Tag Archives: Lawsuit

Woman pepper-sprayed at UC Berkeley protest sues university, police

A worker surveys the damage to a vandalized Starbucks after a student protest turned violent at UC Berkeley during a demonstration over right-wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, who was forced to cancel his talk, in Berkeley, California.

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – A woman who says she was pepper-sprayed by protesters demonstrating against a planned appearance by a right-wing speaker in February has sued the University of California at Berkeley for infringing on her First Amendment free speech rights.

Kiara Robles of Oakland, California is suing 18 individuals and organizations including officials at the University of California, UC Berkeley’s police department, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, the Berkeley Police Department, U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi and investor George Soros.

“Robles was attacked with extremely painful pepper spray and bear mace by masked assailants amongst the protesters because she chose to exercise her right to freedom of speech and show support for the planned speaker, Milo Yiannopoulous,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit was filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by Larry Klayman, a conservative activist and one of Robles’ attorneys.

In an emailed statement on Tuesday, Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the University of California at Berkeley, defended the actions of campus administrators and police, and said the university would vigorously fight the suit.

A spokesman for the Berkeley mayor’s office, Stefan Elgstrand, said the office has no comment on pending litigation.

According to the lawsuit, Robles went to UC Berkeley to hear Yiannopoulous’ speech. But violence erupted after more than 1,500 protesters gathered on the campus, forcing the former Breitbart News editor to cancel his appearance at the liberal-leaning institution.

According to the lawsuit, the University of California, Berkeley unconstitutionally limited the First Amendment rights of its students and invitees at the event “who do not subscribe to the radical, left-wing philosophies sanctioned by defendants.”

Representative for the University of California’s office of the president and the city of Berkeley Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A statement from Pelosi was not immediately available, according to a spokeswoman from her office, Caroline Behringer.

George Soros could not immediately be reached.

Robles is demanding a trial by jury and is seeking more than $20,000,000 in damages and other relief, the lawsuit said.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Dan Grebler)

‘Pink slime’ defamation case against ABC under way in South Dakota

Lean, finely textured beef (LFTB) is produced at the Beef Products Inc (BPI) facility in South Sioux City, Nebrask

By Timothy Mclaughlin and P.J. Huffstutter

ELK POINT, S.D./CHICAGO (Reuters) – A South Dakota meat processor’s $5.7 billion defamation lawsuit against American Broadcasting Company opened on Monday, pitting big agriculture against big media, in the first major court challenge against a media company since accusations of “fake news” by U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters have become part of the American vernacular.

In the closely watched case, Beef Products Inc (BPI) claims ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co, and its reporter Jim Avila, defamed the company by calling its ground-beef product “pink slime” and making errors and omissions in its reporting.

The 2012 news reports almost put privately held meat processor BPI out of business, a lawyer for the company said in opening arguments on Monday.

“That success took about 30 years to succeed and it took ABC less than 30 days to severely damage the company,” the attorney, Dan Webb, said in court.

In the aftermath of ABC’s reports, BPI closed three of its four processing plants and said its revenue dropped 80 percent, to $130 million.

ABC has countered that its coverage was accurate and deserved protection under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment which guarantees freedom of religion, speech and the right to a free press.

ABC denies any wrongdoing and is confident its reporting will be “fully vindicated,” a lawyer for ABC and Avila, Kevin Baine of Williams & Connolly, has said.

Nick Roth (L), Jennifer Letch (C) and Craig Letch pose for a photograph at Beef Products Inc company headquarters in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota N

FILE PHOTO: Nick Roth (L), Jennifer Letch (C) and Craig Letch pose for a photograph at Beef Products Inc company headquarters in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota November 19, 2012. REUTERS/Lane Hickenbottom/File Photo

The trial is being held in Elk Point, South Dakota, about 20 miles (32 km) north of BPI’s headquarters, which employs 110 people. Roughly 6 percent of the area labor force is involved in agriculture and related industries, according to the local chamber of commerce.

Election records show 67 percent of the U.S. presidential vote in Union County, where Elk Point sits, was won by Trump, who uses the term “fake news” to argue that some mainstream media outlets cannot be trusted.

Lawyers for BPI have declined to say if they plan to focus on “fake news” as a tactic at trial. But during a January court hearing, a BPI lawyer, Erik Connolly, said ABC broadcasts and online reports about “lean finely textured beef” (LFTB) used unreliable sources and set out to foment public outrage. The ABC reports amounted to “fake news,” Connolly told the judge.

BPI’s signature product, commonly mixed into ground beef, is made from beef chunks, including trimmings, and exposed to bursts of ammonium hydroxide to kill E. coli and other contaminants.

Webb said in court on Monday that between March 7 and April 3 of 2012, ABC used the term “pink slime” more than 350 times across six different media platforms including TV and online.

Reporter Avila, wearing a gray suit and striped tie, was in the courtroom on Monday as were BPI’s founders, Eldon and Regina Roth.

To win its case, BPI must show the network intended to harm the company or knew what it reported was false when it referred to BPI’s LFTB product as “pink slime.” BPI also claims ABC made other errors and omissions that unfairly cast its product in a bad light.

Not since talk show host Oprah Winfrey in 1998 took on cattle producers in Amarillo, Texas, have big media and big agriculture squared off in such a high-profile way on the industry’s home turf.

The Texas jury in 2000 rejected claims Winfrey defamed cattle ranchers during a “dangerous food” episode of her eponymous show, when she expressed concerns about eating beef at the height of the panic in Britain over “mad cow” disease.

As in the Winfrey case, the lawsuit against ABC is upending a quiet, rural town. To make room for overflow crowds in the town of 2,000, the county commission earmarked $175,000 to turn the Union County Courthouse basement into an enlarged courtroom and move records into a specially constructed separate building.

BPI moved modular offices into town to accommodate its legal team, the company said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Weinraub in Chicago; Editing by David Greising, James Dalgleish and Matthew Lewis)

Trump travel ban fight heads toward Supreme Court showdown

A picture of the travel advisory page of Qatar Airways advising passengers bound for the United States from seven newly banned majority Muslim countries that they need to have either a U.S. green card or diplomatic visa, January 28, 2017 in London, Britain. Picture taken January 28, 2017. REUTERS/Russell Boyce

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The fate of President Donald Trump’s order to ban travelers from six predominantly Muslim nations, blocked by federal courts, may soon be in the hands of the conservative-majority Supreme Court, where his appointee Neil Gorsuch could help settle the matter.

After the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined on Thursday to lift a Maryland federal judge’s injunction halting the temporary ban ordered by Trump on March 6, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the administration would appeal to the Supreme Court.

A second regional federal appeals court heard arguments on May 15 in Seattle in the administration’s appeal of a decision by a federal judge in Hawaii also to block the ban. A ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is pending.

The Justice Department has not made clear when the administration would make its formal appeal or whether it would wait for the 9th Circuit ruling before appealing.

If they take it up, the justices would be called upon to decide whether courts should always defer to the president over allowing certain people to enter the country, especially when national security is the stated reason for an action as in this case. They also would have to decide if Trump’s order violated the U.S. Constitution’s bar against the government favoring one religion over another, as the ban’s challengers assert.

Gorsuch’s April confirmation by the Republican-led Senate over Democratic opposition restored the court’s 5-4 majority, which means that if all the conservative justices side with the administration the ban would be restored regardless of how the four liberal justices vote.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Gorsuch was questioned about Trump’s criticism of judges who ruled against the ban. Gorsuch avoided commenting on the legal issue, saying only that he would not be “rubber stamp” for any president.

While the justices could decide in the coming weeks whether to hear the case, they likely would not hold oral arguments until late in the year, with a ruling sometime after that. A final resolution may not come until perhaps a year after Trump issued the executive order.

The justices are not required to hear any case, but this one meets important criteria cited by experts, including that it would be the federal government filing the appeal and that it involves a nationwide injunction.

The administration could file an emergency application seeking to put the order into effect while the litigation on its legality continues. At least five justices must agree for any such request to be granted.

While the court could split 5-4 along ideological lines, it also is possible some conservative justices could join the liberals in overturning the travel ban, libertarian law professor Ilya Somin of George Mason University said.

“Conservatives in other contexts often take a hard line against any kind of government discrimination (based) on race or religion or the like, even if the motivation may be benign. Also conservatives have concerns about government infringements on religion,” Somin said.

The 4th Circuit said the ban’s challengers, including refugee groups, in the case argued by the American Civil Liberties Union were likely to succeed on their claim that the order violated the Constitution’s prohibition on the government favoring or disfavoring any religion. In the 10-3 ruling, three Republican-appointed judges dissented.

The Republican president’s March 6 order, replacing an earlier Jan. 27 one also blocked by the courts, called for barring people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days while the government implements stricter visa screening. It also called for suspending all refugee admissions for 120 days.

KENNEDY’S REASONING

The travel ban’s challengers may take some comfort from the appeals court ruling’s reliance on a concurring opinion in a 2015 Supreme Court immigration case by Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who sometimes sides with the court’s liberals in big cases.

In the 2015 case, Kennedy wrote that in the immigration context, the government’s actions can be questioned if there is evidence of bad faith.

“As with any opinion by Justice Kennedy, I think the million-dollar question is just what he meant in his concurrence, and this may be a perfect case to find out,” University of Texas School of Law professor Stephen Vladeck said.

In Thursday’s ruling, 4th Circuit Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote that the plaintiffs had shown there was “ample evidence” of bad faith, which gave the green light to probe whether there were reasons for the order other than the administration’s stated national security rationale.

The administration has argued the temporary travel ban was needed to guard against terrorist attacks. Gregory wrote that the order uses “vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.” Trump during the presidential campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

Wikipedia can pursue NSA surveillance lawsuit: U.S. appeals court

A man is silhouetted near logos of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and Wikipedia in this photo illustration taken in Sarajevo March 11, 2015. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a Wikipedia lawsuit that challenges a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) program of mass online surveillance, and claims that the government unconstitutionally invades people’s privacy rights.

By a 3-0 vote, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, said the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, had a legal right to challenge the government’s Upstream surveillance program.

The decision could make it easier for people to learn whether authorities have spied on them through Upstream, which involves bulk searches of international communications within the internet’s backbone of cables, switches and routers.

Upstream’s existence was revealed in leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.

Lawyers for the Wikipedia publisher and eight other plaintiffs including Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch, with more than 1 trillion international communications annually, argued that the surveillance violated their rights to privacy, free expression and association.

The U.S. Department of Justice countered that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had authorized Upstream’s review of communications between Americans and foreign “targets.”

In October 2015, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Baltimore dismissed the lawsuit, finding a lack of evidence that the NSA, headquartered in Maryland, was conducting surveillance “at full throttle.”

Writing for the appeals court panel, however, Circuit Judge Albert Diaz found “nothing speculative” about the Wikimedia Foundation’s claims.

Diaz said the NSA interception and copying of communications showed “an invasion of a legally protected interest – the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The foundation could also pursue its First Amendment claim because it had “self-censored” some communications in response to the Upstream surveillance, Diaz said.

By a 2-1 vote, the same panel also ruled the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the NSA’s alleged “dragnet” to intercept “substantially all” text-based communications to and from the United States while conducting Upstream surveillance.

Justice Department spokesman Mark Abueg declined to comment.

Patrick Toomey, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said the ruling means Upstream “will finally face badly needed scrutiny” in the courts.

“This is an important victory for the rule of law,” he said in a statement. “Our government shouldn’t be searching the private communications of innocent people in bulk.”

Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers are working on legislation to curtail parts of Upstream. A section of FISA that authorizes the program expires at year end.

The case is Wikimedia Foundation et al v National Security Agency et al, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 15-2560.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Phil Berlowitz)

Workers say Wal-Mart discriminated against thousands of pregnant women

A logo of Walmart is seen in one of the stores in Monterrey, Mexico

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – Two former Wal-Mart Stores Inc employees have filed a lawsuit accusing the retailer of treating thousands of pregnant workers as “second-class citizens” by rejecting their requests to limit heavy lifting, climbing on ladders and other potentially dangerous tasks.

The proposed class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Illinois on Friday by Talisa Borders and Otisha Woolbright, who say that until 2014, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart had a company-wide policy that denied pregnant women the same accommodations as workers with other disabilities.

The class could include at least 20,000 women and possibly up to 50,000 who worked at Wal-Mart while pregnant before the policy change, according to the lawsuit.

The company in a statement provided by spokesman Randy Hargrove denied the women’s claims and said Wal-Mart’s pregnancy policies “have always fully met or exceeded both state and federal law.” The company said a separate anti-discrimination policy it maintains has long listed pregnancy as a protected status.

“Walmart is a great place for women to work,” the company said.

Borders and Woolbright say that Wal-Mart’s old policy violated a federal law requiring employers to treat pregnancy as a temporary disability and provide work accommodations to pregnant women. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 2015 case involving United Parcel Service, said employers cannot treat pregnant workers differently from those with other disabilities or medical conditions.

Wal-Mart, the largest private U.S. employer, changed its policy in 2014 to treat pregnancy as a disability. But lawyers for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit say the changes did not go far enough, and they were planning a separate lawsuit involving the new policy.

Woolbright says her manager at a Florida Wal-Mart told her pregnancy was “no excuse” for not doing heavy lifting. She says she was fired from her job in the deli department after injuring herself lifting trays that weighed up to 50 pounds and inquiring further about the company’s pregnancy policies.

Borders, who worked at an Illinois Wal-Mart, says she was reprimanded for asking coworkers to climb ladders and lift heavy boxes while she was pregnant, and forced to go on unpaid leave. When she returned, she says, she was paid $2.00 less per hour.

The case is Borders v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, No. 3:17-cv-00506.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Dan Grebler and Jonathan Oatis)

Families of San Bernardino shooting sue Facebook, Google, Twitter

FILE PHOTO: Weapons confiscated from the attack in San Bernardino, California are shown in this San Bernardino County Sheriff Department handout photo from their Twitter account released to Reuters December 3, 2015. REUTERS/San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department/Handout/File Photo

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Family members of three victims of the December 2015 shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, have sued Facebook, Google and Twitter, claiming that the companies permitted Islamic State to flourish on social media.

The relatives assert that by allowing Islamic State militants to spread propaganda freely on social media, the three companies provided “material support” to the group and enabled attacks such as the one in San Bernardino.

“For years defendants have knowingly and recklessly provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts to use its social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits,” family members of Sierra Clayborn, Tin Nguyen and Nicholas Thalasinos charge in the 32-page complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

“Without defendants Twitter, Facebook and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible,” the complaint said.

Spokeswomen for Twitter and Google declined to comment on the lawsuit. Representatives for Facebook could not immediately be reached by Reuters on Thursday afternoon.

Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on a holiday gathering of Farook’s co-workers at a government building in San Bernardino on Dec. 2, 2015, killing 14 people and wounding 22 others.

Farook, the 28-year-old, U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Malik, 29, a Pakistani native, died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre.

Authorities have said the couple was inspired by Islamist militants. At the time, the assault ranked as the deadliest attack by Islamist extremists on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In June 2016, an American-born gunman pledging allegiance to the leader of Islamic State shot 49 people to death at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, before he was killed by police.

In December 2016 the families of three men killed at the nightclub sued Twitter, Google and Facebook in federal court on allegations similar to those in the California lawsuit.

Federal law gives internet companies broad immunity from liability for content posted by their users. A number of lawsuits have been filed in recent years seeking to hold social media companies responsible for terror attacks, but none has advanced beyond the preliminary phases.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by David Ingram and Julia Love in San Francisco; Editing by Dan Grebler and Grant McCool)

Anti-abortion activists seek dismissal of California privacy case

Anti-abortion activist David Daleiden, waits outside Superior Court in San Francisco, California, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Lisa Fernandez

By Lisa Fernandez

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Lawyers for two anti-abortion activists who secretly filmed a conference of abortion providers while pretending to work for a fetal-tissue procurement company asked a California judge on Wednesday to dismiss eavesdropping charges against the pair.

Defense attorneys asserted in court papers that the criminal complaint brought by California’s attorney general against David Daleiden, 28, and Sandra Merritt, 63, was insufficient because it failed to identify their alleged victims by name.

Daleiden and Merritt are each charged with conspiracy and 14 counts of invasion of privacy for creating false identities to infiltrate the abortion conference, then videotaping various conference participants and others without their consent.

The two are accused of fabricating a sham biomedical research firm, BioMax Procurement Services, to gain access to private meetings of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), Planned Parenthood and others affiliated with reproductive healthcare.

The individuals they taped are referred to in charging documents as DOE 1 through 14. Prosecutors filed identifying information in a sealed confidential attachment.

If the judge sides with the defense, finding prosecutors lack justification for keeping the alleged victims anonymous, the state could be forced to amend its complaint and reveal their names in order to proceed.

Defense lawyer Steve Cooley, representing Daleiden, said state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, was conducting a political prosecution.

Daleiden, who runs the California-based nonprofit Center for Medical Progress, and Merritt, a fellow anti-abortion activist and retired teacher, have cast themselves as “citizen journalists” who employed well-worn undercover tactics of the news media to expose wrongdoing.

But prosecutors said Daleiden and Merritt engaged in computer hacking and criminal fraud to create false IDs and a bogus corporate entity – crossing lines that bona fide journalists would avoid.

The case stems from recordings made at an April 2014 NAF conference in San Francisco and several subsequent restaurant meetings in Los Angeles and El Dorado, California.

Distribution of those tapes and others from a 2015 NAF conference in Baltimore were barred under federal court order after NAF sued Daleiden’s group in 2015.

But Daleiden has released other videos targeting Planned Parenthood purporting to show its officials trying to profit from the sale aborted fetal tissue, in violation of federal law.

Planned Parenthood accused Daleiden of using the videos to distort its practices, in which it lawfully seeks only to recover costs associated with fetal tissue donations for scientific research.

Daleiden and Merritt were indicted in January 2016 for using illegal government identifications to secretly film a Planned Parenthood facility in Texas, but that case was dropped. Both are slated for arraignment in the California case on June 8.

Daleiden surrendered to authorities last month under an arrest warrant and was released on $75,000 bond. Merritt was taken into custody at the court on Thursday and was expected to post bond later in the day.

(Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Same-sex couple can seek damages from Kentucky clerk: U.S. appeals court

Rowan County clerk Kim Davis is shown in this booking photo provided by the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Kentucky September 3, 2015. REUTERS/Carter County Detention Center/Handout via Reuters

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a damages lawsuit against Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who in 2015 refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples because it conflicted with her Christian beliefs.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said a lower court judge erred in finding that damages claims by David Ermold and David Moore became moot, after a new state law last July excused clerks like Davis, from Rowan County, from having to sign marriage license forms.

While the couple eventually did get a license, a three-judge appeals court panel said they could sue over Davis’ initial refusal to grant one, after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2015 said the Constitution guaranteed a right to same-sex marriage.

“The district court’s characterization of this case as simply contesting the ‘no marriage licenses’ policy is inaccurate because Ermold and Moore did not seek an injunction-they sought only damages,” Circuit Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote. “The record does not support an argument that (their) damages claims are insubstantial or otherwise foreclosed.”

Ermold’s and Moore’s case was sent back to U.S. District Judge David Bunning in Covington, Kentucky.

“The ruling keeps the case alive for a little while but it is not a victory for the plaintiffs,” Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a Christian advocacy group representing Davis, said in a statement. “We are confident we will prevail.”

Michael Gartland, a lawyer for Ermold and Moore, called the decision a “no-brainer,” saying damages claims based on past harm often survive mootness challenges. His clients are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

“Do I think it’s a million dollar case? Probably not,” Gartland said in an interview. “The next step will be to go to discovery and go to trial, where I am confident we will obtain a judgment against Davis.”

The refusal of Davis to issue licenses made her a national symbol for opposition to Obergefell v Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

The case is Ermold et al v. Davis, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 16-6412.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

United Airlines reaches settlement with passenger dragged from plane

FILE PHOTO - A United Airlines Boeing 787 taxis as a United Airlines Boeing 767 lands at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California, U.S. on February 7, 2015. REUTERS/Louis Nastro/File Photo

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – United Airlines <UAL.N> and the passenger who was dragged from a Chicago flight earlier this month have reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum, they said on Thursday, in the carrier’s latest step to contain damage from an incident that sparked international outrage.

Viral videos of Dr. David Dao being dragged down the aisle of a United jet and Chief Executive Oscar Munoz’s handling of the incident touched off a public outcry, prompted calls from congressmen for new industry regulation, and led United’s board of directors to reverse an agreement to make Munoz company chairman in 2018.

United said earlier on Thursday that it would offer passengers who give up their seats up to $10,000, reduce overbooking of flights and no longer call on law enforcement officers to deny ticketed passengers their seats.

Southwest Airlines also said on Thursday that it would end overbooking of flights.

Dao, a 69-year-old Vietnamese-American doctor, was injured when Chicago aviation police removed him from his seat and then dragged him from the plane to make space for four crew members on the flight from O’Hare International Airport to Louisville, Kentucky.

United has taken “full responsibility for what happened on Flight 3411, without attempting to blame others, including the City of Chicago,” Thomas Demetrio, an attorney for Dao, said in a statement.

Demetrio said there was no need to proceed with separate litigation against the city. Republic Airways, United’s regional partner which operated the flight that Dao was on, has also been released from responsibility as part of the settlement, Demetrio’s office said.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office declined to comment on the settlement.

The three Chicago Department of Aviation officers who pulled Dao off the plane and a supervisor involved in the incident remain on paid leave, said Chicago Department of Aviation spokesman Karen Pride, who declined to comment on the settlement.

United said in a separate statement that it was pleased to reach “an amicable resolution of the unfortunate incident that occurred aboard flight 3411.”

“We look forward to implementing the improvements we have announced, which will put our customers at the center of everything we do,” the airline said.

Munoz stressed that point in a letter sent on Thursday to customers, saying the airline would increase its focus on their satisfaction.

“We can never say we are sorry enough for what occurred, but we also know meaningful actions will speak louder than words,” he said.

Separately, officials at 10 of the busiest U.S. airports said their rules prevent security officers from physically removing passengers from airplanes unless a crime is committed.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Richard Chang)

Trump administration drops North Carolina ‘bathroom bill’ lawsuit

FILE PHOTO: A sign protesting a North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

(Reuters) – The Trump administration on Friday dropped a lawsuit accusing North Carolina of discriminating against LGBT residents after the state replaced its “bathroom bill”, although a key civil liberties group vowed to keep fighting the new law in court.

In a two-sentence court filing the Justice Department said it had dropped its lawsuit, filed last year by the Obama administration, because the North Carolina legislature had replaced it with a new law called House Bill 142.

The filing marks the first significant move in a complicated legal battle challenging the state’s nondiscrimination laws since the replacement of the original law, known as House Bill 2 or more commonly as the “bathroom bill.”

House Bill 2’s most controversial provision was the requirement that in state-run buildings transgender people use the bathrooms, changing rooms and showers that corresponded to the sex on their birth certificates rather than their gender identity.

A number of businesses and sports leagues boycotted North Carolina because they saw the year-old law as discriminatory against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Civil liberties groups also protested the move.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit challenging the law in March of last year. That was followed in May by the Justice Department’s own suit against House Bill 2.

James Esseks, the ACLU’s LGBT Project Director said the new law is flawed because it keeps a ban on cities and counties from creating their own nondiscriminatory ordinaces until 2020 and relegates to the state legislature the power to regulate bathroom access. The legislature has purposefully not taken any action to define access, he said.

House Bill 142 “leaves transgender people in limbo and that’s intentional,” Esseks said. “This does not fix the problem. It creates confusion.”

Esseks said his group planned to amend their lawsuit soon to challenge the new bill.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler and Chizu Nomiyama)