New York Law Blog

Last year, CBS News reported on Marine Sergeant Carmelo Rodriguez and his battle with the medical malpractice system in regards to the military. While serving in the Marines, Sgt. Rodriguez was misdiagnosed by military doctors, saying a malignant melanoma was actually just wart. Years later, Sgt. Rodriguez was medically discharged due to his cancer, and due to a little known law called the Feres Doctrine, Sgt. Rodriguez’s family cannot bring a medical malpractice case against the government.

Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the United States is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to members of the armed forces sustained while on active duty and not on furlough and resulting from the negligence of others in the armed forces. The opinion is an extension of the English common-law concept of sovereign immunity.

The practical effect is that the Feres doctrine effectively bars service members from successfully collecting damages for personal injuries, whether or not they were suffered in the performance of their duties. It also bars families of service members from filing wrongful death or loss of consortium actions when a service member is killed or injured.

The full CBS News report can be seen below. CBS reported earlier this year that the “Carmelo Rodriguez Military Malpractice and Injustice Act” is being introduced into Congress by New York state representative Maurice Hinchey.

-An Ithica, New York man is appealing his charge of convicted murder of New York state trooper Joseph Longobardo. Ralph Phillips allegedly killed Mr. Longobardo and injured two other troopers.

His attorneys are scheduled to appear in a state court in Rochester this morning to appeal his convictions. The 46-year-old Phillips claims he entered his guilty pleas only because he got bad advice from a court-appointed lawyer.

-Anger is rising in New York City over affordable housing and the laws surrounding it. Many advocates for affordable housing believe the laws that deal with housing issues in New York are not properly followed or implemented.

The group outside the DHCE [Department of Housing and Community Renewal] on Tuesday wants a review of a law that allows landlords to raise rent after basic repairs and renovations, as they say it is being abused. They also take issue with what they describe as increasing harassment from their landlords in an effort to get them out of rent-stabilized apartments, and then increase rent.

“A housing law with too many loopholes and too few protections, a steady decline in the number of affordable housing units available citywide, and now a devastated economy, are about to create the most disastrous environment for New York City tenants in recent memory,” said Michelle O’Brien, Campaign Director of the New York Home Coalition.

-Lawrence Lessig, a champion of fair use copyright laws, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times entitled “Copyright and Politics Don’t Mix”. In the piece, Mr. Lessig cites mainstream media outlets who are requesting their copyrighted materials be pulled from political ads in what he deems to be censorship over political campaigns.

Last year, Fox News ordered John McCain to stop using a clip of himself at a Fox News-moderated debate. Last month, Warner Music Group demanded YouTube remove an amateur video attacking Barack Obama that included its music, while NBC asked the Obama campaign to pull an ad that included some NBC News video with Tom Brokaw and Keith Olbermann. No doubt, these corporations are simply trying to avoid controversy or embarrassment, but by claiming infringement, they are effectively censoring political speech.

Senator McCain has taken a lead in responding to this copyright extremism. In a letter addressed to YouTube last week, the McCain campaign rightly criticized the Web site’s decision to remove work that is “clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine” of copyright law and called upon YouTube to be more protective of political speech by conducting a more extensive review of material before it gets taken down.

With the vote pending in New York City Council over extending the term limit laws, two of the council  members requested a judge stop the vote saying it “poses a conflict of interest”. The extension of the term limit laws has been constantly debated in political circles as well as in the media and with the general public. Twice in the 1990’s, the public voted against the term limit extension, and now the city council wants to take it to vote on their own.

Randy Mastro, who represents council members Bill de Blasio and Letitia James and served as a deputy mayor under Bloomberg’s predecessor Rudy Giuliani, argued it is a conflict for the council to vote to extend their own political careers.

"This case concerns the blatant violation of the City Charter’s conflicts laws that will necessarily result from the Council’s vote on such self-serving legislation," said the lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court.

According to a recent poll, 89 percent of New York City voters say that the vote belongs in their hands, and not in the hands of city council. Should the injunction to stop the vote fail, the 51 members of city council will vote on the law today.

UPDATE: City council voted 29-22 in favor of extending term limits on Thursday evening. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had this to say shortly following their vote:

"Today, the majority of the City Council decided to give the people of New York a fuller choice in the November, 2009 election. I believe that was the right choice, and I want to thank Speaker Quinn for her leadership.

"Those of us who work on both sides of City Hall must now move forward with the important decisions that face us, particularly finding ways to soften the fallout from the economic downturn and balancing our budget as revenues decline. We have a lot of work to do together to get New York through these tough times."