Word: plaintiffs
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...Violence Against Women Act and part of the Brady gun-control law. Conservatives have cheered this as a virtual revolution--although O'Connor, in keeping with her trademark case-by-case approach, has departed from an absolutist position at times. She was on the side of the plaintiff in Tennessee v. Lane, a 2004 decision upholding part of the Americans with Disabilities Act and requiring courtrooms to be accessible to those with physical disabilities. And most famously, she voted in 2000 to step into Florida's disputed presidential balloting and stop the recount, giving the election to George W. Bush...
...three years in the state's high schools. University of Missouri--Kansas City law professor Kris Kobach, counsel for 24 out-of-state students challenging the law, says this still violates the federal statute as well as the Constitution's equal-protection clause by "discriminating against U.S. citizens." Says plaintiff Heidi Hydeman, an Iowan who paid out-of-state fees (now $12,691 a year, vs. $4,737 in-state) to attend K.U.: "It's just not fair." A judge is expected to rule this month...
Sand's decision, which resulted from a suit filed by Jimmy Carter's Justice Department in late 1980, was politely applauded by the Reagan Administration. The N.A.A.C.P., which became a joint plaintiff in 1981, saw the ruling as a boost for similar cases in Milwaukee and Kansas City. Said N.A.A.C.P. Assistant General Counsel Michael Sussman: "We knew we were going to win all along." So perhaps did Yonkers' political establishment, which expressed no surprise at the ruling. Some of the city's officials acknowledge that segregation exists, but have denied that public planning had anything to do with it. DRUGS...
...negligence into novel shapes to justify excessive damage awards to people who claim personal injury (a tort in legal parlance). Avaricious lawyers, they argue, seek outrageously high damages for clients who have flimsy cases, so that the lawyers can reap huge contingency fees (if the case fails the plaintiff's attorney earns nothing, but if it succeeds he commonly takes one-third and, on occasion, as much as 50% of the award). Says Edward Levy, general manager of the Association of California Insurance Companies: "Lawyers are out to make a buck, and they seem to have little concern...
Another legal concept being used ever more widely is that of strict liability, which makes possible an award of damages without any proof of negligence. Initially it was applied, for example, to businesses conducting abnormally dangerous activities. Now it has been expanded to product-liability cases: a plaintiff need not prove that the manufacturer of a product was negligent, only that the plaintiff was injured while using the product in the manner intended...