Lead Stories

The 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court decision and allowed a black rights nonprofit to sue for violation of the First and 14^th Amendments when Pinellas County revoked an authorized grant and denied a second grant of Covid-relief funds.  It has found that the African People’s Education and Defense Fund (“APEDF”) has alleged sufficient facts to survive a motion to dismiss.

Shane and Victoria McCartney, relative newcomers to the town of Welcome, MN, decided to participate in a program called “Going Hog-Wild in Martin County.” The program distributes dozens of artistically painted cement pigs throughout the county as a promotion of Martin County.  The county is the largest hog producing county in the state and the sixth largest hog producer in the country.

The founder of a Wyoming public radio station cannot collect on a $219,000 start-up loan he said he made to the organization, even though the loan was regularly recognized on the nonprofit’s annual Form 990 tax filing, the Supreme Court of Wyoming has affirmed.  The Court said that the loan was not sufficiently memorialized in writing and was unenforceable under the state’s statute of frauds.

Laurel Lee Pedot was a long-time resident of The Villas at Sunny Acres in Thornton, CO when she executed a will and accompanying trust in 1989.  The trust provided that the residue of her estate would be granted to “Sunny Acres Villa, Inc., Foundation Trust, a Colorado non-profit corporation.”

In 1991, she amended the trust to provide that the residue should go to the Foundation Trust, “to be used exclusively in connection with The Villas at Sunny Acres community and no other community operated by Sunny Acres Villa, Inc.”

A divided Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court decision holding that civil courts lacked jurisdiction to decide a dispute between The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and Concordia University, which had been established by the Church. A three-judge panel, writing three separate opinions, has held that the case can proceed.

New bylaw provisions restricting Penn State University Trustees’ right to speak freely about issues facing the Board of the University have been challenged from a new perspective.