Plaintiffs

Sen. Rand Paul is recruiting plaintiffs - and seeking donations - for a class-action lawsuit against the National Security Agency. “Dear Patriot,” the Kentucky Republican wrote Thursday in an e-mail to supporters. “I'm looking for ten million Americans to stand with me and sue the federal government and TAKE BACK our rights. “Can I count on your help? “Without it, I truly fear where our fragile Republic could be headed …” Paul, who is expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, told a Fox News interviewer this week that he would be asking Internet providers and telephone companies to join him in a lawsuit against the electronic eavesdropping agency based at Fort Meade.

More than two dozen of Dr. Nikita Levy's former patients have filed an objection to a $190 million class-action settlement over the Johns Hopkins gynecologist's malpractice. The plaintiffs cited an "excessive legal fee" requested by the lawyers who negotiated the settlement and a lack of clarity regarding the amount each patient would receive, according to the objection. The settlement - one of the largest ever of its kind - was announced in July, five months after investigators found more than 1,300 videos and images, surreptitiously recorded during pelvic exams, in Levy's home and office.

Maryland's courts should provide defendants with lawyers at their first bail hearings in Baltimore starting in February, with other areas following closely behind, plaintiffs in a long running dispute over the issue proposed Friday. The Court of Appeals ruled in September that criminal suspects have a right to a lawyer at their initial appearance before a court commissioner, but that right has been left in limbo since then as the state grapples with how to provide public defenders at potentially thousands of hearings.

Baltimore's spending panel is asked to approve a $40,000 settlement on charges that city officers falsely arrested a man and committed assault and battery against him at his Glen Oaks apartment. Alex Dickson, the plaintiff in the case, received significant injuries to his teeth, nose and ribs after three officers came to his apartment on Aug. 13, 2010 with his girlfriend under the terms of a protective order so she could retrieve some personal items. When the group arrived, Dickson used his body to block Officer James Wilder from crossing the threshold when Wilder grabbed Dickson and placed him under arrest, according to the settlement memo presented to the Board of Estimates.

Plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging Christian prayers at Carroll County commissioner meetings have dropped a request for a temporary ban on the practice. The plaintiffs, a humanist group and residents who say they feel alienated by the prayers, said that instead they intend to ask the judge to make a final judgment in the case. The commissioners have already filed papers making the same request. U.S. District Court Judge William D. Quarles previously banned the commissioners from praying to Jesus at the beginning of their meetings, saying it was likely the plaintiffs would win the case.

The oversized windows of Hans Wilhelmsen's house in Jacksonville command a view to the east of hills dotted with baled hay and stands of oak, maple and pine on the 70 acres he owns a mile south of where an Exxon station unleashed an underground flood of unleaded gasoline five years ago. Thirteen bison patrolled the fields then, but they're gone now, and Wilhelmsen is sure he knows why. "We saw six die at one time" about two years ago, Wilhelmsen said....

The plaintiffs in a high-profile land dispute with Johns Hopkins University filed for summary judgment in their case against the university on Tuesday, one day after JHU filed a similar motion. The lawsuit was originally filed in November by family members of Elizabeth Beall Newell, who along with her siblings sold 108 acres of their family's Belward Farm near Gaithersburg to JHU in 1989 for $5 million. The sale, of land the family said was valued at $54 million, came with certain stipulations, including that the land be used for research or education purposes.

Attorneys representing the 8,600 plaintiffs in the nation's largest consolidated asbestos personal injury trial finished presenting their case in Baltimore Circuit Court yesterday -- nine days ahead of schedule.The trial resumes May 4 with 32 days of testimony scheduled from the defense. Everyone was looking forward to the break."I'm going away on Saturday and I'm not going to tell anyone where I am," said Judge Marshall A. Levin, who has frequently found himself caught in the middle of attorneys' battles.

A class action lawsuit challenging Baltimore's red-light-camera tickets, maintaining in part that the timing of traffic signals' yellow lights had been too short and resulted in fraudulent citations, has been dismissed by a city Circuit Court judge. The three plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit in August 2004 contended that the traffic signals in their cases had yellow lights lasting less than 3 seconds. One of the plaintiffs says 4 seconds is the standard. Violations carry a $75 fine but no points.

The Towson-based state Injured Workers' Insurance Fund has agreed to pay a half-million dollars to settle a lawsuit that claimed it was illegally taping telephone conversations with lawyers and their clients. Under terms of the agreement, signed yesterday by Baltimore County Circuit Judge Lawrence R. Daniels, plaintiffs Jack J. Schmerling, a Glen Burnie attorney, and Robbie L. Arnold, who had a claim pending before IWIF, will receive $15,000 and $5,000, respectively. The bulk of the money, $480,000, goes to the plaintiffs' lawyers for legal expenses.

A ruling by a federal judge in a lawsuit filed by federal employees over the government shutdown last fall has given the workers hope that they could soon be eligible for a payout. U.S. Court of Federal Claims Chief Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith declined to dismiss the lawsuit brought by some 2,000 workers who were deemed essential during the during the 16-day shutdown. The plaintiffs worked through the shutdown but didn't get paid on time for their labor. Campbell-Smith wrote in an opinion that the federal government violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, but she didn't go as far as saying that the government needed to pay the plaintiffs.

Though the Washington Redskins have faced down past legal challenges to their controversial name, the NFL team's defiant battle took a new twist Wednesday against a backdrop of growing political opposition. Efforts to force a change of the Redskins nickname gained momentum when the U.S. Patent Office canceled the team's trademark on its name, terming it "disparaging of Native Americans. " The effect of the 2-1 ruling is symbolic for the time being, because the Redskins can retain their trademark while appealing the decision.

The group battling with Carroll County commissioners over Christian prayers at their meetings asked a judge Tuesday to order a "permanent injunction" on the practice, which they say alienates some community members. "Public officials are not in the business of offering Christian prayers," said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, a plaintiff in the case. He called the invocations "unconstitutional. " With the latest filing by the plaintiffs for a summary judgment, both sides are now asking the judge to make a final ruling on the case rather than holding a trial.

Plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging Christian prayers at Carroll County commissioner meetings have dropped a request for a temporary ban on the practice. The plaintiffs, a humanist group and residents who say they feel alienated by the prayers, said that instead they intend to ask the judge to make a final judgment in the case. The commissioners have already filed papers making the same request. U.S. District Court Judge William D. Quarles previously banned the commissioners from praying to Jesus at the beginning of their meetings, saying it was likely the plaintiffs would win the case.

It's dismaying that the Morgan State University board appears to have summarily dismissed a proposed collaboration with Towson University on new joint degree programs for students of landscape architecture, city and regional planning and construction management. Maryland needs more qualified workers in such fields, and on the face of it a partnership between Morgan and Towson to provide them would seem to make a lot of sense. Yet there's little chance of that happening before the long-running court dispute between a coalition of students and alumni at the state's four historically black colleges and universities and the Maryland Higher Education Commission is resolved.

The two women who successfully challenged the constitutionality of the federal law banning same-sex marriage received honorary degrees during Johns Hopkins University's commencement ceremonies in Baltimore on Thursday. Many in the audience of students, families and alumni cheered loudly for Edith Windsor and her attorney Roberta Kaplan as they accepted the honors in person. Windsor's case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and resulted in a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act being declared unconstitutional.

Attorneys representing the 8,600 plaintiffs in the nation's largest consolidated asbestos personal injury trial finished presenting their case in Baltimore Circuit Court yesterday -- nine days ahead of schedule.The trial will resume May 4 for a scheduled 32 days of testimony from the defense. Everyone was looking forward to the break."I'm going away on Saturday and I'm not going to tell anyone where I am," said Judge Marshall A. Levin, who has frequently found himself caught in the middle of attorneys' battles.

Two women who work for a State Farm insurance agent in Randallstown sued him and his corporate employer Tuesday, saying he repeatedly subjected them to sexual harassment, vile insults and a hostile work environment. Kristi Mitchell and Veronica Cobb are seeking at least $4 million in punitive damages from the agent, Obie Sorrell, and State Farm Annuity and Life Insurance Co., a Fortune 500 company based in Bloomington, Ill., that has 17,000 agents and 68,000 employees. Mitchell has been an office manager for State Farm since February 2002, and Cobb was hired in May as a customer-service manager.

Johns Hopkins University will bestow an honorary degree next month on Edith "Edie" Windsor, the woman who successfully challenged the constitutionality of the federal law banning same-sex marriage. Windsor's attorney in last year's historic U.S. Supreme Court victory, Roberta Kaplan, will also receive an honorary degree at the May 22 commencement ceremony on the university's Homewood campus. The two women, lauded as heroes of the gay rights movement, are two of seven "distinguished achievers" being honored by Hopkins.

The principle of separation of church and state has been a pillar of American democracy since the country's founding, and most people think they know what it means. Yet in practice, the proper balance between freedom of religious expression and what is appropriate when it comes to the business of government has always been a matter of contention. This is an issue over which reasonable people can disagree, but the Carroll County Board of Commissioners surely did itself no favor this week by trying to win the argument by simply shouting the other side down.