How arbitrary that Northwest airlines are going to revoke the miles of a membership of one of their most avid customers, one Rabbi S Binyomin Ginsberg, and this on account that he “complained too much.” They owe him rewards for the 75 flights he took a year regarding conferences on education and administration, and the company is arbitrarily saying they have the right to revoke the rewards of their high-mileage customers on their “sole judgment” — or caprice of whim.

So the Rabbi complained about his luggage being mishandled? Is that a reason to cut him off from the rewards he earned under their incentive program?

“It sounds to me like I go in to, you know, get a ticket, my reasonable expectations is they’re not going to charge me what they’re going to charge, you know.  I mean it’s unbelievable,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, who was reviewing Ginsberg’s case and said the Rabbi could sue over the prices. “That might be a great idea, but I don’t think that’s the idea behind this act.”

The idea the Rabbi wishes to oppose is that Norwest and Delta, after their merger, can rescind rewards to customers arbitrarily. The 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco gave Ginsberg the go-ahead to sue under state laws that require parties to act in good faith on their contracts, as the Associated Press reported.

Justice Elena Kegan agreed that the airlines were arbitrary, saying, “I don’t think that I’d be spending all this time in the air on your place. You know, I’d find another company that actually gave me the free ticket.

Paul Clement, the Washington lawyer representing Northwest, used this to insinuate that the market should handle this.

“So if some airline really were crazy enough to systematically turn on its most lucrative and loyal customers, surely, the market would solve that,” he said in over-stated language. “And, of course, if a bunch of airlines did it, the Department of Transportation stands ready to police that.” His use of the words “surely” and “of course” belie the flimsiness of his argument, and when a decision is made by late next June, it is not at all clear that Northwest will come out flying.

The post Frequent Flying Rabbi Denied His Due Rewards Because He Complained too Much first appeared on JDJournal Blog.

Two tenured professors were let go from Phoenix Law School for opposing what they describe as the administration’s underhanded tactics to prevent first year students from transferring to other schools. Michael O’Connor and Celia Rumann both allege that they were fired from their positions at the school after opposing planned curriculum and policy changes, and that these changes brought about modifications in their employment provisions which, when not accepted, led to their termination.

The complaint filed by O’Connor and Rumann, who are married to each other, seeks $75,000 in damages but is far more damaging to the school’s reputation. The complaints outline the school’s attempt to steamroll changes to the curriculum past a skeptical faculty, and the changes described paint a picture of a law school that prioritizes profit over the needs of students.

Phoenix School of Law is owned by InfiLaw Corp, which also owns the Charlotte School of Law and Florida Coastal School of Law, and is the only for-profit law school in the Phoenix area. In 2011, Phoenix presented two proposals that were designed to change protocols for students and faculty, known as “Legal Ed 2.0.” O’Connor and Rumann allege that changes included in these programs were designed to make it more difficult for first year students to transfer out of the school via means of changing the curriculum to make courses incompatible with other institutions, grade classes strictly on a pass/fail basis so that other law schools would not know who the top students were, and ban the creation of recommendation letters. On the faculty side, the plan eliminated tenure, as the school’s investors would prefer fewer tenured faculty members.

The complaint alleges that the curriculum changes were voted down by the faculty, but that the vote was overruled by Phoenix School of Law Dean Shirley Mays, according to the Connecticut Law Tribune. Upon the institution of the new policies, O’Connor and Rumann received a new appointment letter which contained terms different than the ones that had previously agreed to. They refused to sign it, instead signing a previous contract sent by the school, and were terminated less than a month later.

The complaint alleges breach of contract and of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Both Phoenix School of Law and the attorneys for O’Connor and Rumann refused to comment on the complaint to the Tribune.

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A lawyer facing criminal charges for advising 10 nurses they could quit their jobs at a Long Island, NY nursing facility gave “objectively reasonable” advice and cannot be prosecuted, a Brooklyn appeals panel has ruled.

In a unanimous decision, the Appellate Division, 2nd Department, ruled that District Attorney Thomas J. Spota of Suffolk County must halt his prosecution of attorney Felix Vinluan and his clients.

“We cannot conclude that an attorney who advises a client to take an action that he or she, in good faith, believes to be legal, loses the protection of the First Amendment if his or her advice is later determined to be incorrect,” wrote Justice Randall T. Eng. “Indeed, it would eviscerate the right to give and receive legal counsel with respect to potential criminal liability if an attorney could be charged with conspiracy and solicitation whenever a District Attorney disagreed with that advice.”

The nurses were recruited as a group from the Philippines by SentosaCare, which operates the Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Smithtown, New York.

In April 2006, they left their posts in protest over job conditions. The district attorney accused the nurses of abandoning their patients by leaving their shifts without giving administrators enough notice to find replacements.

They, along with Vinluan, were indicted in March 2007 on 13 counts, including charges of sixth-degree conspiracy, endangering the welfare of a child, and endangering the welfare of a physically disabled person.

Vinluan, after hearing the nurses’ complaints about substandard pay, poor living conditions, changes in work shifts and other alleged violations of their contracts, “advised them that they could resign if they wanted to as their contracts were already breached.”

Justice Eng pointed out that the nurses “did not abandon their posts in the middle of their shifts.” Rather they resigned “after the completion of their shifts, when the pediatric patients at Avalon Gardens were under the care of other nurses and staff members.”

Eng also noted that the state Education Department ultimately cleared the nurses of professional misconduct after taking into account that “no children were deprived of nursing care.”

Since prosecutors did not dispute that Vinluan acted in good faith, Eng held, the attorney could not be prosecuted for giving legal advice to commit an act, which, under the circumstances, was not a crime.

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