High Court Rules On Home Care, Toxics, Smokers
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The Supreme Court yesterday:
• Said 1 million home care workers are not entitled to overtime pay under federal law.
• Allowed companies to sue to recover their costs when they voluntarily clean up hazardous material under the Superfund program.
• Agreed to decide whether federal judges are required to impose dramatically longer sentences for crack cocaine than for cocaine powder.
• Ruled against Philip Morris’s effort to get a smokers’ lawsuit filed in state court moved to federal court, where damages awards often are smaller.
• Accepted Sprint Nextel Corp.’s appeal of an employment case that could make it harder for workers to prove discrimination allegations.
• Declined to force companies to consider invitations to merge their pension plans as an alternative to terminating them.
• Upheld a California murder conviction, despite the exclusion of testimony that someone else was the killer.
