Background: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that police did not violate art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights by waiting 109 days in Jose Solis's case and 123 days in Michael Diaz's case before seeking warrants to search cell phones lawfully seized incident to arrest. Although both delays were lengthy and exceeded the sixty-eight-day…
Held: Justice Georges, writing for a unanimous court, explained that an initially lawful seizure can become unreasonable through its duration, but White requires balancing rather than a fixed deadline. Relevant considerations include the length of delay, whether the owner sought the device's return, the device's importance to the owner, the strength of the government's independent reason to retain the physical device,…
Background: The appellant was convicted of committing an indecent act against his seven-year-old granddaughter while supervising her and her sisters in 2018. The granddaughter told a child investigator that, while she lay in bed shining a flashlight at decorations on the ceiling, her grandfather stroked her stomach, placed his hand beneath her clothing, and rubbed her…
Held: The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal against both conviction and sentence. Justice David Mintz held that there was no basis to disturb the trial court's factual and credibility findings. Having independently viewed the granddaughter's recorded interview, he found her account exceptionally convincing, consistent, detailed, and grounded in a personal experience despite repeated questioning during an interview lasting more than…
Background: Yaa Foriwaa Appiah was transferred from prison to a secure psychiatric facility in December 2018 under sections 48 and 49 of the Mental Health Act 1983. After those powers were due to expire, two approved psychiatrists assessed her and recommended detention for treatment under section 3. Because her husband, Peter Kwesi Appiah, opposed that detention…
Held: Tom Little KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court judge, dismissed the claim. On the balance of probabilities, Mrs Appiah had a mental disorder requiring detention when section 3 was invoked on 26 April 2019, and her detention remained lawful until the Tribunal discharged her. The court accepted the contemporaneous clinical assessments and expert evidence that her condition improved with…
Background: Kaci Tauroa pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of her 10-year-old stepbrother, Jax. While driving at night in heavy rain on a difficult section of State Highway 1, Tauroa tailgated other vehicles, overtook near blind corners, and entered a blind bend at more than 120 kilometres per hour. She lost control and collided…
Held: The High Court allowed the appeal in part. Becroft J held that the District Court’s four-year-and-six-month starting point was not excessive and could properly have been at least five years given the prolonged and exceptionally dangerous driving, cannabis use, vehicle fault, licence breach, victim vulnerability, and resulting death. The allowances for the guilty plea and remorse were within range, and…
Background: Police stopped a Ford Focus carrying Jeff Belony after drug investigators saw a Black man leave a New York-to-Maine bus and enter the car. Informants had reported that a man known as “Heff,” possibly Belony, was involved in drug trafficking and would arrive in Bangor on that bus line. Investigators did not believe that information…
Held: The Maine Supreme Judicial Court held that police had reasonable, articulable suspicion to initiate the stop. An officer could reasonably believe that a plate obscured by dirt and readable only from a few feet away violated Maine law. The mistaken observation that Belony was not wearing a seat belt also could support investigation because a reasonable factual mistake does not…
Background: Paul Coffey and Tony Collopy served custodial sentences in Limerick Prison beginning on different dates in 2021. For periods of their imprisonment, each occupied a single-person cell without in-cell sanitation and was required to “slop out.” In-cell sanitation became available to all prisoners there before the end of 2022, so their conditions had improved by…
Held: Mr. Justice Conleth Bradley extended time for the applicants’ challenge, taking account of the procedural history, court delays, the explanation for the amendments, and the absence of demonstrated prejudice to third parties. He rejected, however, their argument that time began only when leave for judicial review was granted in February 2024.
Background: GW Capital No 2 Pty Ltd managed a unit-trust investment fund in which members of the Mackenzie family and their associated superannuation vehicles had invested. After GW Capital failed to satisfy redemption requests, the parties entered a settlement deed dated 25 March 2025. The deed required GW Capital to make scheduled redemption payments totalling $9.05…
Held: Nixon J dismissed all three challenges. GW Capital had not established a genuine dispute concerning the settlement debts. Its estoppel case was deficient, including because it did not show that Mark Mackenzie had actual or ostensible authority to bind the other investors, and it did not sufficiently identify a clear representation capable of preventing enforcement. The asserted waiver and offsetting…
Background: John Henry Sliger was involved in an April 2020 collision with a dirt bike whose rider later died. After Sliger acknowledged drinking, he voluntarily took a portable breath test and, at an officer’s direction, spit out a lump of chewing tobacco. He was arrested and taken to jail, where he agreed to a Draeger breath…
Held: The Washington Supreme Court affirmed. It interpreted “any foreign substances” in former RCW 46.61.506(4)(a)(iii) to mean any kind of foreign substance capable of affecting a breath test’s reliability—not every trace amount of material, regardless of its effect. The court reasoned that treating microscopic or harmless residue as an automatic bar to admissibility would conflict with the statute’s reliability-focused purpose and…
Background: Ohio's financial-institutions tax applies to a bank's Ohio equity capital, calculated by multiplying its total equity capital by the share of its gross receipts attributable to Ohio. The tax uses declining rates as Ohio equity capital increases: 0.8 percent on the first $200 million, 0.4 percent on the next $1.1 billion, and 0.25 percent above…
Held: The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed. It held that the financial-institutions tax is internally consistent under the dormant Commerce Clause because, if every state adopted the same system, each state would tax only the portion of a bank's equity capital apportioned to that state. The structure therefore does not create double taxation.
Background: The No Surprises Act uses an independent dispute-resolution process to resolve payment disputes between insurers and out-of-network healthcare providers. Central to that process is the qualifying payment amount, or QPA, generally defined as the median of contracted rates recognized by a health plan for the same or similar service, provider specialty, and geographic region.
Held: A majority of the en banc court held that the agencies acted unlawfully by directing insurers to include nonnegotiated ghost rates in QPA calculations. Because the statute limits the calculation to services provided and furnished, rates for services a provider does not perform—including nonzero placeholder rates—could not be included merely because they appeared in a form contract. A majority also…
Background: These consolidated appeals arose from four Oakland Circuit Court actions alleging that defects in municipal and county sewage-disposal systems caused raw sewage and storm water to flood residents’ homes. The plaintiffs sued Oakland County, the George W. Kuhn Drainage District, the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner, and the relevant locality: Southfield, Royal Oak, Birmingham, or…
Held: The Court of Appeals held that MCR 2.118(A)(1) permits a party to amend a complaint once as a matter of right at any time before, and up to 14 days after, an adverse party serves a responsive pleading. A responsive pleading therefore need not be served before the right to amend arises. Because the plaintiffs properly amended their complaints, the…
Background: Johnson Kayode Oyekola, a Nigerian citizen, claimed refugee protection after arriving in Canada in March 2018. His refugee proceeding was suspended after the Minister alleged that his approximately 16 years of service as a Nigerian police officer made him complicit in crimes against humanity. The allegation did not claim that he personally committed such crimes.
Held: The Federal Court allowed the application. It found no procedural unfairness arising from the incorrect name and birth date in the Minister’s submissions because the Immigration Division did not repeat the mistake, the remaining background facts concerned Oyekola, and no effect on the Division’s reasoning or result was shown.