Tag: lawsuits

Wichita Man Sues City To Rip Out Its 200-Camera Flock Dragnet

A Wichita machinist, Mason Grimmett, sued his own city this week, arguing that the roughly 200 Flock license-plate readers the police department has bolted around town amount to warrantless dragnet surveillance forbidden by the Kansas Constitution. The complaint, filed in Sedgwick County District Court by the Kansas Justice Institute, does not ask for money — rather, it asks a judge to declare the program unconstitutional and shut it down.

The cameras are made by Flock Safety, one of the largest plate-reader vendors in the country, and Wichita started installing them in 2020. The institute now describes the city as saturated with them — close to 200 AI-powered cameras photographing every passing vehicle and logging its make, model, color, plate, and identifying marks into a searchable database. Grimmett, a lifelong Wichita resident who testified against the program at a public meeting in June, argues that the system violates Section 15 of the state constitution, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that the city is, in the complaint’s language, tracking and databasing law-abiding Kansans “without a warrant, without probable cause, without reasonable suspicion” and without any judicial oversight at all.

The Cops Who Already Abused It

Grimmett points to several local cases in which Kansas police used Flock cameras to stalk people, including abuse by former Kechi Police Lt. Victor Heiar, who was sentenced to eighteen months of probation for using Flock cameras to track a woman. According to local reports, a former detective was also accused of using plate-reader technology to stalk his wife, and a Sedgwick-area police chief reportedly ran an ex-girlfriend through the cameras 164 times. The institute is not disputing that the cameras help solve crimes. Its point is that they photograph everyone, all the time, and that the same access which cracks a burglary case also lets a jealous cop follow whoever he pleases.

“This is America, and we don’t tolerate warrantless surveillance,” said Sam MacRoberts, the institute’s litigation director, who says that if the government wants to monitor a citizen it ought to go to a judge and explain why. Grimmett says he cannot drive to work, the gym, a doctor’s appointment, a polling place, or a meeting of the local Sunflower Privacy Alliance without being catalogued by the department and by Flock.

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Rep. Harriet Hageman Introducing Bill to Stop Climate Change Groups From Filing ‘Shakedown’ Lawsuits

Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming is introducing a new bill called the ‘Stop Climate Shakedowns Act’ which is intended to stop climate change groups from filing frivolous lawsuits blaming corporations for the effects of climate change.

Hageman suggests that these groups do this almost as a form of tax that they would never be able to get passed the proper way, through Congress.

She mentions that she partnered with Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz on this.

Townhall has more details:

Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming is sounding the alarm that these activists are also trying to sue their way into taxing Americans in the name of “fighting climate change.” She’s introduced a Stop Climate Shakedowns Act to prevent this activist grift.

“It is the Stop the Climate Shakedowns Act, and what this has to do with is there are many communities and states around the country that have … filed lawsuits against our energy companies claiming that they are responsible for climate change and the impacts of climate change, and this is an effort to try, really, it’s another way of taxation, is really what these communities are doing,” Hageman said.

“So they’ve either adopted superfund laws claiming that producing energy has caused climate change and so those energy producers should be responsible for paying billions upon billions upon billions of dollars in fines,” she continued, “and then on the other hand, they’re just flat-out suing.”

“The city of Boulder, Colorado, has a lawsuit pending in front of the United States Supreme Court right now against Suncorp. So the purpose of my legislation, and I filed this in conjunction with Senator Ted Cruz, is to stop these lawsuits in their tracks,” Hageman said.

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Christian Physician Assistant Fired for Resisting Transgender Dogma Gets $410,000 Lawsuit Settlement

A Michigan physician assistant (PA) who alleged she was fired after refusing to comply with hospital transgender policies because of her religious beliefs is receiving a $410,000 settlement in her wrongful termination lawsuit.

Valerie Kloosterman sued University of Michigan Health-West (UMHW) filed suit in 2022 after she was fired in August 2021, alleging the 200-bed suburban Grand Rapids teaching hospital was requiring her to go against her conscience as a Christian.

“All I wanted to do was provide the best care possible to my patients without being forced to violate my Christian beliefs,” Kloosterman said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

She was represented in the lawsuit by First Liberty Institute, which documented that Kloosterman had “received positive performance reviews throughout her employment before raising faith-based objections to mandatory gender identity training,” the news outlet reported.

The legal advocacy nonprofit reported she was terminated after requesting a religious accommodation from finishing training that “required her to affirm statements about gender identity that were in violation of her Christian faith.”

No effort was made to accommodate her, according to the institute which takes on civil rights cases to “reclaim religious freedom in America.”

According to Fox Digital’s report:

The lawsuit says University of Michigan Health-West officials called her to a meeting, where they disparaged her religious beliefs, called her “evil” and a “liar,” told her she could not bring her Christian beliefs into the workplace, and accused her of contributing to suicides among individuals with gender dysphoria.

The settlement also calls on the hospital to prevent such punitive behavior from happening again.

Under its terms, UMHW has agreed to formulate a religious accommodation policy that complies with the law, inform and train all employees, and give reasonable religious accommodations without retribution to those who request it, the institute said.

“This new policy ensures that providers of faith and employees at UMHW will receive religious accommodations so that they can provide excellent care consistent with their medical judgment, because all patients are created in the image of God,” Kloosterman said in her statement to Fox News Digital.

The PA’s lawsuit was not a frivolous pursuit, her attorney said, but based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination on several characteristics, including race and religion.

“Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against and punishing employees for their faith,” Kayla Toney, counsel at First Liberty, said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.

She continued, “Valerie is an exceptional physician assistant who cares for each of her patients. Employers cannot drive out people like Valerie just because of their sincere religious beliefs. We are grateful to have resolved this matter with University of Michigan Health-West.”

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Federal Court Rules For Woman Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine

Kaiser Permanente wrongly fired an employee who declined to receive a COVID-19 vaccine because she gave proper notice to the company of her religious objection to COVID-19 vaccination, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Mimi Weiss, who worked for Kaiser Permanente’s The Permanente Medical Group for 20 years before being fired, “plausibly alleged that she provided notice of her religious conflict with the mandate in her initial request for a religious exemption,” Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest wrote on July 24 for a unanimous panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Weiss was working fully remotely, or off-site, in August 2021 as a senior managerial consultant when Kaiser Permanente imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Weiss, a Christian Jew, within weeks filed for a religious exemption, and Kaiser Permanente initially approved the request.

In September 2021, though, Kaiser Permanente said employees had submitted religious accommodation requests with identical language. Expressing concern that some of the requests were not legitimate, the company asked employees to file fresh requests using their own words. Officials then asked Weiss new questions, including, “What else besides the COVID-19 vaccine do you refuse to put in your body as a result of your religious belief?”

Weiss said she would not provide private information. Kaiser Permanente placed her on unpaid leave. Then it fired her for not complying with the mandate, prompting a lawsuit by Weiss.

A federal judge in 2024 ruled against her, concluding that Weiss had not provided Kaiser Permanente with sufficient notice of the conflict between receiving a vaccine and her beliefs.

The Ninth Circuit ruling overturns that decision, pointing to a previous opinion in which the appeals court said that to provide notice, an employee must only give “enough information about [her] religious needs to permit the employer to understand the existence of a conflict,” and that requiring any more details “would permit an employer to delve into the religious practices of an employee in order to determine whether religion mandates the employee’s adherence.”

Applying that framework to the current case means that Weiss did give adequate notice, the panel said, because she identified herself as a Christian Jew, listed specific doctrines that she said barred her from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, and outlined her belief that she should not “introduce foreign substances” into her “body temple” that would “change how [her] Creator designed it.”

In a split 2-1 decision, the panel also said that Weiss has shown sufficient evidence to bring forth allegations that Kaiser Permanente violated her right to privacy.

Kaiser Permanente did not return a request for comment by publication time.

“I never imagined my faith would end up costing me my job,” Weiss said in a statement.

“I wasn’t asking Kaiser for special treatment, just the freedom to live according to my conscience. After 20 years of service, I didn’t think that was too much to ask.

“I’m grateful the court recognized that religious employees should not have to give up their beliefs or their privacy to keep their jobs.”

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Justice Department sues Colorado over in-state tuition and financial aid for illegal immigrants

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Colorado over the alleged offering of in-state tuition and financial aid to illegal immigrants attending public colleges and universities, the latest legal challenge over what critics say amounts to discrimination against U.S. citizens.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Colorado federal court, names the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, the state Department of Higher Education and its director, JB Holston, as defendants.

“For three decades, Congress has made clear that Colorado cannot give education benefits to illegal aliens that it does not give to all American citizens,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward.

“By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, Colorado is not only violating federal law but subsidizing education for illegal aliens at taxpayers’ expense.

“Our litigation efforts will not cease until we have fulfilled President [Donald] Trump’s promise that illegal aliens will not obtain preferential treatment over our nation’s own citizens.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to both agencies named in the lawsuit for comment.

A spokesperson for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said each state has the right to determine how to grant in-state tuition rates. 

“The federal government seizing control of determining in-state tuition across the country is absurd,” the spokesperson told Fox News. “In Colorado, we are expanding access to education to provide students with the skills to get good-paying jobs and doubling down on strategies to save students money.” 

The complaint argues that the Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow (ASSET) Act and related state policies violate a federal statute that prohibits states from offering higher education benefits to illegal immigrants based on their residency unless the same benefits are available to all U.S. citizens.

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Metaphysical Shop Owner’s Lawsuit Over Pennsylvania Fortune Telling Ban Moves Ahead

Following a legal victory earlier this summer, a metaphysical shop owner’s lawsuit over Pennsylvania’s ban on fortune telling could go to trial next year. The compelling case dates back to October of 2023 when the Serpent’s Key Shoppe and Sanctuary in the community of Hanover received an unexpected visit from the borough’s police chief, Chad Martin. Rather than picking up some occult supplies, the lawman instead offered a rather worrisome warning to owner Beck Ravenswood about the possibility of legal trouble should they violate the state’s 165-year-old law against divination. “He informed me basically he is not here to arrest me or press charges,” the shop owner recounted at the time, “however, if he ever gets a report from anyone, he will be back on my doorstep.”

The incident understandably did not sit well with Ravenswood, who filed a civil rights lawsuit against Martin and the town of Hanover in August of 2024. Nearly two years later, the case is still winding its way through the legal system, with the shop owner recently securing a significant legal victory. “The DA’s office had been trying to dismiss my case,” Ravenswood explained to a local media outlet, “saying it wasn’t important enough for the court to rule on.” However, they received word in June that the request had been rejected. “Judge Wilson finally looked at the evidence and said there’s a compelling argument here, and we need to determine what is really at the heart of this lawsuit,” Ravenswood said, “is it about witchcraft, or is it about freedom of speech? That’s really what it is.”

In a conference call between the parties on Wednesday, a discovery deadline was set for November 30th, and what the shop owner has cleverly taken to calling the ‘Hanover Witch Trial’ was added to the court’s calendar for June of 2027. That said, Ravenswood’s attorney reportedly indicated that they intend to request a summary judgment on the constitutionality of the law, which could eliminate the soothsaying ban once and for all without the need for any further court proceedings. Meanwhile, regardless of how the case ultimately unfolds, the antiquated restriction may not be on the books for much longer, as a state legislator introduced a still-in-committee bill that would repeal the restriction last June.

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Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Just Got Hit With Its First Major Lawsuit

The first lawsuit against Zohran Mamdani’s latest rent freeze on New York City apartments was filed Wednesday, as a group of landlords moved to overturn the New York City Rent Guidelines Board’s decision. 

The suit argues that the Board went through a “sham process” before voting 7-1 in June to impose zero rent increases on one and two-year leases. Although the Board is supposed to operate independently, its members can be appointed and removed by the mayor at will. In fact, six of the current board members were appointed by Mamdani.

While the Rent Guidelines Board is required to review the economic conditions of the residential real estate industry before voting, the lawsuit alleges that it cherry-picked the data, underestimating operating costs and overstating the money landlords were receiving in order to justify its decision. The suit also points to the resignation of one board member before the vote, noting that the landlord representative quit in frustration after concluding the board had ceased to function as a fact-finding body and that her former colleagues intended to freeze rent no matter what the evidence showed.

“Zohran Mamdani promised to deliver a rent freeze during his campaign and then he went to extraordinary lengths as a new mayor to guarantee it,” Randy Mastro, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said. “This is a perversion of the process.”

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Erin Brockovich’s crusade against data centers is going crowd-sourced

Erin Brockovich is getting Americans to report data centers in their backyards.

The renowned environmental activist, whose work inspired the Julia Roberts film “Erin Brockovich,” launched a registry of US data centers in April, inviting nearby residents to report how the projects are affecting their communities.

Speaking in an interview with podcaster Theo Von, released on Sunday, Brockovich talked about how she woke up one day to find 30 emails from people talking about the issues living around data centers.

“So I created what’s called brockovichdatacenter.com, where people, if they were having issues with data centers in their backyard, could self-report,” she said.

“This is a place where people who I believe are living, breathing, and experiencing these issues are the best source of information,” Brockovich added.

According to her May Substack post, she launched the registry on April 27. She said on the podcast that within 72 hours of launching the registry, the website crashed twice because of the volume of reports.

Brockovich said the reports shared a common thread: Residents had not been informed about the data center projects by their city councils and often woke up to find construction underway.

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Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot

A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot.

District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers.

About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment.

Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was “the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.”

U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court last September and has since retired. Alsup had dealt the case a mixed ruling last summer, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn’t illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites.

Bestselling thriller novelist Andrea Bartz first brought the suit with two other authors in 2024.

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You Can’t Make This Up: Illegal Alien Convicted for Killing Ruby Garcia, SUES Trump for “Humiliating” Him by Highlighting His Crime in Campaign Ads — Demands $75.5 Million, Counseling, and U.S. Citizenship

A Mexican national illegal alien who brutally murdered a young Michigan woman is suing President Donald Trump from prison because the President told the truth about him.

Brandon Ortiz-Vite, currently serving a 39-to-102-year sentence for the cold-blooded murder of 25-year-old Ruby Garcia, has filed a handwritten federal lawsuit against President Trump and White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Steven Cheung.

The illegal alien claims Trump “humiliated” him and turned his life into a “nightmare” by using his case as an example of Biden’s open-border bloodbath during the 2024 campaign.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported in March 2024, Ortiz-Vite was an illegal alien from Mexico who had already been deported under the Trump administration in 2020 after a drunk driving arrest.

He snuck back into the country and, on March 22, 2024, shot his girlfriend Ruby Garcia multiple times in the head during an argument, dumped her body on the shoulder of U.S. 131 near Grand Rapids, and fled in her car. He later turned himself in at a church and confessed.

The Gateway Pundit documented at the time that Ortiz-Vite had been ordered removed by an immigration judge and physically removed to Mexico on September 29, 2020, only to re-enter illegally and claim another American life under the Biden-Harris regime.

Trump visited Grand Rapids days later and rightly highlighted the case as a prime example of the deadly consequences of open borders. Campaign ads featuring the killer’s mugshot and status as an illegal alien who had already been deported once aired nationally, MLive reported.

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