A federal judge in New York got his dander up about a practice that is routine in courts around the country: making shareholders pay twice for securities fraud.

In a blistering ruling released Monday, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff rejected a settlement between Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission over $5.8 billion in bonuses it paid to Merrill Lynch employees last year, allegedly without warning shareholders. In that settlement, BofA denied lying to shareholders but agreed to pay the SEC $33 million and to never do it again.

This struck Rakoff as unfair. Why should shareholders hand the government $33 million to settle claims that management hid information from them?

“To have the victims of the violation pay an additional penalty for their own victimization was enough to give the Court pause,” Rakoff wrote in an acid 13-page ruling.

The ironic part is this is exactly what happens in most securities fraud cases. A company’s stock price falls, the class-action lawyers file a complaint, and after months of expensive pretrial jousting, the parties settle with the company’s shareholders picking up the tab. The fact that insurance is often the source of the money doesn’t change things: Insurance companies aren’t charities--they collect those payouts by increasing rates.

Read more...

The Environmental Protection Agency is endangering the lungs of Imperial Valley residents by refusing to enforce national air quality standards, a nonprofit group claims in Federal Court.

The Comite Cívico del Valle says the EPA is delaying a decision on whether the district's new air quality rules comply with the Clean Air Act.

The Committee claims residents of Imperial Valley "are adversely affected by exposure to levels of air pollution" that exceed standards established by the Clean Air Act. Pollution in the hot, arid valley includes fine particles of dust, soot and fumes, caused by "unpaved roads, windblown dust, waste burning and disposal, construction and demolition and fuel combustion."

Read the full article

The family of a man who was shot to death by a Border Patrol agent says the agency's hiring practices are partly to blame for the death. Francisco Dominguez-Rivera's family says the agency should have known of Nicholas W. Corbett's history of "ethnic hatred" before allowing him in the field.

Corbett was tried twice in 2008 on charges of killing Francisco Dominguez-Rivera, a 22-year-old immigrant who was making his way back to Mexico through the desert near Douglas when Corbett arrested him. After nearly hitting Dominguez-Rivera and three others with his vehicle, Corbett arrested the group and, without provocation, shot Dominguez-Rivera "execution style, within a firing range of approximately 3 to 12 inches," according to the federal complaint.

Corbett claimed self-defense, but the autopsy and ballistics evidence back up claims by Dominguez-Rivera's companions that there had been no altercation before the shooting. Corbett was charged with second-degree murder. Both trials ended with hung juries, and the charges were dropped.

Read the full article

Abortion protesters can't gather on the handicapped entrance ramp to a Planned Parenthood clinic, the 3rd Circuit ruled, because the protest would block access to the ramp.

The three-judge panel in Philadelphia rejected the First Amendment claims of four Christians who were denied permission to protest on the handicapped ramp of the Planned Parenthood clinic in York, Pa. They said police chilled their speech by threatening to arrest them for trespass if they spoke to clients on the ramp.

The protesters argued that part of the ramp is on a public right of way, so they should be allowed to stand there.

Read the full article

Joan Jett sued former Runaways bassist Jacqueline Fuchs, claiming the "disgruntled" musician continually disrupts Jett's merchandising and movie-making efforts, despite having quit the band in 1977.

Jett says Fuchs left the band in the lurch when she quit during a sold-out Japanese tour, forcing Jett to temporarily take charge of the bass.

Jett says Fuchs followed that up by threatening to sue Jett and her long-term business partner, Ken Laguna, if they continued selling Runaways merchandise.

Jett says Fuchs claimed a right to the Runaways trademark and demanded to see the script for a forthcoming movie about the band, though it does not feature a character based on Fuchs.

Read the full article