Recently in Courts Category

The monument, the judge says, serves a secular purpose commemorating members of the armed forces and as such, is constitutional. This should finish-up rounds of litigation that started nearly 20 years ago in 1989, when the city was first sued over the cross. The issue heated up in 2006, when Congress acquired the monument to make sure it's properly preserved (and likely to end the litigation that had dragged on for years in California state courts).

(photo by Flickr member more_than_words)

Jennifer Medina says the CHP and sheriff's deputies shot her husband 37-times, killing him, after a low-speed chase in what she calls a case of racial profiling. Medina was hispanic. She filed a federal civil rights lawsuit here in San Diego last week, asking for punitive and other damages.

Media reports at the time said that police shot a "suspected drunken-driver," that refused to pull over but then later noted that at least one of the officers involved was the subject of an excessive force investigation.

The family and their lawyers have more information on the case at http://justice4medina.com.

A San Diego woman who worked for food-service company Sodexo at Sharp Memorial hospital has sued the company after she said her boss fired her for living with her boyfriend, also an employee.

The company, according to the woman, says its policy was not to employ "relatives" and that either she or her boyfriend would have to quit. The real reason is, she says, that her living arrangements offended her boss' religious beliefs.

 She's asking for $75,001 -- just enough to get the case into federal court.

A San Diego man sued American Airlines in federal court last week, claiming he was told to "shut up and remain seated" after he asked to be left off a plane to get medical help. Turns out he had kidney stones, but, according to his complaint, the flight crew threatened him with arrest as he continually asked to be let off the plane. He finally made it to a hospital after being forced to endure a more than three-hour flight.