Category: News Feeds

There’s not much that needs to be said here that wasn’t laid out in the headline. Judge Steven Seeger hasn’t been on the federal bench for long, having only joined the Northern District of Illinois late last year, but he’s already drawn up his first iconic order rejecting a motion to reconsider the scheduling of a temporary restraining order hearing.

Over unicorns.

Maybe read the room before you file.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

* A lawyer for the Red Sox is adamant that the franchise is not guilty of sign stealing. But underhanded tactics is kind of a tradition for Boston-area teams… [Yahoo News]

* A former staffer for Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has filed a class action lawsuit alleging that numerous staffers were promised jobs through November and were actually laid off after Bloomberg suspended his campaign. [Hill]

* A Detroit courthouse has been disinfected after an attorney who visited the courthouse tested positive for COVID-19. If Detroit’s courts are even open, they’re a few weeks behind New York and New Jersey… [Detroit Free Press]

* The New Jersey Attorney General has said that citizens who break a stay-at-home order may face jail time or fines of up to $1,000. [Hill]

* Goldman Sachs paid its top in-house lawyer over $8 Million last year. I’m in the wrong field. [Bloomberg Law]

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Zororo was the son of business mogul and Zanu PF politician James Makamba. Family spokesperson Tawanda Makamba, elder brother to Zororo, spoke to Daily News reporter Sindiso Mhlope and below is the verbatim extract.

Zororo was in New York for 20 days and when he came back he had a slight flue, a cold. He then went to his general practitioner and they checked him for coronavirus symptoms and they said he didn’t have them at the time.

He was just told that he had a cough and a flue because in New York it’s cold and here it’s hot, so they then treated him for flue and he came back home.

On Friday last week he started developing a fever and his doctor recommended that he had to be admitted. This is because Zororo had a tumour removed from just under his left lung last year in November and he was under an 18-month recovery time-frame.

His immune system was already compromised, so the doctor was very keen that he gets into the hospital and receives proper medication to help him get over the flue and fever.

He was further advised to go to Wilkins Hospital to test for the coronavirus. He arrived at Wilkins Hospital by 10 am and samples were collected from him and we were told that the results would be in after 6 hours.

After 6 hours there were no results and his general practitioner called to find out why the results had not been availed yet. The hospitals officials then told the GPA that they had not run the tests yet they were waiting for samples from provincial hospitals to run them all at once.

The doctor got frustrated and started questioning why they had not run the tests given that Zororo’s condition was deteriorating. After some time they then decided to run the test and in the meantime we took him home and he needed oxygen.

His GPA phoned around and an ambulance came home to deliver the oxygen and then we got the positive results for coronavirus at about 1:30 or 2:00am the following day.
They told us that now that they had confirmed that he had the virus he had to be taken to the Wilkins Hospital for treatment.

We then inquired if we could him bring immediately and we were told that the hospital was not ready to receive coronavirus patients.

So in the morning we waited and waited and they were still not ready to admit him. He ended up being admitted around 10am and 11am.

His doctor made it clear earlier on that he had to be on a ventilator because he could not breathe. However, when we got at Wilkins Hospital there was no ventilator, no medication and even the oxygen would run out and they had to get it from the City of Harare.

After that we ran around to find a ventilator for him and we managed to get a portable ventilator from a family friend who had a relative who used the ventilator before he died.

In terms of medicine you need to breathe, they didn’t have it there, we had to go and buy it in South Africa. We ended up finding some today (yesterday)just as he was passing away at a local pharmacy, yet the hospital was telling us it was not locally available.

We then brought the ventilator on Sunday by 2pm and when we got here, because the portable ventilator had an American plug, they told us to get an adapter because they only had round sockets at the hospital. I then rushed to buy an adapter and came back and they never used it and when I asked why they were not using the ventilator they said they had no sockets in his room. So they didn’t have medication, ventilators and we brought them a ventilator and they didn’t have sockets in his room. I told them that I had an extension cord and pleaded with them to use the cord, but they refused.
They forced us to come here, but failed to deliver on their promise. When Zororo had his operation, he had it at Health Point Clinic. I contacted the people at Health Point and asked if they were willing to take Zororo in and they said yes and that they had already set up a facility to accommodate him.
We then appealed to Health minister Obadiah Moyo that since you are not prepared at Wilkins Hospital can we take him to Health Point and he refused.

Minister Moyo said we could not take him there and that needed to be treated at Wilkins. We were puzzled and wondered how he could say that Zororo should be treated at Wilkins when they don’t even have plugs in his room to connect the ventilator.

He promised us all sorts of things that this morning (yesterday) they would definitely be a ventilator and equipment but nothing materialised. If you go inside there you will see that they are not prepared to handle cases this side.

The minister at some point also suggested that we could take him to a trauma centre in Borrowdale. When it was now time for us to go to Borrowdale trauma they refused us to go there.

Instead they got the owner of Borrowdale Trauma Centre to call me and he told me that he could come and set up an ICU at Wilkins for Zororo complete with a ventilator and monitors, but he said that we had to pay US$120 000 for the equipment.

He added that once Zororo finishes using the equipment and recovers we had to donate the equipment to Wilkins Hospital. So basically the hospital wanted us to buy the equipment for them. We don’t have US$120 000 and it is not our responsibility to buy equipment for the government.

On top of that, remember this is a critical patient, nurses would only visit him after two hours because they were afraid of handling his situation. We had to phone from home, calling the nurse station to tell them that Zororo was in distress and that his oxygen was finished because they were not going to check on him.

It even got to a point where they were telling us that we are bothering them but Zororo was struggling in there.

My mother and his fiancé have been parked out here for the past two days and they wouldn’t allow us to come in.

The minister lied to us on many occasions. He lied to us that they were going to bring equipment and doctors but nothing ever materialised.

We reached out to President Emmerson Mnangagwa and First Lady Auxilia Mnangagwa who promised us that Zororo could be transferred to Beatrice and that there was a room for him. Nothing came out of this.
We even appealed to them saying that if they have failed then they should allow us to take him home and treat him ourselves because really what he needed was oxygen.

At the end before he died, he kept telling us that he was alone and scared and the staff was refusing to help him to a point where he got up and tried to walk out and they were trying to restrain him.
So this is how my younger brother ended up dying. I want people to know that the government is lying.
Remember at some point I spoke to the president and he was saying that the report he received about Wilkins from the Health minister is that there is equipment and medicine.

However, right now they don’t even have water at Wilkins. So if you come here to be treated for corona there is absolutely no treatment you will get, you will die.

I am not a healthcare giver but I have respect for nurses and doctors. The doctor we were in contact with here at Wilkins would turn off his phone yet he was the critical contact person, the nurses also refused to help us.

So people need to know that the government is ill-prepared, it is not ready to deal with this virus.
Right now we have been outside since 12pm and they have not given us his body, neither have they told us the way forward.

Zororo passed away between 11am and 12pm today (yesterday) and the hospital called us to come and look at his body. When we got there, we were, however, told that they had already put his body in a body bag and taken it to the mortuary.

Until now at 5pm we have been waiting for further communication and they have not even given us any of his belongings.

This is such a heart-breaking experience for us and it goes to show the lack of seriousness our government has in dealing with the coronavirus.

Post published in: Featured

Zororo Makamba was one of the two people who tested positive for coronavirus on Saturday.

He was admitted to hospital in the capital Harare after exhibiting flu-like symptoms last Thursday, the health ministry said in a statement.

Makamba contracted the disease while he was in New York and was in isolation at Wilkins hospital, Harare’s only isolation facility.

TV personality and executive producer, Vimbai Muthinhiri said Makamba was like a brother to her and their families were close growing up.

“Zororo embodied what comes to mind when we talk about Africa’s next generation being our hope,” Muthinhiri said.

“He was Zo, our little brother and ever happy friend who always saw a silver lining in every situation. It’s so difficult to accept that someone who was so full of life will no longer call to check in again,” she added.

Makamba as a high school student where he frequently won awards and trophies, his friend Vimbai Muthinhiri said.

Zimbabwe’s information minister, Monica Mutsvangwa, said she received the news with “extreme sadness and deep sense of shock.”

Makamba had traveled to New York on February 29 and returned to his home in Harare on March 9.

He began to exhibit mild flu-like symptoms a few days later on March 12. He then contacted his doctor a week later and he was advised to self isolate, the Health Minister Obadiah Moyo said in the statement.

On arrival at hospital, Makamba developed severe respiratory distress and was kept in isolation under supervision from health practitioners.

Authorities are now tracing people who came into contact with him.

Mutsvangwa urged the nation to take precautions against Covid-19 after Zimbabwe confirmed its first case late last week.

“As we mourn him the whole nation should take the threat of COVID 1 very seriously. Let’s all follow due medical precautions as announced by the Ministry of Health and by the World Health Organization,” Mutsvangwa said.

Meanwhile, in an address to the nation on Monday night, Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced the closure of all borders except for returning residents and cargo effective immediately.

Mnangagwa also announced that all gatherings over 50 people will be banned and bars, nightclubs, gyms and swimming pools will be closed in an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Columbus Mavhunga contributed to this report from Harare, Zimbabwe.

David Green, CEO of the crafting behemoth Hobby Lobby, has always run his business according to strict Christian principles.  That’s why he sued the federal government to overturn the ACA’s contraceptive mandate, because what’s the purpose of religious freedom if you can’t use it to stop your employees getting birth control? So naturally, the CEO consulted the man upstairs on how best to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. And after much prayerful reflection, Green has decided that, until the Health Department or Jesus Christ himself shut them down, all 900-plus Hobby Lobbys are staying open.

“In my family, [my wife] Barbara is the prayer warrior,” Green allegedly wrote to his 32,000 employees, who were doubtless reassured that Mrs. Green’s prayers are shielding them like an impenetrable veil of holy Purell.

He continued:

In her quiet prayer time this past week, the Lord put on Barbara’s heart three profound words to remind us that He’s in control. Guide, Guard, and Groom. We serve a God who will Guide us through this storm, who will Guard us as we travel to places never seen before, and who, as a result of this experience, will Groom us to be better than we could have ever thought possible before now.

Then Green, whose net worth is $6 billion, warned that “we may all have to ‘tighten our belts’ over the near future” to maintain the company’s low debt ratio.

And you thought your managing partner was dysfunctional!

Now, to be fair, this memo has not been authenticated by Hobby Lobby’s corporate offices. But neither has it been denied, and today Business Insider reached out to a Hobby Lobby regional manager, who confirmed that the company intends to stay open come H-E-double-hockey-sticks or high water.

“Our management has doubled down on the work stance, and the district manager has said that our stores will remain open until the National Guard comes in and physically shuts the buildings down,” the source told BI. Idle hands — and cash registers — are the devil’s playground after all, so it’s essential to the health of the nation that customers can browse for Mod Podge in a national emergency,.

The source also authenticated a March 23 all-employee memo from Randy Betts, Senior VP of Store Operations detailing plans for stores closed by local ordinance which recently surfaced online.

If stores are shuttered by local authorities, employees will be forced to exhaust “all available paid time-off benefits (e.g., Vacation Pay, Personal Time Off, Personal/Sick Pay),” after which they’ll be eligible for “75% of their regular rate of pay for two weeks following the exhaustion of all available paid time off benefits.” Two whole weeks, how very X-tian!

After the two weeks, employees will be cast out into the wilderness, where they are “encouraged to contact their local unemployment offices to determine whether they are eligible for unemployment benefits.”

Employees who are sick or who come into contact with a sick person “should request time off, a leave of absence, or an accommodation related to COVID-19.” None of those words sound like paid sick leave. In fact, they sound like a strong disincentive for hourly workers, dependent on Hobby Lobby for their income and health insurance, to STFU and keep coming to work if they’ve been exposed to a person with a COVID-19 diagnosis.

No doubt, these employees on “unpaid leave of absence until further notice” will take comfort in the sermonizing of their billionaire overlord, who writes, “My and Barbara’s confidence, and comfort, comes in large part from knowing that you are a part of our Hobby Lobby family.”

Does Hobby Lobby sell a needle with an eye big enough for a rich man to get into heaven after firing employees who are exposed to a highly contagious virus at work when “an employee or customer reports that he/she has been diagnosed with COVID-19?” Asking for a well known American craft tycoon!

In a leaked memo, Hobby Lobby refuses to give workers paid sick leave during the coronavirus pandemic [Business Insider]

In light of the health crisis cause by the coronavirus, the members of the Supreme Court have stopped the “judicial handshake” that the justices do before going on the bench and at the start of private conferences. The tradition dates back to the tenure of which Chief Justice?

Hint: He reportedly started the practice to remind justices of their harmony of purpose — despite whatever disagreements they may have.

See the answer on the next page.

The coronavirus pandemic has upended the legal profession writ large, with law firms going remote, layoffs getting started, law school classes convening online, and commencements canceled. With all of this going on, we wondered if the July 2020 administration of the bar exam would be postponed due to the risk of test takers becoming infected with COVID-19.

Now, New York is about to decide whether it will be possible to administer the bar exam at all, let alone postpone it.

The New York State Bar Association’s (NYSBA) Task Force on the New York State Bar Examination will convene on an emergency basis to determine the fate of this summer’s would-be test takers. From the NYSBA’s press release:

“COVID-19 has profoundly impacted all aspects of the practice of law. Depending on the duration of the crisis, it may not be possible to hold the bar exam this July,” said Henry M. Greenberg, president of the New York State Bar Association. “That judgment needs to be made soon, as graduating law school students are understandably anxious to take their place in this profession and need to know when and how best to prepare for the bar exam. So, we look to the task force to expeditiously give us its best thinking and judgment on this important issue.”

“The task force’s mission requires a great deal of thought, but we must act quickly and decisively,” [task force chair Alan Scheinkman, the presiding justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department] said. “It’s clear now that rising law school students may not be able to take this exam together in New York in July. We must find ways for them to prove their ability to join the profession even if it’s on a provisional basis.”

Recommendations from the task force will be presented during a virtual meeting of the bar association’s House of Delegates on April 4. A decision on the state of the July 2020 bar exam will be announced “as quickly as possible.”

As if law students really needed another thing to worry about right now.

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Mike Bloomberg’s $900M+ presidential campaign never made much sense. The only merit to the entire endeavor was allowing Elizabeth Warren to drop anvils on him for two hours like the luxury brand Elmer Fudd he is. From the beginning, the whole campaign felt like a cruel trick played by opportunistic consultants separating a fool from his money with laser precision. Remember in 2016 when his people leaked these preposterous maps they were teasing him with — showing him in prime position to win a three-way race? Good times.

Now he’s out, but not before giving the Democratic Party one last look at his dyed-in-the-wool liberal bona fides: he told his staff they all probably have coronavirus and then fired them and took them off their health care.

Anyone hear the slogan, “Mike Will Get It Done“? Well, his staffers are pretty sure the “it” was “screwing them over.” By the way, I lived in this city for 12 years and never once heard that phrase but this chump ran his campaign like that was his political calling card for decades. Where did that even come from and why wasn’t it “Tippecanoe and Terminals too” or “The Cross of Big Gulps”?

Alas, before that whole “firing coronavirus patients” maneuver wends its way to the courthouse, Mayor Mike has a class-action suit waiting for him in the Southern District of New York. Shavitz Law Group and Outten & Golden filed a putative class action on behalf of exempt-classified Campaign Field Organizers for Bloomberg’s beautiful, doomed quest seeking unpaid overtime pursuant to FLSA as well as fraudulent inducement and breach of contract after allegedly promising continued employment through November 2020 — whether or not he won the nomination.

The latter claim stems from Bloomberg’s decision to enter the race late and allegedly promising the moon to any seasoned hand willing to bolt on their existing job to help him out. The complaint says the promise to pay through the end of the cycle was the carrot held out to get staffers to commit to the team. Needless to say, after Democrats kicked him to the curb, Bloomberg is not paying staffers through November.

Employees reasonably relied on Bloomberg’s representations, to their economic peril, in leaving their jobs and working for Bloomberg. In addition based on Bloomberg’s fraudulent representations about their length of employment, employees are left with potentially no healthcare in the face of a worldwide pandemic.

It’s hard to feel bad for the high-ranking folks grifting off Bloomberg’s ego. They goaded him into the race with patently ridiculous lies about his viability and cashed huge checks for their time and effort. But the rank-and-file workers didn’t slide right back to their K Street consultancies. These are folks who do the dirty work of waging a campaign. They’re people who gave up other opportunities for this. People like to think of campaign workers as idealistic true believers but at a certain level of the campaign, it’s more of an organizational project management gig rather than a holy crusade. These folks deserve to get paid because they’re highly skilled professionals.

And to borrow from Animal House, their only error was in trusting Mike.

(Check out the complaint on the next page.)

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.