Posted by Michael Villafana.
Ten years ago from this June, the life of Koua Fong Lee changed forever, as well as those who were in the car who Lee crashed into. Koua Fong Lee was entering onto an entrance ramp in his home state of Minnesota, when all of a sudden his Toyota Camry sped up, instead of slowing down at the upcoming stoplight. His Camry crashed into the back of another car, killing two instantly including a 9-year-old child, and a 7-year-child later in the hospital. Lee was charged with criminal vehicular homicide in a Minnesota court where he testified that he attempted to break but his car would not slow down. Toyota, on the other hand, testified that Lee indeed tried to break, but he was actually stepping on the gas pedal instead of the break. Lee was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison.
In 2009, Toyota issued a recall on some of its models over acceleration issues. This prompted Lee’s legal team to revisit the case. However, it was not Lee’s team that filed a lawsuit against Toyota. It was the passengers in the car that was hit from behind by Lee. Lee joined the lawsuit claiming that his 1996 Camry inexplicably accelerated. Toyota had already settled several lawsuits over this issue, but the Lee case was one of their biggest to date.
The lawsuit went to court, where jurors heard expert testimony from both sides. Lee’s attorney used the help of an automobile expert John Stilson to help prove that every time Lee stepped on the gas, the speed would increase and would stick at that speed. Ultimately, the expert testimony given by Stilson and others led Lee’s team to a court victory. The jury ruled in favor of Lee’s team resulting in a huge compensatory pay for the victims. Toyota was ordered to pay $10.9 million in damages, being split between the victims of the crash and the Lee family. Koua Fong Lee was released from prison in 2010, after wrongly being placed there. After being released from prison, Lee stated “My life and my family is not the same anymore. So they [Toyota] are responsible for that.”
Michael is a sports management major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Posted by Luis Ferreira, Jr.
Volkswagen, who recently met the goal of becoming the world’s biggest car making company, has gotten themselves into some legal troubles. The accusations stem from excessive amounts of pollutants caused by their cars and using emission cheating software to cover it up. The company has installed the software into 11 million engines worldwide. The software is supposed to limit the amount of a toxic nitrogen oxide that is released from the car, however, the company’s device instead lets the vehicle release pollutants about 40 more times the legal amount. Volkswagen did this because it lets the car have better acceleration and fuel economy. This device is illegal in the United States and in many other countries.
The court gave the company until April 21, 2016 to fix all of their cars. The court told the German car company that if the cars were not fixed by this specific date, then they would a breach trial. The company is also getting fined in all of the countries it sold the cars in and facing many legal suits from car owners that are very upset over this dispute. Everything, including cars fixed, payments to unpleased customers, and timing, must be resolved by April 21st or the company will be going to trial.
Volkswagen has said they are “’committed to resolving the US regulatory investigation into the diesel emissions matter as quickly as possible and to implementing a solution for affected vehicles.’”
The company has said they are going to follow all of the orders by the judge to be able to avoid trial and get the company out of these legal troubles.
Luis is a business law student at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University.
Posted by Brooke Sabol.
Gucci America, Inc. sought default judgement, an award of statutory damages, costs of the suit and a permanent injunction against defendant Wang Huoqing. The hearing on the motion was on October 8, 2010. Gucci became aware that Wang was selling fake products bearing the Gucci name and trademark on the internet to U.S residents. Gucci ended up suing Wang. The court needed to decide if Gucci had jurisdiction over Wang before it could enter default judgement.
The court granted default judgement against defendant Wang on false designation. The court awarded statutory damages to Gucci America, Bottega Veneta International S.A.R.L, Balenciaga S.A. Gucci America was awarded $440,000, Bottega Veneta International S.A.R.L was awarded $4,000, and lastly Balenciaga S.A. was awarded $8,000. For prejudgment interest Gucci was awarded $12,768.92, Bottega Venteta was awarded $116.08, and Balenciaga S.A $232.16. Lastly they were each awarded $233.33 on the basis of defendant’s trademark infringement.
In my opinion, I believe the default judgment order was fair. Wang was at fault by illegally copyrighting Gucci’s trademark.
Brooke Sabol is a marketing major at Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Posted by Ismail Surakat.
This is a case between Southern District of Georgia and Vania Lee Allen, a native of Jamaica, who committed a fraud and falsely impersonating a United Sates FBI special agent in connection with an international lottery fraud arrangement based in Jamaica. According to the indictment, 30-year-old Vania Lee Allen was charged for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and also, impersonating United States employee. Allen and her co-conspirator from Jamaica illegitimately enriched themselves through fraudulent lottery plan, targeting elderly residents of Evans, Georgia.
According to this case, Allen traveled from Jamaica to United States in May 2015 and presented herself as an FBI special agent in order to convince her victim. Though, before getting to this stage, Allen had made some movement such as informing the victim by phone that they had won money in a lottery game and instructed them to make some certain payments to her co-conspirator in Jamaica for them to collect their lump sum winnings. She also discussed with a co-conspirator in Jamaica on how to impersonate an FBI using a fake law enforcement badge with the “FBI” logo and the words, “Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Upon arrival at the victim’s place, Allen presented as an FBI special agent and asked the victim to speak on-line with her co-conspirator in Jamaica. All of this was made to look real; no doubt elderly citizens can fall victim to this type of fraudulent act.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Columbia County Georgia Sherriff’s Office, and is being prosecuted as well by Trial Attorney Clint Narver of the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch and Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Clark of the Southern District of Georgia.
If Allen is eventually convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison for the wire fraud, five years for the conspiracy count, as well as, up to three years for the false impersonation count.
Ismail Surakat is a pre business major at Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Posted by Kyle Chapman.
On January 18, 2015, the New England Patriots played the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship. The Patriots would go on to win the game, but a massive legal controversy would follow in the aftermath of the game. Reports arose after the game that the Patriots had used footballs inflated below regulation towards their advantage during the game. Using footballs against regulation is a very consequential action and the National Football League was not happy with the reports one bit. A massive investigation and legal battle between the Patriots and the NFL would ensue.
A few days later, the NFL assigned Manhattan attorney, Ted Wells, to get to the bottom of the situation. The case was receiving heavy media coverage and had the Patriots’ public image in hot water. Nobody from the organization admitted to being aware of the apparent cheating and denied any involvement. The investigation was completed on May 6, 2015 with a 243 page investigative report known as “The Wells Report.”
The Wells Report appeared to have the Patriots caught red-handed. A very important aspect of the report came from scientific analysis provided by Exponent, which claimed that no set of environmental or physical factors could’ve accounted for the air loss shown in the balls. This meant that the air loss were the actions of people, and accused locker-room attendant Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski as the culprits. There were several text messages between that reference inflation, deflation, and needles. The texts suggest that Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, was aware of their actions, but the coaching staff was unaware. The investigation concluded that it was “more probable than not,” that the Patriots equipment personnel had broken the rules.
The NFL decided to suspend Tom Brady for four games and give the Patriots a $1 million fine while stripping them of draft picks. Brady pursued an appeal on his suspension and began a long legal battle with the NFL. He felt falsely accused and very harshly punished. After a long battle, on September 3, 2015, a settlement was reached and the suspension was taken away, with a claim that Brady had a lack of fair due process.
I think the situation could’ve been handled much better than it was. For starters, the media had completely scrutinized the scandal and blew it out of proportion. I think it pinned Brady and the Patriots in guilty before proven innocent image, even though there wasn’t much evidence at all that showed their involvement in the scandal. There were also leaks of false evidence early on that made the Patriots appear guilty.
The NFL has been in hot water lately with legal situations and I think this whole case hurt their image.
Kyle is a management major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Posted by Kyle Chapman.
Hillary Clinton was accused of using a personal email account out of her home for her official email communication while she was Secretary of State. She used her family’s private email server, instead of using the official State Department email account maintained on federal government servers. Government officials argue that the use of a private server, private messaging system software, and deleting almost 32,000 emails has violated State Department procedures and federal laws of recordkeeping requirements. Some of these emails are deemed to be “Top Secret” and confidential information. In my opinion, this is a violation of federal law.
After a CNN interview, a new opportunity has shown some light for Hillary. Hillary stated, “Everything I did was permitted. There was no law. There was no regulation.” To clarify, the legal requirement to immediately preserve emails from a nongovernment email account was not put into law until two years after she stepped down as Secretary of State. She claims that she has done nothing wrong because there was no law enforced when she committed the act. Hillary stated that other Secretaries of State did the same thing, but there are no records of other secretaries setting up a private email server for all of their government communications. In addition, while Hillary was Secretary of State, she sent a cable containing her signature warning employees to avoid handling official business from a personal email account.
Therefore, Hillary was well informed of her actions. Even though there was not a specific law enforcing to preserve emails from nongovernment accounts, Clinton knew what she was doing. In that case, I find Hillary guilty for her actions.
This whole controversy started when officials were unable to locate emails in the investigation of the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. It looks like as if she was covering her tracks by deleting those emails on her private server. Not only did this interfere with the investigation, but a hacker attempted to hack into her email server.
Mishandling top secret government information is a federal crime. In conclusion, I find Hillary guilty for the use of mishandling government information by using her own private email server.
Kyle is a management major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Posted by Emily Nichols.
On November 5, 2015, six men were convicted on felony charges of fraud and conspiracy in the sale of vending machine business opportunities. All six of these men were from New York, and they were just six of the 22 individuals convicted with this vending machine scheme. Two of the men were convicted with conspiracy and six counts of fraud and one count of false statement to federal agents. The third man was convicted on conspiracy and mail fraud. Two of the men were convicted of conspiracy and wire fraud and the final man was convicted of conspiracy and two counts of wire fraud.
They were convicted following the six week trial where some of the men will be in jail for 40 years according to their maximum sentence for conspiracy, fraud counts and false statements. These six men, were the last of the 22 convicted for the entire Vendstar scheme.
The company not only advertised nationwide on the internet and in newspapers, but they also promised to have the full package for the customer, saying that they would provide everything to operate the vending machine including the initial supply of candy for the machine. Once the machines were ordered, they dropped the machine off to the businesses wherever and however they could, not placing the machine in any certain place, and many businesses requested immediate removal of the machine. The men attempted to sell vending machines to businesses and promised them that they would make loads of money off of the machines and the customers would pay tens of thousands of dollars to invest in the machines. Between the five years of the operation of the scheme, it cost consumers a total of around $60 Million. If the customer paid an average of $10,000, then there were about 6,000 victims of this scheme once it was all said and done.
These men, I feel, were convicted correctly of their crimes and deserve to be in jail for what will most likely be the rest of their lives as the men were all above the age of 40, three of them being over the ae of 55. In the entirety, just 22 people cause a loss of $60 Million to consumers and businesses.
Emily is an accounting and finance major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Posted by Emily Nichols.
In late 2013, the Texas State Conference of NAACP filed suit challenging Texas’s photo voter ID law. The specific law that was being challenged was S.B. 14, which was enacted in 2011 and requires voters to present photo ID from a limited list of approved identification in order to vote. This law disproportionately prevents groups of voters which include African American citizens from voting in person due to the law’s strictness.
I found it interesting that this law was even able to be passed but reading further into the case I found that the law was not passed until there was a case in 2013 in the Supreme Court that rendered Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act inoperable, which opened the gates for Texas to implement the SB 14 law.
After the 8 day trial, a 3 judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals universally decided that the SB 14 law violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The appellate court agreed with plaintiffs that SB 14 has a racially discriminatory influence that violates the Voting Rights Act. The panel similarly ruled that the district court should hear more evidence on the intentional discrimination claim. It annulled the district court’s verdict that the ID law violated the Constitution.
The law was applied during the November 2014 election and cut many voters out of the political process of the presidential elections.
I think that this was an important case because the entire point of having a democracy is having the people be the say if what goes on with the government. With not being able to vote, and cutting out many of the voters in a very large portion of the population of Texas, it was cutting off people’s right to vote and thus really hurting the idea of democracy.
Emily is an accounting and finance major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Posted by Jose L. Diaz.
Imagine having a potential life-ending disease or illness that you depend on medication for to survive. Money is tight, and most of your savings goes towards purchasing the medication in order to survive. Suddenly, just overnight, the price of this drug not only increases, but it increases by 5000%. While it sounds absolutely absurd, this actually happened when Turing Pharmaceuticals, a startup company being run by a former hedge fund manager, increased the price of their drug called Daraprim, from $13.50 a tablet to $750 a tablet overnight. That is not $750 a prescription–it is $750 per tablet. This brought the annual cost of treatment for some patients to over a hundred thousand dollars.
Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, claims that the drug is so rarely used that the price increase would not have a significant effect on the health system. He claims that the money earned from the price increase would go towards developing better treatments for toxoplasmosis, the disease that is treated by Daraprim. However, the price increase will make it almost impossible for private insurers like Medicare and patients in hospitals to attain. The fact that the drug is so expensive and hard to attain now, it makes it harder for other companies to make samples of the drug and replicate it. Overall, the drug is the leading treatment for the life-threatening parasitic infection toxoplasmosis. The increase in price seems to be an only profit-driven choice.
Jose is finance and accounting major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University.
Posted by Renaldo Nel.
Judge, Sheri Pym, of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, recently ordered Apple to assist the FBI in an investigation involving the San Bernardino terror attacks. The Apple iPhone belonging to one of the shooters, Syed Farook, was recovered by the FBI. The FBI wants to gain access to the iPhone, but faces security software that will wipe the iPhone’s memory after 10 incorrect password attempts. As a result, the FBI wants Apple to provide them with software that will enable them to unlock Farook’s iPhone, as they believe there is possible evidence on the phone.
Apple has appealed the decision made by Judge Pym stating “writing code is like speech, and so the request is a violation of Apple’s First Amendment rights.” Apple also argues that the government should not have the power to order a private company to alter its product. Apple wants to protect their consumers as they believe that creating a backdoor in the software compromises the security of all iPhone’s, including, iPhone users’ personal information, such as bank accounts and medical records.
The Department of Justice’s argument is that “it a single request for a single phone, and doesn’t not create a back door for bad actors, but rather a front door for law enforcement only when it has a warrant.” The Department of Justice is basing its argument on the All Writs Act of 1789. Apple believes that this law can simply not be applied in modern times and is long overdue for amendment.
Many tech companies such as Microsoft, Facebook and Google have stated that they support Apple. I am also in support of Apple. Firstly, it is known fact that the FBI has been hacked in the past and the probability that the software that the FBI is asking for will be leaked is huge. It would be catastrophic if hackers could get their hands on personal information such as credit cards in the Apple Pay function. Secondly, one should also take into account that people place faith in Apple to protect their personal data and if Apple is forced to provide this “unlocking software” they could suffer huge financial losses. Furthermore, if Appel loses this case it sets precedent in the tech industry and companies would in future be forced “to modify their products, on spec, for the FBI in ways that are contrary to their core values.”
I understand that the FBI wants to solve the case and protect the country, however their proposal opens the door for many other evils.
Renaldo is an economics major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Sources:
Apple V. FBI Encryption Case Shows That Lawsuits Are Inherently Polarizing
http://www.abc-7.com/story/31521736/apple-vs-the-fbi-in-2-minutes