Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reversed an Obama-era policy of having corporate defendants fund nonprofit organizations as a part of settlements of claims for civil or criminal liability. In a policy memorandum issued June 5, the Attorney General said the practice will stop immediately.
A ten-year volunteer for the Dallas Symphony has lost his claim for defamation and conspiracy to defame against the Symphony and a local magazine after his termination was reported in the magazine. An appellate court in Texas has granted their motion to dismiss on appeal from a trial court denial. But the Court of Appeal said it did not have jurisdiction to grant the Symphony’s motion to dismiss the volunteer’s claim for tortious interference with his employment.
President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on May 4 intended to protect religious leaders and organizations that speak out on political issues, while the House Oversight Committee held a hearing the same day on legislative proposals to eliminate the prohibition on church participation in election campaigns.
A private foundation in Texas may not sue the University of Alabama in a Texas court for breach of contract for a scholarship program being operated in Alabama, an appellate court in Texas has held. It has reversed a trial court decision allowing the case to proceed.
Alumni trustees of Penn State University may recover the litigation costs of their successful suit to gain access to “source materials” of the Freeh Report on the Jerry Sandusky situation, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has held.
The federal District Court in the District of Columbia has ruled that a group of “individuals sharing mutual concerns” about Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have no standing to sue the Treasury Department to force it to investigate about 200 501(c)(3) organizations and revoke their exemptions where appropriate. The District Court followed a long line of cases denying standing where the activity complained of has only a tenuous relationship to the injury complained about and where the remedy requested would not redress the injury.
