Tag: lawsuits

Lawsuit Challenges National Park Service Ban on Cash Payments

Across the United States, cash is quietly disappearing from places that once took it without question. Government agencies and private businesses now route even the smallest transactions through digital networks that record who paid, when, and where.

This has created a growing dependence on card processors and mobile payment companies that profit from every exchange and hold the power to deny or suspend access.

That dependence has now reached federal land. The National Park Service has begun refusing cash at dozens of parks and historic sites, forcing visitors to use electronic payment systems to enter public property.

A lawsuit challenging that policy argues that by excluding physical currency, the agency is violating federal law and pushing citizens into a digital system that tracks their movements and spending.

Attorney Ray Flores has filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seeking to overturn the dismissal of a lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS) for refusing to accept cash at dozens of federal sites.

We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.

The case, backed by Children’s Health Defense, centers on whether a federal agency can legally decline the very currency the government itself issues.

At issue is the NPS policy that bars visitors from paying park entrance fees with cash. The appeal argues that the agency has violated both the Administrative Procedure Act and the Legal Tender Statute, which defines US coins and bills as “legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.”

Flores wrote that the district court’s earlier decision effectively “demonetized the U.S. Dollar on federal property without justification.”

His brief asks the appeals court to declare the policy unlawful or send the case back for trial.

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Trump Administration Begins Suing Illegal Migrants Who Have Not Self-Deported

The Trump administration has begun suing individual illegal migrants for ignoring removal orders and refusing to self-deport back to their home countries, a report says.

The administration has filed suit against an illegal migrant living in Virginia, and is seeking $941,114 plus interest, alleging that Marta Alicia Ramirez Veliz has remained in the country despite being told her request for admittance was rejected by a Justice Department appeals panel in 2022, Politico reported.

The filing notes that Veliz has refused to pay a $998 per-day fine for the 943 days since she was told to return to her home country, and reveals that Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent her an official notice of her total fine in April.

The lawsuit describes Veliz as “an individual and noncitizen residing in Chesterfield County, Virginia,” and does not identify her nationality.

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President Announces to Sue Disgraced Michael Wolff After Explosive Epstein Files Reveal Alleged Plot to Smear Him

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he will sue left-wing author Michael Wolff after newly released Epstein files revealed what Trump says was a coordinated effort to politically sabotage him.

The announcement came after the U.S. Department of Justice dumped millions of pages of newly unsealed Epstein-related records into the public domain, documents the corporate media spent years hyping as a supposed smoking gun against Trump.

The latest disclosure from the U.S. Department of Justice includes more than three million documents, pursuant to House Resolution 4405, the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

In a February 1, 2019 email, Epstein forwarded material to Wolff that explicitly states Trump “never got a massage” during visits to Epstein’s home, a claim Epstein attributed to testimony from his own house manager, John Alessi.

Speaking to reporters while flying to Florida, Trump addressed the explosive release for the first time, saying he had been briefed by “very important people” on what the files actually show.

Trump: “It looked like this guy, Wolff, who was a writer, was conspiring with Epstein to do harm to me. I didn’t see it myself, but I was told by some very important people that not only does it absolve me—it’s the opposite of what people were hoping, the radical left—that Wolff, who was a third-rate writer, was conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein, politically or otherwise. And that came through loud and clear. So we’ll probably sue Wolff on that.”

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President Trump Files $10 Billion Lawsuit Against IRS for Leaking His Tax Returns

President Trump, Eric Trump, Don Jr., and the Trump Org filed a lawsuit against the IRS for leaking their tax returns.

They are seeking $10 billion in damages.

In September 2023, federal prosecutors charged a former IRS contractor who worked for the agency from 2018 to 2020 with unlawfully obtaining and disseminating the tax details of a high-ranking public official and numerous affluent Americans to media outlets.

According to court documents and an official press release from the Department of Justice, Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official, referred to as Public Official A  – now known as Donald Trump. He then disclosed this information to a news organization identified as News Organization 1 – now known as The New York Times.

Littlejohn reportedly stole IRS information on thousands of wealthy people. The stolen information was then disseminated to two news outlets (New York Times and ProPublica).

“In July and August 2020, Littlejohn separately stole tax return information for thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals. Littlejohn was again able to evade IRS detection. In November 2020, Littlejohn disclosed this tax return information to News Organization 2, which published over 50 articles using the stolen data. Littlejohn then obstructed the forthcoming investigation into his conduct by deleting and destroying evidence of his disclosures,” the DOJ previously said.

Littlejohn was only sentenced to five years in prison. Political leaders said he should have been sentenced to 60 years.

“The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to the New York Times, ProPublica and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told CNBC.

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Google agrees to $68m settlement over claims it recorded private conversations

Google is facing a class action after its users claimed the company was spying on them.

The company has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a lawsuit as users accuse the company of violating their personal privacy.

Google’s virtual assistant, an AI powered software available on android phones and tablets, has been accused of recording private conversations.

The software activates when users use “wake words”, a verbal cue prompting the device to actively listen to commands, like “Hey Google” or “Okay Google”.

The assistant is designed to only switch from passive monitoring to active listening when it hears wake words.

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U.S. lawmakers propose legislation to allow citizens to sue ICE. A CT senator is leading the way

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations are spreading across the nation, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal is proposing legislation to allow people to sue ICE agents for violating their civil and constitutional rights.

The proposal comes amid the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis and widespread protests against ICE operations under President Donald Trump’s administration. Under Blumenthal’s proposal, the legislation would allow cases to be heard in civil court.

Under current law, federal law enforcement officers have qualified immunity from civil cases, shielding them from lawsuits. But federal law enforcement are not shielded from prosecution for committing crimes, he said.

The Accountability for Federal Law Enforcement Act, co-introduced by Blumenthal and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) in December, would authorize states to bring civil actions against federal agencies whose violations of the law pose an imminent and substantial risk to public safety or constitutional rights. Blumenthal said he introduced the legislation before the controversial killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.

“Individual victims of excessive force should have recourse also. They do against local and state law enforcement, but not against federal officers,” Blumenthal said at a press conference on Friday. “I’m introducing legislation that will give everyday Americans recourse. A remedy in court when their rights our violated. In amends the 1983 statute to provide rights in court for people when they are abused by violation of the law by federal officers. Just like they can sue local and state officers when they are abused.”

The Connecticut Democrat called the legislation “overdue” and said that there is precedent in a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case. In Webster Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the court held that some lawsuits against federal officers can be warranted. Since the case 50 years ago, recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have narrowed that ruling, leaving many victims of federal misconduct without meaningful recourse.

“It has been narrowed and cut back by successive Supreme Court decisions. We need to make it real and provide recourse and remedies so that rights can be vindicated. When people are shot or dragged out of cars and injured or denied a lawyer when they are retained often result in trauma and injury. These violations must be addressed,” Blumenthal said.

The Accountability for Federal Law Enforcement Act is co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).

Blumenthal said that some Republicans may also support the legislation.

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The $134 Billion Betrayal: Inside Elon Musk’s Explosive Lawsuit With OpenAI

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft has evolved into a high-stakes dispute over whether OpenAI stayed true to the mission it was founded on or quietly outgrew it while relying on that original promise.

Musk is seeking between $79 billion and $134 billion in damages, a figure derived from an expert valuation that treats his early funding and contributions as foundational to what OpenAI later became. While the number is enormous, the heart of the case is simpler: Musk argues he helped create and fund a nonprofit dedicated to AI for the public good, and that OpenAI later abandoned that commitment in a way that amounted to fraud.

According to Musk’s filings, his roughly $38 million in early funding was not just a donation but the financial backbone of OpenAI’s formative years, supplemented by recruiting help, strategic guidance, and credibility. His damages theory, prepared by financial economist C. Paul Wazzan, ties those early inputs to OpenAI’s current valuation of around $500 billion.

The claim is framed as disgorgement rather than repayment, with Musk arguing that the vast gains realized by OpenAI and Microsoft flowed from a nonprofit story that attracted support and trust, only to be discarded once the company reached scale, according to TechCrunch. 

Much of the public attention has centered on internal documents uncovered during discovery, particularly private notes from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman in 2017.

One line has become central to Musk’s argument: “I cannot believe that we committed to non-profit if three months later we’re doing b-corp then it was a lie.”

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Top US court to review suit against German chemicals giant

The US Supreme Court will hear an appeal by German chemical company Bayer on a Roundup-related case in which a man was awarded $1.25 million, claiming the herbicide gave him blood cancer.

The court made the announcement regarding Monsanto Co. v. Durnell in a statement on Friday, with a verdict expected by July. Bayer is currently facing thousands of similar lawsuits.

Roundup originally belonged to the now-defunct American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto, which was purchased by Bayer in 2018.

At the heart of the case is whether Bayer and other manufacturers should be held liable if they comply with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rulings on product warnings, while still running afoul of state laws requiring warnings on goods that may be carcinogenic.

Bayer argues that the EPA has determined that glyphosate, the main component of the controversial herbicide, is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans, and approved Roundup labels without cancer warnings.

In a statement on Friday, Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said that “it is time for the US legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements.”

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ACLU Sues to Halt Trump ICE Crackdown in Minnesota

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration Thursday, seeking a court order to halt what it says are unconstitutional immigration enforcement tactics by federal agents in Minnesota, as stepped-up Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the Twin Cities have drawn heightened scrutiny and public backlash.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, names Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other federal officials and asks a judge to block what the plaintiffs describe as unlawful stops and arrests that they say have swept up U.S. citizens and legal residents.

The ACLU is representing Somali immigrants Mubashir Khalif Hussen, Mahamed Eydarus, and Javier Doe, a Hispanic American.

The suit seeks a statewide injunction against what it calls “unlawful policies and practices,” including allegations of racial profiling.

The filing also alleges federal agents are arresting people for immigration reasons without warrants or probable cause, including U.S. citizens and those with valid status.

It also claims that arrests are being made without evidence of flight risk.

Such actions, plaintiffs’ claim, violate the Fourth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, and federal law, as police may not detain individuals solely on the basis of appearance.

The ACLU said the case challenges “suspicionless stops,” “warrantless arrests,” and “racial profiling” tied to an expanded federal deployment in Minnesota.

Under 8 U.S.C. Section 1357(a)(2), an immigration officer may make a warrantless immigration arrest only if the officer has reason to believe the person is in the United States in violation of immigration law and the person “is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest.”

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Trump admin quietly restores some funding to Planned Parenthood after lawsuit

The Trump administration has backed down on a portion of the funding it has denied to Planned Parenthood, restoring tens of millions of dollars to the abortion giant in the face of a lawsuit.

Last year, the federal government froze $120 million in federal Title X “family-planning” grants to organizations suspected of not complying with the administration’s executive orders against involvement with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The move did not specifically target Planned Parenthood or abortion, but covered approximately $20 million received by Planned Parenthood locations across a dozen states. 

The abortion lobby and others sued, and Politico reports that the far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has withdrawn its lawsuit in response to the Trump administration quietly restoring the funding in question last month. In a December 19 court filing, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said without elaboration that “the review is completed, and all grants at issue for Plaintiff’s members have been restored […] this matter can be voluntarily dismissed in light of the restoration of the remaining grants.”

“More than 800 service sites were unable to provide Title X services. Hundreds of thousands of patients were unable to get Title X services. So the impact was tremendous,” responded Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU’s “Reproductive Freedom Project.” “So damage certainly was done as a result of their unlawful withholding of the funds.”

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