Court Watch 2018/04/09 17:05
Online shoppers have gotten used to seeing that line on checkout screens before they click "purchase." But a case before the Supreme Court could change that.
At issue is a rule stemming from two, decades-old Supreme Court cases: If a business is shipping to a state where it doesn't have an office, warehouse or other physical presence, it doesn't have to collect the state's sales tax.
That means large retailers such as Apple, Macy's, Target and Walmart, which have brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, generally collect sales tax from customers who buy from them online. But other online sellers, from 1-800 Contacts to home goods site Wayfair, can often sidestep charging the tax.
More than 40 states are asking the Supreme Court to reconsider that rule in a case being argued Tuesday. They say they're losing out on "billions of dollars in tax revenue each year, requiring cuts to critical government programs" and that their losses compound as online shopping grows. But small businesses that sell online say the complexity and expense of collecting taxes nationwide could drive them out of business.
Large retailers want all businesses to "be playing by the same set of rules," said Deborah White, the president of the litigation arm of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents more than 70 of America's largest retailers.
For years, the issue of whether out-of-state sellers should collect sales tax had to do mostly with one company: Amazon.com. The online giant is said to account for more than 40 percent of U.S. online retail sales. But as Amazon has grown, dotting the country with warehouses, it has had to charge sales tax in more and more places.
President Donald Trump has slammed the company, accusing it of paying "little or no taxes" to state and local governments. But since 2017, Amazon has been collecting sales tax in every state that charges it. Third-party sellers that use Amazon to sell products make their own tax collection decisions, however.
The case now before the Supreme Court could affect those third-party Amazon sellers and many other sellers that don't collect taxes in all states — sellers such as jewelry website Blue Nile, pet products site Chewy.com, clothing retailer L.L. Bean, electronics retailer Newegg and internet retailer Overstock.com. Sellers on eBay and Etsy, which provide platforms for smaller sellers, also don't collect sales tax nationwide.
States generally require consumers who weren't charged sales tax on a purchase to pay it themselves, often through self-reporting on their income tax returns. But states have found that only about 1 percent to 2 percent actually pay.

Court Watch 2018/04/08 17:06
Georgia's highest court says a man can't be retried for murder after the judge in his case declared a mistrial after about three hours of jury deliberations.
Jedarrius Treonta Meadows was on trial in September 2015 for the February 2014 shooting death of Damion Bernard Clayton in Macon.
The judge declared a mistrial after jurors said they weren't making progress and a bailiff said things had become contentious in the jury room. The defense objected, arguing that three hours of deliberation wasn't unreasonable.
The following month, the defense argued a retrial would violate Meadows' constitutional protection against double jeopardy. The judge rejected that in June.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that the mistrial ruling was made "without sufficient factual support and without considering less drastic alternatives to terminating the trial."
Court News 2018/04/05 21:33
A sharply divided top court voted early Thursday to reject an attempt by former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva to stay out of jail while he appeals a corruption conviction, delivering a hard blow to the front-running candidate in this year's presidential election in Latin America's largest nation.
After nearly 11 hours of often heated debate, the Supreme Federal Tribunal voted 6-5 to deny da Silva's request to stave off a 12-year prison sentence while he fights a conviction that he has always argued was nothing more than a ploy to keep him off of the October ballot.
Despite the conviction and several other corruption charges against him, da Silva leads all preference polls for the election.
The decision means that da Silva will likely be jailed soon, though probably not until at least next week thanks to various technicalities.
Chief Justice Carmen Lucia, who was sharply criticized during the session by various colleagues, cast the deciding vote after the court was tied at 5 to 5.
"The constitution secures individual rights, which are fundamental to democracy, but it also assures the exercise of criminal law," she said.
The debate at the Supreme Federal Tribunal underscored how fraught the matter is at a time of high tension and angst in Brazil.
Justice Gilmar Mendes, traditionally a critic of da Silva, voted in favor of da Silva's petition to stay out of jail, challenging his colleagues to buck pressure from society.
"If a court bows (to pressure), it might as well not exist," said Mendes.
Justice Luis Roberto Barroso argued that the integrity of the justice system was at stake.
"A penal system that doesn't work with minimal effectiveness leads to an instinct for taking justice into one's own hands," Barroso said in voting against da Silva.

Legal Insight 2018/04/05 21:33
In Wisconsin Tuesday, Milwaukee County Judge Rebecca Dallet won a seat on the state Supreme Court, riding a wave of Democratic enthusiasm to victory in this (officially) nonpartisan election.
The race drew national attention, mostly from big-name Democrats from around the country who saw it as an opportunity build momentum before the general election in November.
Dallet won the seat over her opponent, Judge Michael Screnock from Sauk County, Wisc., a former conservative-activist turned lawyer.
"I think my message resonated with Wisconsinites," Dallet told supporters in Milwaukee Tuesday night. "People are tired of special interests ruling and wanted to speak up."
With the win, she will replace outgoing conservative Justice Michael Gableman, bringing the court's 5-2 conservative majority down to 4-3.
While the state's Supreme Court seats are non-partisan, candidates have long found ways to send hints about their political leanings, but this year's race was overtly partisan.
Dallet's first TV ad featured grainy black and white footage of President Donald Trump, warning voters that their values were under attack.
Her endorsements came from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, former Vice President Joe Biden and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
Holder's National Democratic Redistricting Committee ran ads on Dallet's behalf, and he campaigned for her last month during stops in Wisconsin. In a statement Tuesday night, Holder said, "Today, the voters of Wisconsin took a critical first step toward a state government that better reflects their needs and interests."
Screnock, meanwhile, argued Dallet's overtures to Democrats showed she would be an "activist" on the court, but Screnock himself received $300,000 from the Republican Party of Wisconsin, the most a political party has ever spent on a Supreme Court candidate in the state's history.

Legal Business 2018/04/04 21:34
Eye drop users everywhere have had it happen. Tilt your head back, drip a drop in your eye and part of that drop always seems to dribble down your cheek.
But what most people see as an annoyance, some prescription drop users say is grounds for a lawsuit. Drug companies' bottles dispense drops that are too large, leaving wasted medication running down their faces, they say.
Don't roll your eyes. Major players in Americans' medicine cabinets — including Allergan, Bausch & Lomb, Merck and Pfizer — are asking the Supreme Court to get involved in the case.
On the other side are patients using the companies' drops to treat glaucoma and other eye conditions. Wasted medication affects their wallets, they say. They argue they would pay less for their treatment if their bottles of medication were designed to drip smaller drops. That would mean they could squeeze more doses out of every bottle. And they say companies could redesign the droppers on their bottles but have chosen not to.
The companies, for their part, have said the patients shouldn't be able to sue in federal court because their argument they would have paid less for treatment is based on a bottle that doesn't exist and speculation about how it would affect their costs if it did. They point out that the size of their drops was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and redesigned bottles would require FDA approval. The cost of changes could be passed on to patients, possibly resulting in treatment that costs more, they say.
Courts haven't seen eye to eye on whether patients should be able to sue. That's why the drugmakers are asking the Supreme Court to step in. A federal appeals court in Chicago threw out one lawsuit over drop size. But a federal appeals court in Philadelphia let the similar case now before the Supreme Court go forward. That kind of disagreement tends to get the Supreme Court's attention.
And if a drop-size lawsuit can go forward, so too could other packaging design lawsuits, like one by "toothpaste users whose tubes of toothpaste did not allow every bit of toothpaste to be used," wrote Kannon Shanmugam, a frequent advocate before the Supreme Court who is representing the drug companies in asking the high court to take the case.

Press Release 2018/04/03 21:33
German officials say there's been a sharp drop in sales of new diesel cars, following a court decision that allows cities to ban the use of heavily polluting vehicles.
Figures released Wednesday by the Federal Motor Transport Authority show new registrations of diesel-powered cars dropped by 25.4 percent in March to under 109,000, compared with about 146,000 during the same month a year earlier.
Germany's top administrative court ruled Feb. 27 that cities can ban diesel cars and trucks to combat air pollution. The decision is a further blow to diesel fuel technology after the revelations that German automaker Volkswagen cheated on U.S. emissions tests.
The value of diesel vehicles in Germany already had fallen significantly, and their market share has fallen since the VW scandal broke in 2015.