Courts

A day before a multi-million dollar class action suit was supposed to go to trial, attorneys reached a settlement in the state employees’ equal pay case that is expected to give every plaintiff what they asked for.The class – made up of as many as 15,000 former state employees – wanted compensation for hours they worked between 1973 and 1993 and didn’t receive equal pay of fellow workers, who had only worked 37 1/2 hours compared to their 40 hours a…

The Indiana Supreme Court made history this week.The current five justices reached a record-setting milestone Feb. 24 in the number of days they’ve served together on the state’s highest court. Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard and Justices Ted Boehm, Brent Dickson, Robert Rucker, and Frank Sullivan have been together for 3,040 consecutive days, according to the Appellate Clerk’s Office.To be clear: They’ve been together since Justice Rucker joined the court Nov. 19, 1999.The previous record goes back to 1985. Justices Alfred Pivarnik, Dixon…

The Indiana Supreme Court has accepted five new cases. At its weekly conference Aug. 28, justices granted transfer in two civil cases, two criminal cases, and a tax court case. • Brenda and Darren Wagner v. Bobbi Yates, et al., No. 22A01-0710-CV-474: An underinsured motorist policy case from Floyd County. The Court of Appeals in April affirmed the lower court’s granting of a motion for summary judgment in favor of American Standard Insurance Company of Wisconsin, the Wagners’ automobile insurer. The court ruled that American Standard can set…

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear its second case this term from Indiana on March 26, considering whether a defendant found competent to stand trial should also be allowed to represent himself.Justices granted certiorari in December for Indiana v. Edwards, No. 07-208, which follows an Indiana Supreme Court ruling in May 2007. The case stems from a July 1999 downtown Indianapolis incident in which Ahmad Edwards was caught on surveillance tape stealing shoes. He ultimately shot at police multiple…

A city’s law prohibiting registered sex offenders from visiting parks or recreation areas is likely on its way to the Indiana Court of Appeals in what a civil liberties attorney said could be the first appellate case of its kind in the country.A ruling from Hendricks Superior Judge Robert Freeze March 14 upholds a Plainfield ban of sex offenders in parks and recreational areas, finding the six-year-old local ordinance constitutional and not in violation of any guideposts established by the state…

Bankruptcy filings have increased so much in Indiana that some U.S. trustees handling Chapter 7 proceedings may want to add an extra session each month to hear new cases.Attorneys statewide are seeing more clients from an uptick in filings, and as a result are not surprised to hear that federal filings across the country surged 38 percent in 2007. Nor are they surprised that Indiana ranked fourth highest in the nation overall and top in the country for the number of…