A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties against one or more parties in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used with respect to a civil action brought by a plaintiff who requests a legal remedy or equitable remedy from a court. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint or else risk default judgment. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment is entered in favor of the plaintiff, and the Court may impose the legal and/or equitable remedies available against the defendant (respondent). A variety of court orders may be issued in connection with or as part of the judgment to enforce a right, award damages or restitution, or impose a temporary or permanent injunction to prevent an act or compel an act. A declaratory judgment may be issued to prevent future legal disputes.
The United Fruit Company was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of the Boston Fruit Company with Minor C. Keith's banana-trading enterprises. It flourished in the early and mid-20th century, and it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the West Indies. Although it competed with the Standard Fruit Company for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics – such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.
The United Self-Defenders of Colombia was a Colombian far-right paramilitary and drug trafficking group which was an active belligerent in the Colombian armed conflict during the period from 1997 to 2006. The AUC was responsible for retaliations against the FARC and ELN communist organization as well as numerous attacks against civilians beginning in 1997 with the Mapiripán massacre.
The Alien Tort Statute, also called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), is a section in the United States Code that gives federal courts jurisdiction over lawsuits filed by foreign nationals for torts committed in violation of international law. It was first introduced by the Judiciary Act of 1789 and is one of the oldest federal laws still in effect in the U.S.
Chiquita Brands International S.à.r.l., formerly known as United Fruit Co., is a Swiss-domiciled American producer and distributor of bananas and other produce. The company operates under a number of subsidiary brand names, including the flagship Chiquita brand and Fresh Express salads. Chiquita is the leading distributor of bananas in the United States.
The state secrets privilege is an evidentiary rule created by United States legal precedent. Application of the privilege results in exclusion of evidence from a legal case based solely on affidavits submitted by the government stating that court proceedings might disclose sensitive information which might endanger national security. United States v. Reynolds, which involved alleged military secrets, was the first case that saw formal recognition of the privilege.
Right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia are paramilitary groups acting in opposition to revolutionary Marxist–Leninist guerrilla forces and their allies among the civilian population. These right-wing paramilitary groups control a large majority of the illegal drug trade of cocaine and other substances. The Colombian National Centre for Historical Memory has estimated that between 1981 and 2012 paramilitary groups have caused 38.4% of the civilian deaths, while the Guerillas are responsible for 16.8%, 10.1% by the Colombian Security Forces and 27.7% by non-identified armed groups, although the chief prosecutor of the ICC would contradict these numbers.
American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency, 493 F.3d 644, is a case decided July 6, 2007, in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the plaintiffs in the case did not have standing to bring the suit against the National Security Agency (NSA), because they could not present evidence that they were the targets of the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program" (TSP).
Fyffes plc is a fruit and fresh produce company. The Fyffes brand is most closely associated with the banana industry, although it is applied to a wide range of fruits and fresh produce, including the Fyffes Gold Pineapples, and Fyffes melons.
The relationship between Colombia and the United States evolved from a mutual cordiality during the 19th and early 20th centuries to a recent partnership that links the governments of both nations around several key issues; this includes fighting communism, the War on Drugs, and the threat of terrorism due to the September 11 attacks in 2001. During the last fifty years, different American governments and their representatives have become involved in Colombian affairs through the implementation of policies concerned with the issues already stated. Some critics of current US policies in Colombia, such as Law Professor John Barry, claim that US influences have catalyzed internal conflicts and substantially expanded the scope and nature of human rights abuses in Colombia. Supporters, such as Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, defend the idea that the United States has promoted respect for human rights and the rule of law in Colombia; in addition, adding to the fight against drugs and terrorism.
CONVIVIR, an acronym for Servicios Especiales de Vigilancia y Seguridad Privada was a national program of cooperative neighbourhood watch groups created by a February 11, 1994 decree of Colombia's Ministry of National Defense and a law passed in the Colombian Congress, in response to growing guerrilla activity. Authorized during the government of César Gaviria but mainly developed during the administration of Ernesto Samper (1994–1998), the CONVIVIR groups quickly became controversial as it was considered to represent something of a revival of the Law 48 of 1968.
Shurat HaDin, also Israel Law Center (ILC), is an Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in Tel Aviv in 2003. Shurat HaDin has been described as a civil rights organization. However, it has also been accused of pro-Israel lawfare.
Atban v. Blackwater, 611 F. Supp. 2d 1, was a lawsuit brought by the victims and families affected by the September 16, 2007 Blackwater Baghdad shootings against Blackwater Worldwide, a private military contractor since renamed Academi. The case was consolidated with Estate of Albazzaz, et al. v. Blackwater Lodge and Training Center, Inc. et al., and the consolidated case was ultimately settled confidentially out of court.
Judith Brown Chomsky is an American human rights lawyer. She is the sister-in-law of MIT linguistics professor Noam Chomsky.
Doe v. Unocal, 395 F.3d 932, opinion vacated and rehearing en banc granted, 395 F.3d 978, was a lawsuit filed against Unocal for alleged human rights violations.
Susan L. Burke is an American lawyer noted for her work to reform the military system of prosecuting rape and assault and in representing plaintiffs suing the American military or military contractors, such as the Abtan v. Blackwater case. She represented former detainees of Abu Ghraib prison in a suit against interrogators and translators from CACI and Titan Corp. who were tasked with obtaining military intelligence from them during their detention. Her work was featured in the documentaries The Invisible War and Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. In 2015, the National Law Journal named Burke one of the top 75 female attorneys in the nation.
Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U.S. 108 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the court found that the presumption against extraterritoriality applies to claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act. According to the Court's majority opinion, "it would reach too far to say that mere corporate presence suffices" to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality when all the alleged wrongful conduct takes place outside the United States.
Wikimedia Foundation, et al. v. National Security Agency, et al. was a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation and several other organizations against the National Security Agency (NSA), the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), and other named individuals, alleging mass surveillance of Wikipedia users carried out by the NSA. The suit claims the surveillance system, which NSA calls "Upstream", breaches the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects freedom of speech, and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
The Presidential Memorandum on Military Service by Transgender Individuals, officially the Presidential Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security, is the 27th presidential memorandum signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on August 25, 2017. The intent was to prevent transgender people from serving in the U.S. military, on the basis that they would be a financial burden due to sex reassignment procedures and associated costs. Federal courts delayed the implementation of this rule by issuing four injunctions. On January 22, 2019, however, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration's ban to take effect.
Stockman v. Trump (5:17-cv-01799-JGB-KKx) is an old lawsuit filed on September 5, 2017, in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The suit, like the similar prior suits Jane Doe v. Trump, Stone v. Trump, and Karnoski v. Trump, sought to block Trump and top Pentagon officials from implementing the proposed ban on military service for transgender people under the auspices of the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fifth Amendment. The suit was filed on the behalf of four named and three anonymous transgender plaintiffs by Equality California (EQCA). Two other major LGBT-rights organizations which had filed Jane Doe v. Trump, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, joined the suit as co-counsels in October 2017.
