Earlier this year, in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the Supreme Court drastically limited the ability of plaintiffs who all share a similar injury to join together in a class action to hold major lawbreakers accountable for their actions. Thanks to this precedent, Dow Chemical just convinced a state judge in Michigan to strip over one hundred landowners of their right to join together to hold the chemical giant accountable for poisoning their land:

Operations at Dow’s Midland plant have spread dioxin — a highly toxic and cancer-causing byproduct of the chemical manufacturing process — and other chemicals, through the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers and into Lake Huron. Flooding of the rivers downstream from Dow has deposited dioxin-laden sediments on properties in the floodplain.

Sampling of floodplain properties has revealed dioxin contamination at levels thousands of times higher than allowed by Michigan and prompted state health officials to warned [sic] residents to keep children from playing in dirt near their homes, to wear masks while mowing their lawns, to avoid eating fish and livestock raised in the floodplain and to take other precautions. [...]

The plaintiffs claim that they are not able to fully use their properties because of the contamination and that their properties have lost value. [...] In an opinion released Tuesday [Judge Leopold] Borello reversed his earlier approval of class status for the group.

He said that the case met the Michigan guidelines for class standards but that the recent U.S. Supreme Court case Wal-Mart v. Dukes has created a new rules for what a group must have in common with one another in order to be considered a class.

Judge Borello’s decision to strip away Dow Chemical’s victims’ ability to bring a class action is obviously wrong, because Wal-Mart was a federal case and has nothing to do with whether a Michigan state court can certify a class action. Nevertheless, this decision is an ominous sign for Michiganders’ ability to hold corporations accountable in the future. The Michigan Supreme Court is dominated by a conservative, pro-corporate majority that could be just as eager to protect companies like Dow Chemical as the U.S. Supreme Court was to protect Walmart. So, while Judge Borello’s opinion is wrong under current law, it could also prove prescient.

If this turns out to be the case, it would be a terrible blow for the many people in Michigan who have literally been fighting Dow Chemical’s toxic legacy for decades. Without the ability to bring a class action, each owner of land poisoned by Dow will need to hire their own attorney, often with their own meager personal funds, while Dow will be able to pool its massive resources to turn armies of lawyers against their victims.

A three-judge panel in Wheeling, West Virginia yesterday denied Massey Energy’s requests to dismiss a law suit alleging that the company contaminated multiple water supplies by dumping more than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry into worked-out underground coal mines between 1978 and 1987. After a “contentious day-long hearing,” the judges denied requests to sanction the coal company for taking too long to produce evidence but allowed the trial to continue despite a detailed request for dismissal from the company.

More than 700 residents of four West Virginia towns allege that Massey and one of its subsidiaries dumped 1.4 billion gallons of slurry — the by-product of washing coal to make it “cleaner” — into the abandoned underground mines. The residents’ lead attorney, Van Bunch, claimed that Massey continued pumping the slurry underground even though the company knew it would leak into the water supply:

Bunch argues that when one underground void was full, Massey simply diverted the flow to another one until the slurry levels dropped – apparently migrating from one coal seam down into another.

“They knew the slurry would escape because it did on several occasions,” Bunch said, claiming the company failed to properly seal the mine voids to prevent that migration.

It was, he argued, “calculated, long-term methodology” to dispose of Massey’s waste, dupe regulators about the extent of its operations and endanger neighboring communities solely to save money.

While Massey claims to have stopped injecting the slurry in 1987, the residents allege that the practice may have continued for as many as two decades after that. The plaintiffs also claim that, in addition to contaminated water supplies, constant exposure to toxic chemicals in the slurry is to blame for birth defects, developmental disabilities, and other illnesses. The common contaminants in coal slurry have been linked to multiple health problems — including birth defects, cancer, and respiratory illnesses.

Massey, which was sold to Alpha Natural Resources earlier this year, claims that the company neither misled regulators nor harmed nearby residents. The company, however, has a history of bemoaning Mining Health and Safety Administration (MSHA) regulations and covering up health and safety violations, actions that likely played a part in the deadly Upper Big Branch mine explosion in April 2010.

Massey could, however, still get out of the lawsuit. Judges are set to rule today whether it, as the parent company, can be held liable for the actions of its subsidiary. Massey claims Rawl Sales & Processing, was acting as an independent company. The trial is set to begin Aug. 1.

In an essay published by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, torture memo author John Yoo brings his unsurpassed ability to pretend the Constitution says whatever conservatives wish that it said to the subject of whether President Obama can issue an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their political donations:

The proposed executive order making disclosure of political giving history a condition to being awarded a federal contract makes some of the Nixon-era “dirty tricks” look almost quaint by comparison. [...] As the Supreme Court has made clear, anonymous political speech enjoys “an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent,” and anonymity serves as a shield “against the tyranny of the majority.” Any president who seeks to undo this centuries-old American constitutional right by the fiat of an executive order would be prudent to reflect on the ultimate outcome when Richard Nixon and John Dean tried, using their infamous enemies list, to accomplish that precise objective.

If there is anyone in the universe who should think twice before criticizing a government lawyer for enabling a president to break the law, it is John Yoo. And while Yoo certainly spares no adjective in arguing that preserving the integrity of American democracy is an impeachable offense, he might also want to consider actually reading what the Supreme Court has to say about disclosure laws before drafting articles of impeachment against President Obama.

In an obscure case called Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court held that “disclosure could be justified based on a governmental interest in ‘provid[ing] the electorate with information’ about the sources of election-related spending.” President Obama’s proposed executive order provides the electorate with information about the sources of election-related spending. So Yoo’s entire argument can be rebutted in exactly two sentences.

Elsewhere in his essay, Yoo comes to the defense of poor, innocent corporations that may lose their ability to deceive their customers and investors:

After disclosure of a contribution by the retailer Target to MN Forward, a conservative Minnesota political group that supported a gubernatorial candidate who was opposed to gay marriage, proponents demanded that Target also support pro-gay candidates. Target refused. MoveOn organized a widespread boycott and flash mobs appeared at Target stores; the retailer countered by suing protesters. In the seconds it took for a Facebook video of the boycott to go viral, Target’s established reputation as a gay-friendly company was shredded. After institutional investors protested the “misalignment” between Target’s Minnesota political spending and its professed corporate values, Target announced that future political contributions would require the approval of an internal policy committee.

In other words, Target misled the public by calling itself a gay-friendly corporation, when it actually was secretly funding an anti-gay effort. Yet, because of disclosure, it was no longer able to maintain this charade and forced to end its two-faced practices. In Yoo’s twisted understanding of the world, this is a great tragedy and not a compelling argument for why disclosure laws are necessary.

Given Yoo’s role in the Bush administration’s torture policy, asking him to express a legal opinion is a bit like asking Don Draper for advice on marital fidelity. Even so, Yoo’s defense of corporate America’s power to secretly buy elections is weak even by his own tragically incompetent standards.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) is preparing subpoenas as part of an initial investigation into whether News Corp violated the Foreign Corrupts Practices Act (FCPA) when its British subsidiary allegedly bribed police officers in the U.K.:

The issuance of subpoenas would represent an escalation of scrutiny on the New York-based media company. While the company has sought to isolate the legal problems in the U.K., it has been bracing for increased scrutiny from both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the company’s strategy.

The probe, which is awaiting approval to proceed from senior DoJ officials, is separate from an ongoing FBI investigation into whether any phone hacking occurred on U.S. soil and comes after calls from lawmakers, ThinkProgress, and others for an investigation. News Corp has bolstered its legal team to prepare for an expected FCPA inquiry, hiring the same law firm that is working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to weaken that very law. A person close to News Corp told the Wall Street Journal, stunningly, that the subpoenas are “a fishing expedition with no evidence to support it” — there is actually plenty of evidence to support it.