NJ Governor Authorizes Friday Closure Of State Offices for All Non-Essential Workers

In anticipation of the severe winter storm expected to arrive in New Jersey beginning Thursday evening, Governor Chris Christie declared a State of Emergency, authorizing the State Director of Emergency Management to activate and coordinate the preparation, response and recovery efforts for the storm with all county and municipal emergency operations and governmental agencies. Governor Christie also authorized the closing of state offices on Friday, January 3rd for all non-essential employees. “The impending weather conditions over the next several days will produce a variety of dangerous travel conditions throughout the state,” said Governor Christie. “I’ve authorized state officials to take all necessary action in advance of the storm, and my Administration will continue monitoring conditions throughout the remainder of the storm. I encourage all New Jerseyans to stay off the roads if possible so that our first responders and public safety officials can safely respond to any emergency situations.” Starting Thursday evening, the storm is expected to bring high winds, heavy snow, mixed precipitation, storm surges and sub-zero temperatures throughout the state. A potential mixture of hazardous travel conditions, fallen trees and power outages and coastal, stream and river flooding are anticipated. A copy of the Governor’s Executive Order declaring the State of Emergency [pdf 14kB]. # # #

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Blogging Judge to Put Away the Keyboard

Today's post was shared by WSJ Law Blog and comes from blogs.wsj.com

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf’s days as a blogger have come to an end. Judge Kopf’s blog “Hercules and the Umpire“, launched a little under a year ago, quickly made a splash in the legal world with its unusually candid mix of insights on the judicial process, legal news and personal reflections. On Wednesday, Mr. Kopf announced that he’s hanging up his pajamas and donning only a robe. His decision to quit blogging came a day after his site was featured in a The Wall Street Journal story about how more judges these days are taking to the Internet to pass judgment on policy and opine on trends. In a farewell post, the Nebraska jurist said he was quitting on his own volition. “I am not quitting because of ethics concerns. Such problems are real, but vastly overblown. A thoughtful judge has about the same chance of violating the Code of Conduct when writing a book, giving a speech, authoring a law review article or writing a blog post,” Judge Kopf wrote. “No one has given me the slightest trouble about expressing myself here.” He also said that although he’s “truly worn out,” he’s not quitting for health reasons either. “I have written all that I want to write and then some. It is that simple. My decision is final,” writes the judge. As WSJ’s Joe Palazzolo’s wrote, Judge Kopf’s cerebral commentary — sometimes marked by an almost confessional tone — raised...

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Jurist Prudence? Candid Judges Speak Out

Judges typically confine their opinions to their rulings. But 2013 was a year of exceptions. In Nebraska, U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf in February launched Hercules and the umpire, a blog that offers a mix of insights on the judicial process, legal news, personal reflections and wisdom. One nugget of advice to young judges: "It's not your job to save the world. Do law, leave justice to Clint Eastwood." In his latest book, "Reflections on Judging," Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago pleads "guilty" to upholding a voter-identification law "now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression." The passage, picked up by several media outlets, was widely viewed as a mea culpa—a rare instance of a judge saying he got it wrong. Judges have long been voluble, spirited and even poetic in their rulings. But in the digital age, they also have taken to the media and the Internet to pass judgment on policy and opine on trends. In the process, the outspoken are butting up against the view held by some that sitting judges shouldn't be seen or heard outside of court. And there is the risk that litigants could try to push certain judges off cases because something they said publicly gave a hint of bias. "The advice I was given over and over again was to keep your head down," said Nancy Gertner, a law professor at Harvard University and a former federal district judge in Massachusetts who has...

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North Dakota blast prompts review of oil train safety

A federal safety alert Thursday warned that crude oil flowing out of new fields in North Dakota may be more flammable than expected, a caution that comes several days after a train carrying about 3.5 million gallons of the same oil crashed in the state and set off a massive explosion. The accident on the BNSF Railway, the fourth such explosion in North America involving crude oil trains, has fed mounting concerns over public safety as the rail industry sharply increases the use of rail to transport surging crude production in North Dakota, Texas and Colorado. Following the latest derailment and crash, which forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 residents from the town of Casselton, the National Transportation Safety Board has launched the nation's first broad examination of the safety of moving petroleum by rail. Trains carrying oil have multiplied across the country as environmental concerns and political maneuvering have delayed approval of a major new pipeline to transport oil to Gulf Coast refineries. The issue may be most crucial for cities in the West, which were often founded and developed by railroads so that main lines go directly through the centers of today's urban areas. Crude oil shipments by rail have shot up 25-fold in the last several years as producers rush oil from newly developing shale fields to market. California alone has seen a fourfold increase over the last year, with current shipments of about 200,000 barrels a month. Refinery operators this...

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Coordination of Benefits and Non-Group Health Plan Recovery Transition

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is completing its restructuring of the Coordination of Benefits (COB) and Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) recovery activities.

COB activities for both Group Health Plans and Non-Group Health Plans (that is, liability insurance (including self-insurance), no-fault insurance, and workers' compensation laws or plans) and Recovery activities for Non-Group Health Plans will be transitioned from the COB contractor and the Medicare Secondary Payer Recovery Contractor effective February 1, 2014.  The new Benefits Coordination & Recovery Center (BCRC) will assume these activities.  As previously announced, this action will provide:

• Improved customer service for stakeholders
• Consolidated and streamlined data collection and recovery operations
• Value-added efficiencies and enhanced resource utilization

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Clothing Brands Sidestep Blame for Safety Lapses

From a sleek gray distribution center near Barcelona, the global fashion brand Mango ships 60 million garments in a year. Automated conveyor belts whir through the building like subway lines, sorting and organizing blouses, sweaters and other items to be shipped around the world. Human hands barely touch the clothes.

Five thousand miles away in Bangladesh, the Phantom Tac factory in the industrial suburb of Savar was a hive of human hands. Hundreds of men and women hunched over sewing machines to produce garments in an assembly line system unchanged for years. Speed was also essential, but that just meant people had to work faster. 

Last spring, as it pushed forward with global expansion plans, Mango turned to Phantom Tac to produce a sample order of polo shirts and other items. Then, on April 24, the Rana Plaza factory complex collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people in the deadliest disaster in garment industry history, and destroying Phantom Tac and other operations in the building.

Now, eight months later, the question is what responsibility Mango and other brands should bear toward the victims of Rana Plaza, a disaster that exposed the murkiness and lack of accountability in the global supply chain for clothes. Under intense international pressure, four brands agreed last week to help finance a landmark $40 million compensation fund for the victims.

But many other brands, including Mango, have so far refused to contribute to the...

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Asbestos Victims Ask Yale to Revoke an Honorary Degree

An Italian organization representing victims of asbestos exposure has asked Yale University to rescind an honorary degree awarded to the owner of the company they once worked for.

In the mid-1970s, Swiss billionaire Stefan Schmidheiny took over his family’s business. The Eternit company had plants around the world that produced asbestos cement products. The largest was in Casale Monferrato, Italy.

Connecticut lawyer Christopher Meisenkothen represents shipyard workers and boiler makers who worked with asbestos here in the U.S., and later developed diseases like asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma. He is handling the Italian request to Yale, pro bono.

Meisenkothen described notes from an Eternit company meeting in the 1970s. "Clearly," he said, "they were acknowledging in 1976 that the workers were at risk. The plant continued to use asbestos for many years after that. They could have given the workers respiratory protection, [or] installed exhaust fans. And the worker testimony from workers at the time consistently indicates that there were no serious precautions taken in the plant."

Two years later, Schmidheiny began to dismantle the company's asbestos processing concern. He went on to use his wealth to support eco-friendly sustainable development in other parts of the world.

In 2012, Schmidheiny was tried in absentia in Italy. He was found guilty of causing the deaths of thousands of people in Casale Monferrato, and has been sentenced to 18 years...


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