Morning Wrap: Supreme Court to Spotlight Changes to Opinions

— Jesse Wegman (@jessewegman) October 5, 2015

BP SETTLEMENT: “BP PLC has agreed to pay $20 billion in fines—the largest in U.S. history—for the Deepwater Horizon disaster spill and cleanup of 3.1 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and onto the shores of coastal states, the U.S. Justice Department announced Monday,” the NLJ’s Mike Sacks and Amanda Bronstad report. “The agreement, detailed by Attorney General Loretta Lynch at a press conference and in a consent decree filed in a New Orleans federal court, includes $5.5 billion to be paid for civil claims under the Clean Water Act, $7.1 billion in natural resources damages under the Oil Pollution Act, $4.9 billion to the five Gulf Coast states, and up to $1 billion to local governments.”

TRANSGENDER CASES: Chelsea Manning filed an amended complaint in D.C.’s federal district court Monday arguing she “has been denied access to medically necessary treatment for her gender dysphoria and is treated differently than all other female military prisoners on the basis of her assigned sex at birth and her transgender status.” The filing, written by Jenner & Block Paul Smith and a team from the ACLU, requests an injunction against the Department of Defense and several named officials “to treat her serious medical needs and permit her to follow the hair length and hair grooming standards applicable to all other female prisoners consistent with their obligations under the Constitution.” Also on Monday: The Ninth Circuit dismissed as moot a transgender prisoner’s suit against California for its refusal to provide her sex reassignment surgery. The prisoner, Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, was released on parole in August, a day before the appeals court scheduled oral argument in her case. NLJ affiliate The Recorder covers the ruling here.

CONN LAW: The Connecticut Supreme ruled private and public employees have greater free speech protection under the state’s constitution than the First Amendment provides under federal law. “[U]nder the free speech provisions of the state constitution, speech by a public employee on all subjects, including internal whistleblowing speech, should be protected from employer discipline to the greatest extent possible, consistent with the legitimate interests of the employer” wrote Justice Richard N. Palmer in Monday’s opinion. Jacob Gershman of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog recaps the decision. “In the case of the private sector,” Gershman writes, “private workers are protected for on-the-job statements about ‘dishonest or dangerous practices by the employer.’”

RIGHT TO DIE: Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California’s assisted suicide bill, making the state the fifth in the country to allow terminally ill people to obtain prescriptions for life-ending drugs from their doctors. “California’s measure came after at least two dozen states introduced aid-in-dying legislation this year, though the measures stalled elsewhere. Doctors in Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana already can prescribe life-ending drugs,” CBS News and the AP report.