Also see: Coronavirus lawsuits | Coronavirus crime
A group of residents in the Concord suburb of Carlisle are hoping the Supreme Court can deliver the righteous retribution they feel their hamlet deserves for daring to require people to wear masks when entering the town library or other public indoor spaces for a few months at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more.
A federal judge ruled today that a nurse who believes in Mother Nature but not most of western medicine can continue pursuing her lawsuit against Boston Medical Center for firing her in October, 2021 after she refused to comply with a hospital requirement that employees get vaccinated against Covid-19 in 2021. Read more.
A Carlisle man was indicted this week on charges that he obtained millions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program loans during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic based on fraudulent statements about the scores of employees he didn't actually have and then used some of the money for prohibited things: Buying a pricey New York condo and sending money to a company he controlled in India. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday threw out what was left of a class-action lawsuit by Boston College students against the school for the way it shifted classes from in person to online in the spring of 2020 as Covid-19 spread across the state. Read more.
A former Boston cop who sued the city over his firing in state court in 2022 last week filed a similar suit in federal court - but added the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association to his list of defendants he says did him wrong. Read more.
A Nigerian man indicted in Boston in 2020 for his role in a pandemic-unemployment scam ring that allegedly netted some $1.5 million was arrested at New York's JFK Airport, where he had just landed on a flight from Lagos on what would have been his first visit to the US, court records show. Read more.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday a lower-court judge was too hasty in dismissing a lawsuit by a Milton Hospital employee who believes current Covid-19 vaccines are made from aborted fetuses and reinstated her claim against the hospital for firing her in 2022 for refusing to get vaccinated or provide her with alternative working conditions to shield her from the public and other hospital workers. Read more.
Chart from BPHC July 28 report.
The amount of Covid-19 viral particles in Boston sewers - an indicator of the virus's presence in the community - soared in July, when levels were 163% higher than in May, - still way lower than numbers around New Year's and especially two years ago - the Boston Public Health Commission said today. Read more.
A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit by a former Boston Medical Center registered nurse who sued the hospital after it fired her in October, 2021 for refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19. Read more.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today tossed a lawsuit by the owner of the Davio's chain of Italian steakhouses against its insurer, which had told Davio's that its "all risks" policy did not, in fact, cover all risks, specifically losses from being forced to close or limit service in dining rooms during the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more.
A Weymouth man who was rounded up in a February sweep of alleged members of the gang that has long terrorized residents in and around the Mildred Hailey Apartments pleaded guilty this week - not to being a member of a criminal gang but to lying on an application for a Covid-related loan aimed at helping small businesses about whether he was facing any criminal charges at the time, the US Attorney's office reports. Read more.
The owners of the Squire in Revere today sued the Small Business Administration over its refusal to forgive one of the two emergency small-business loans the strip club got in the early days of the pandemic. Read more.
A federal appeals court yesterday upheld an earlier lower-court ruling that a woman who was suspended from the theology master's program at Boston University for refusing to take the nasal Covid-19 tests the university once required has no case because the school no longer requires the tests. Read more.
Stavros Papantoniadis, still behind bars as he awaits charges that he terrorized and beat employees at his Stash's pizza places in Dorchester and Roslindale, faces new charges that he defrauded a program meant to help small businesses stay afloat during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more.
A federal appeals court yesterday upheld a lower-court judge's dismissal of a suit by several Boston University students over the move to online education, ruling that a state law passed last year specifically to bar such suits is constitutionally valid. Read more.
A recent report projected more than a $1-billiion decrease in property-tax revenue from downtown office buildings seeing a continuing drop in occupancy because a lot of people are still working at home. Scott Van Voorhis reports we're now seeing the first wave of that: A growing number of requests for tax abatements from downtown building owners who claim their buildings simply aren't worth what they were in the Before Times.
A man screaming about masks attacked a 69-year-old woman at the State Street Orange Line stop Wednesday afternoon, ripping her mask off, knocking her to the floor and trying to drag her to the tracks before a bystander intervened, Transit Police and WBZ report. Read more.
Florrie McCarthy, who says she worked 36 years as a registered nurse at Mass. General, charges the hospital fired her after rejecting her request for a medical exemption for a Covid-19 booster despite a letter from the hospital's own neurology department that it "could not rule" out her earlier Covid-19 shots for "neurological symptoms" she experienced after getting the first two vaccine shots. Read more.
A long-time nurse at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center says she got the first of two required Covid-19 shots under pressure from hospital administrators - and with God's OK - then fell seriously ill, refused the second shot and was fired. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit by a nurse at Boston Medical Center over the way the hospital fired her after rejecting her request for a religious exemption to its requirement that all employees get vaccinated against Covid-19, saying her suit failed to provide very specific details on just what religious doctrines would have been violated by the shots. Read more.
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
