The Maine Legislature has passed a bill that would make Maine the first state in the nation to require manufacturers of compact fluorescent light bulbs to set up recycling programs to keep mercury out of the environment.
The bill requires that a system be in place by 2011 for collecting and recycling the bulbs.
via WCSH6.com.
Maine’s governor will sign the gay marriage bill that has passed the house and senate. Maine will be the 5th state to make gay marriage legal.
Update: 12:35 p.m.
Gov. John Baldacci says he will sign the gay marriage bill into law, making
Maine the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage.
The Maine Supreme Court is allowing a negligence lawsuit against the State Department of Transportation to go forward. The plaintiff, John Jorgensen, suffered serious permanent injuries after crashing his car in a work zone. The DOT had closed one lane, but Jorgensen reentered that lane because there were no barricades indicating it was still closed, and subsequently crashed into a parked truck.
In a unanimous ruling, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court said the state can claim immunity when a complaint involves employees making policy decisions with relatively broad implications.
But in this case, the court ruled that immunity doesn’t extend to ”on-the-ground decisions” such as where to place barricades or cones or to park vehicles in repair zones, said Berney Kubetz, the Jorgensens’ attorney.
Maine is a “comparative negligence” state, meaning that if the plaintiff is found to be more negligent than the defendant, than he or she cannot recover. So in this case, the state will been to show that Jorgensen’s negligence in driving back into the closed lane was greater than the negligence of the DOT workers in failing to put enough cones and barriers to indicate that the lane was still closed.
Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac has filed a complaint against Portland firm Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson. It appears the firm’s misunderstanding of British law put their client on the hook for $4.5 million in fees. Law.com:
The Fleetwood group had hired the firm, which is based in Portland, Maine, to bring suit against a division of the British Broadcasting Corp. over distribution rights to rare musical recordings worth about $100 million, according to an amended complaint in the lawsuit, which was filed on March 26 in federal court in Maine. McNulty v. McDonald, No. 2:09-cv-00111 (D. Maine).
… At that time, Fleetwood’s group allegedly asked McDonald if they could be individually liable for the BBC division’s attorney fees, to which McDonald replied there was “no chance.”
But in 2005, the BBC division sued Bee Load in England, where a London court imposed about $150,000 in costs against Fleetwood’s group. Bee Load filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2006.
Invoking a British law called the “Funders’ Rule,” the BBC division sought $4.5 million in attorney fees, the suit claims.
The Bangor Daily News covers the proposed changes to the way indigent criminal defendants are provided legal assistance. The proposal calls for an independent commission to oversee the legal services for indigent defendants, something the State’s Judicial Branch now does. The full report on the proposal is available here.
A growing percentage of criminal defendants, the report concluded, are indigent and entitled to free representation. In fiscal year 2008, 42 percent of all juvenile defendants and 61 percent of all Superior Court defendants qualified for indigent legal services.
In addition, the number of cases in Superior Court, where felony charges are filed, grew nearly 20 percent from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2008. That increase primarily was due to recent changes by the Legislature to the criminal code that turned crimes that previously were misdemeanors and did not require jail time into felonies based on prior convictions or aggravating factors.
Coming from Washington, D.C. I was surprised that there was not always a security check at the Portland courthouse. Budget cuts will mean even few times those checks occur.
Three of 18 marshal positions are open at the courthouse in Portland, Maine’s busiest. The X-ray machine and metal detectors at the main entrance — regularly staffed by marshals as recently as last summer — are usually unmanned except for Fridays, when judges hear cases involving allegations of domestic abuse and harassment.
…”In 2007, more than 7,000 knives and lethal objects were stopped at the doors,” she said. “More terrifying, however, were the number of guns that were prevented from coming into courthouses by entry screening. Sixty-four times, guns or ammunition were stopped at doors.”
via Kennebec Journal.
Beleaguered Portland firm Verrill Dana has hired the former Maine Attorney General.
Rowe, a Portland resident, will join the firm’s litigation and trial department and environmental department. “We are delighted to welcome Steve to Verrill Dana,” Managing Partner K.C. Jones said in a statement. “He brings with him a reputation for sound judgment, integrity and collegiality, and a unique understanding of the state of Maine and the issues the state is facing.”
via Mainebiz.
While it might be good to apply it to everyone, for now only kids under 18 are prohibited from using cell phones, and other “hand-held devices” while driving. Certainly as this girl has learned, it is easy to be dangerously distracted by these ‘toys.’
Pierce Atwood, the largest law firm in the state, laid off 21 employees last week, including seven attorneys and 14 staff members, Gloria Pinza, the law firm’s managing partner, told Mainebiz this morning.
In order to save money in the face of a budget shortfall, several courts are cutting their hours on certain days:
YORK DISTRICT COURT will be closed from 8 to 10 a.m. on Tuesdays.
SPRINGVALE DISTRICT COURT will be closed on the first Wednesday of every month from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
BIDDEFORD DISTRICT COURT will be closed from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Fridays.
YORK COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT will be closed from 2 to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
PORTLAND DISTRICT COURT will be closed from noon to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays.
BRIDGTON DISTRICT COURT will be closed from 8 a.m. to noon on Mondays.