall of 10 million vehicles because they are subject to out-of-control acceleration and other problems.