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Colorado court: Workers can be fired for using pot off-duty
Law Firm News |
2015/06/20 16:07
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Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using it.
The state Supreme Court ruled Monday that a medical marijuana patient who was fired after failing a drug test cannot get his job back. The case has big implications for employers and pot smokers in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana.
Colorado became the first state to legalize recreational pot in 2012. Though the case involves medical marijuana, the court's decision could also affect how companies treat employees who use the drug recreationally.
Brandon Coats is a quadriplegic who was fired by Dish Network after failing a drug test in 2010. The company agreed that Coats wasn't high on the job but said it has a zero-tolerance drug policy.
Courts in California, Montana and Washington state also ruled against medical marijuana patients fired for pot use.
Coats argued that his pot smoking was allowed under a Colorado law intended to protect employees from being fired for legal activities off the clock. Coats didn't use marijuana at work, and he wasn't accused of being high on the job. But pot's intoxicating chemical, THC, can stay in the system for weeks. |
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Iowa court allows remote dispensing of abortion pill
Law Firm News |
2015/06/19 16:07
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The Iowa Supreme Court has struck down a restriction that would have prevented doctors from administering abortion-inducing pills remotely via video teleconferencing, saying it would have placed an undue burden on a woman's right to get an abortion.
Iowa is one of only two states that offers so-called telemedicine abortions — Minnesota offers them on a smaller scale — and doctors at Iowa's urban clinics that perform abortions had been allowed to continue offering the remotely-administered abortions while the ruling was pending.
Planned Parenthood's local affiliate, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, had sued the Iowa Board of Medicine over its 2013 decision that would have required a doctor to be in the room with a patient when dispensing abortion-inducing medication.
The board cited safety concerns when it passed the rule requiring a physical examination, but Planned Parenthood and other critics said it was just another attempt by abortion rights opponents to make it harder for women to get abortions. They said the Iowa board's restriction particularly would have made it harder for women in more rural areas who don't live near the few urban clinics where doctors who perform abortions are based.
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Supreme Court won't revive North Carolina abortion law
Law Firm Press |
2015/06/17 16:07
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The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from North Carolina to revive a requirement that abortion providers show and describe an ultrasound to the pregnant woman before she has an abortion.
The justices on Monday left in place an appeals court decision that said the 2011 North Carolina law was "ideological in intent" and violated doctors' free-speech rights.
The North Carolina law would have required abortion providers to display and describe the ultrasound even if the woman refused to look and listen — a mandate that the court found particularly troublesome.
The Guttmacher Institute says North Carolina is among 23 states, mostly in the South and the Midwest, that passed laws dealing with the administration of ultrasounds by abortion providers.
Justice Antonin Scalia voted to hear the appeal. |
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High court says immigration deadlines can be extended
Legal News Feed |
2015/06/15 16:06
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The Supreme Court says federal appeals courts have authority to decide whether people facing deportation should be able to extend the deadlines in immigration proceedings.
The justices ruled Monday in favor of Noel Reyes Mata, a Mexican citizen who had lived in the United States for nearly 15 years. The government began deportation proceedings after he pleaded guilty to an assault charge.
An immigration judge ordered him deported. Mata appealed, but his lawyer failed to file paperwork within the 90 days required. A new attorney tried to reopen the case, but the Board of Immigration Appeals refused.
Mata appealed to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, but the court said it had no authority to order a deadline extension. |
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