Karl Kleppinger Jr.’s family was one of the first to sue over deaths and injuries suffered by the 126 crew members who were on the rig when it blew out while drilling a well for BP Plc off the Louisiana coast. The explosion caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, with more than 4.1 million barrels of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Bloomberg News reports:

“The Kleppingers have settled all of their claims arising out of the death of Karl Kleppinger Jr. against any current or possible defendants,” Steve Gordon, the family’s maritime lawyer, said today in an interview. “The Kleppingers’ claim against BP has concluded.”

The settlement was posted today in the docket of the New Orleans federal court handling suits arising from the explosion. Transocean attorneys and Gordon submitted a court filing asking for dismissal of the suit because of the settlement.

Gordon declined to disclose the amount of the settlement or who would be paying it. The claims are resolved “against all parties they sued or could have sued,” he said.

“The terms are confidential,” Ellen Barry, a Transocean spokeswoman, said in a phone interview today.

Kleppinger was a floor hand on the rig when it exploded.

Closed Chapter

“The Kleppingers have tried to close a very terrible chapter in their lives,” said Gordon, maritime lawyer of Gordon, Elias & Seely LLP in Houston. “It is time to move on.” Gordon also represents Transocean employees who were injured in the explosion. Those cases remain pending, he said.

The Kleppinger suit, filed in Texas state court, was removed to federal court in New Orleans and combined with hundreds of others seeking compensation for injuries and economic damages from the explosion and spill.

Daren Beaudo, a spokesman for BP, declined to comment on the settlement.

The case is In Re: Oil spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, 2:10-md-2179, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).

To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Cronin Fisk in Southfield, Michigan, at mcfisk@bloomberg.net; Laurel Brubaker Calkins in Houston at laurel@calkins.us.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net.

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Virginia Republican Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli filed a separate lawsuit in defense of a new state law that prohibits the government from forcing state residents to buy health insurance. However, the key issue was his claim that the federal law’s requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional.

Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled for the state’s claim that the requirement for people to purchase health care exceeds the power of Congress under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

Hudson’s eagerly awaited decision invalidates the requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance by 2014 or face a federal fine. Hudson’s decision is the first striking down part of the controversial legislation.

“It is not the effect on individuals that is presently at issue — it is the authority of Congress to compel anyone to purchase health insurance,” wrote Hudson who was appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush. “An enactment that exceeds the power of Congress to adopt adversely affects everyone in every application.”

The Obama administration is likely to appeal Monday’s ruling to the Richmond-based Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. It is widely expected that no matter the outcome before that court, the case will ultimately go before the Supreme Court, perhaps by this time next year.

In his ruling, Hudson wrote that he is severing that portion of the law, known as Section 1501, but is not granting an injunction against the entire law.

But Section 1501 is the portion of the law that collects most of the money that is supposed to flow into the system from millions of additional participants. Without it, the law’s execution could be severely compromised and could rock the foundation of other provisions in the legislation.

The lawsuit is just one of nearly two dozen challenges filed in federal courts across the country. Another high-profile suit filed in Florida and joined by 20 states and the National Federation of Independent Businesses will go before Judge Roger Vinson on Thursday.

While the individual mandate to buy insurance is just one part of Obamacare, it is definitely a crucial aspect to it, since the requirement that everyone be part of it is what ensures a sufficiently diversified risk pool.

Administration officials told reporters last week that a negative ruling would have virtually no impact on the law’s implementation, noting that its two major provisions—the coverage mandate and the creation of new insurance markets—don’t take effect until 2014.

The central issue in Virginia’s lawsuit was whether the federal government has the power under the constitution to impose the insurance requirement. The Justice Department said the mandate is a proper exercise of the government’s authority under the Commerce Clause.

Cuccinelli argued that while the government can regulate economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce, the decision not to buy insurance amounts to economic inactivity that is beyond the government’s reach.

The central issue in Virginia’s lawsuit was whether the federal government has the power under the constitution to impose the insurance requirement. The Justice Department said the mandate is a proper exercise of the government’s authority under the Commerce Clause.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum lawsuit against Obamacare can proceed says Florida judge.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola today allowed portions of the claims by 20 states to go forward, as he forecast he would after a day of oral arguments last month. The requirement to purchase health insurance is “simply without prior precedent,” Vinson wrote, allowing the suit to proceed.

“People have no choice and there is no way to avoid it,” Vinson wrote in the 65-page decision. “Those who fall under the individual mandate either comply with it, or they are penalized.”

Vinson previously scheduled arguments for Dec. 16 on whether the law, signed by Obama in March, is constitutional.

The judge threw out Florida’s claims that the law interferes with the state’s sovereignty as an employer and that the individual mandate violated the right to due process of law.

The focus of efforts to undo what the administration considers a key legislative achievement now shifts to Richmond, Virginia, where a similar lawsuit by the state survived a bid for dismissal in April. A judge there scheduled an Oct. 18 hearing on the law’s constitutionality.

The states contend that the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance exceeds the constitutional power of Congress.

Government’s Argument

The government counters that the mandate is covered by its authority to regulate interstate commerce, since billions of dollars a year in unpaid medical bills are absorbed by the market.

Joining Florida in the suit were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington. The National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business lobbying group, also joined.

The Florida and Virginia suits were filed within minutes of Obama’s signing the legislation.

Besides its effect on individuals, the legislation puts an unconstitutional burden on state budgets by expanding Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health care for the poor, the states say.

Defining Activity

In a Sept. 14 hearing, Vinson questioned whether people who don’t buy health insurance can be considered actively participating in commerce and taxed for it. The U.S. previously claimed that the possibility of being injured and unable to pay medical bills is enough to draw a link between commerce and taxation.

“They are attempting to take inactivity and are making it activity,” said Randy Barnett, a constitutional-law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center said in an interview before the ruling. “The question of whether something is activity, and you don’t make inactivity into activity by saying is has an effect.”

The case is State of Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 10-cv-00091, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida (Pensacola).

Stephen Colbert mocks immigration problem after being invited by congresswoman, Zoe Lofgren, to speak to the Subcommittee on Immigration Citizenship and Border Security.

Lofgren compared Colbert to celebrity humanitarians such as Angelina Jolie and Bono, but when Colbert opened his mouth to speak, that comparison was hardly the case. Instead Stephen Colbert went on to make a mockery of immigration with his obnoxious jokes. He showed disrespect to not only the migrant workers, but the American people and Congress.

Before Colbert spoke, Lofgren admonished the attendees to refrain from making any “manifestation of approval or disapproval of these proceedings or any other disruptive actions.” She went on to say, “If necessary, the Capitol Police are here to remove anyone who disrupts the hearing.”

WATCH VIDEO

Shame on congresswoman, Zoey Lofgren, for inviting, comedian Stephen Colbert, to make a mockery of our system. This is hardly the kind of attention that America needs. It is simply not constructive and worse than a mere waste of time. It didn’t accomplish anything constructive and quite honestly was embarrassing.

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Senate confirms Elana Kagan 63-37 as Supreme Court Justice.

Kagan, Obama’s solicitor general and the former dean of Harvard Law School, will join the high court after its summer recess ends later this year, replacing retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, 90. As expected, the 63-37 vote confirming Kagan, who also served in the Clinton administration, was largely along party lines, with just five Republicans voting with Democrats to confirm her – and one Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), voting no.

Full Story: Politico

PHOENIX — A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown.

The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents — including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places. In addition, the judge blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants.

“Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked,” U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled.

She ruled that the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues. Other provisions of the law, many of them procedural and slight revisions to existing Arizona immigration statute, will go into effect at 12:01 a.m.

The ruling came just as police were making last-minute preparations to begin enforcement of the law and protesters were planning large demonstrations to speak out against the measure. At least one group planned to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them about their immigration status.

The volume of the protests will likely be turned down a few notches because of the ruling by Bolton, a Clinton appointee who suddenly became a crucial figure in the immigration debate when she was assigned the seven lawsuits filed against the Arizona law.

Lawyers for the state contend the law was a constitutionally sound attempt by Arizona — the busiest illegal gateway into the country — to assist federal immigration agents and lessen border woes such as the heavy costs for educating, jailing and providing health care for illegal immigrants.

Opponents argued the law will lead to racial profiling, conflict with federal immigration law and distract local police from fighting more serious crimes. The U.S. Justice Department, civil rights groups and a Phoenix police officer had asked the judge for an injunction to prevent the law from being enforced.

“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new (law),” Bolton ruled. “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

The law was signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in April and immediately revived the national debate on immigration, making it a hot-button issue in the midterm elections.

The law has inspired rallies in Arizona and elsewhere by advocates on both sides of the immigration debate. Some opponents have advocated a tourism boycott of Arizona.

It also led an unknown number of illegal immigrants to leave Arizona for other American states or their home countries.

Federal authorities who are trying to overturn the law have argued that letting the Arizona law stand would create a patchwork of immigration laws nationwide that would needlessly complicate the foreign relations of the United States. Federal lawyers said the law is disrupting U.S. relations with Mexico and other countries and would burden the agency that responds to immigration-status inquiries.

Brewer’s lawyers said Arizona shouldn’t have to suffer from America’s broken immigration system when it has 15,000 police officers who can arrest illegal immigrants.

President Bill Clinton’s library in Little Rock, Ark., released about 42,000 pages of documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which currently is considering the Kagan nomination.

The documents came primarily from her 1995-96 work in the White House counsel’s office. It’s the second collection released with one more planned before confirmation hearings commence later this month.

One religious-freedom issue included Kagan’s role in drafting an executive order in a much-debated case regarding limits on federal employees talking about religion or displaying religious items in the workplace.

Another case concerned the government requiring a landlord to rent an apartment to an unwed couple, which violated the landlord’s religious beliefs. Read New York Times Story

Source: NewsMax; NY Times

The Supreme Court Justices of the United States are John G. Roberts (Chief Justice), John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor. UPI/Gary Fabiano/PoolUPI/Gary Fabiano/Pool

The high court in a 7-2 judgment reversed a lower court decision that said Congress overstepped its authority in allowing indefinite detentions of considered “sexually dangerous.”

“The statute is a ‘necessary and proper’ means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, writing the majority opinion.

Five federal prisoners had brought the case. Lead challenger Graydon Comstock was six days before he was to finish a sentence in November 2006 for possession of child pornography when he was certified by the attorney general as “sexually dangerous.” Since then Comstock has been confined at a federal prison in North Carolina

President George W. Bush in 2006 signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which authorized the civil commitment of sexually dangerous federal inmates.

The act, named after the son of “America’s Most Wanted” television host John Walsh, was challenged by four men who served prison terms ranging from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor. Their confinement was supposed to end more than two years ago, but prison officials said there would be a risk of sexually violent conduct or child molestation if they were released.

A fifth man who also was part of the legal challenge was charged with child sex abuse, but declared incompetent to stand trial.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled last year that Congress overstepped its authority when it enacted a law allowing the government to hold indefinitely people who are considered “sexually dangerous.”

Stephen Breyer

Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress’ ability to control the release of dangerous prisoners stems from its broad power under the Constitution to enact laws governing prisons. He added that Congress has long been involved in mental health care for federal prisoners, including their civil commitment.

Most broadly, the court said the power to confine inmates whose sentences have ended arises from Congress’ authority in the Constitution to make laws “necessary and proper” to carry out its powers.

Breyer noted that the law has been applied to only a small fraction of prisoners. He referred to a statement by Solicitor General Elena Kagan at January oral arguments that 105 individuals have been subject to the law, out of more than 188,000 federal inmates.

Elena Kagan

Kagan had argued that the federal government was trying to fill a gap left by the states. “The federal government has mentally ill, seriously dangerous persons in its custody,” Kagan had argued. “It knows that those persons, if released, will commit serious sexual offenses, and it knows too that states are not often in a position to deal with those dangers.”

Kagan was appealing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, that said Congress had overstepped its power in the 2006 law authorizing civil commitment of certain prisoners.

But “we conclude that the Constitution grants Congress legislative power sufficient to enact” this law, Breyer said.

Dissenting Monday were Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Clarence Thomas

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying Congress can only pass laws that deal with the federal powers listed in the Constitution.

Nothing in the Constitution “expressly delegates to Congress the power to enact a civil commitment regime for sexually dangerous persons, nor does any other provision in the Constitution vest Congress or the other branches of the federal government with such a power,” Thomas said.

Thomas was joined in part on his dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Chief Justice John Roberts last year granted an administration request to block the release of up to 77 inmates at a federal prison in North Carolina. These were people whose prison terms for sex offenses were ending. The justice’s order was designed to allow time for the high court to consider the administration’s appeal.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act also establishes a national sex offender registry, increases punishments for some federal crimes against children and strengthens child pornography protections. Those provisions are not being challenged.

State laws allowing civil commitments of sex offenders also are unaffected.

NBC News’s Pete Williams reports:

Kagan, 50, served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009. Obama nominated her to serve in her current post as solicitor general early in 2009, and she won Senate confirmation by a vote of 61-31. She is the first woman to serve as solicitor general of the United States.

She was widely viewed as a front-runner when Obama was considering candidates for a Supreme Court opening last year, but the president ultimately chose Sonia Sotomayor for the job.

Unlike the other Supreme Court justices, Kagan has never before served as a federal judge.

Kagan would be the fourth woman ever nominated to the high court and continue a trend of Ivy League-educated lawyers who sit on the bench.

The Coast Guard said the growing slick is 45 miles wide at its broadest point and 100 miles long – about the length of New Jersey’s coastline… Read Full Story