A Kentucky judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by an unvaccinated teenager who sued his local health department for temporarily barring students at his school who were not deemed immune against chickenpox.

Following an outbreak of chickenpox affecting roughly 13% of the student population at Our Lady of Sacred Heart/Assumption Academy in Walton, Kentucky, the Northern Kentucky Health Department announced that all students who did not have "proof of vaccination or proof of immunity against chickenpox will not be allowed to attend school until 21 days after the onset of rash for the last ill student or staff member."

According to news reports, the school's sports and extracurricular activities were canceled to avoid spreading the illness to other schools and places.

Jerome Kunkel, a senior basketball player at the school who refused the chickenpox vaccine for religious reasons, filed a lawsuit against the county. In late February, Kunkel was told he couldn't attend or play any upcoming basketball games because test results indicated he was not immune to chickenpox. Kunkel and his father said he was being discriminated against because of religious beliefs.

"The fact that I can't finish my senior year of basketball, like our last couple games is pretty devastating. I mean you go through four years of high school, playing basketball, but you look forward to your senior year," he told news agencies.

Kunkel had argued that missing weeks of school may have lifelong consequences and alleged that the health department had "acted in retaliation for his exercise of his religious beliefs." The health department responded that it had ordered the temporary ban because of the chickenpox outbreak, not because he wasn't vaccinated.

Boone County Circuit Judge James Schrand rejected Kunkel's request to prevent the health department from enforcing its school and activities ban.

"The Court's ruling ... underscores the critical need for Public Health Departments to preserve the safety of the entire community, and in particular the safety of those members of our community who are most susceptible to the dire consequences when a serious, infectious disease such as varicella, is left unabated and uncontrolled," the county stated.

—Source: CNN.com

A single mother and teacher in California is suing 45 of the 50 people named in the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. This is the second lawsuit in a couple of weeks coming out of the scandal.

Jennifer Kay Toy has filed a federal lawsuit seeking $500 billion from the defendants she calls "heinous."

"I'm not a wealthy person, but even if I were wealthy I would not have engaged in the heinous and despicable actions of defendants," Kay Toy said in her lawsuit. "I'm outraged and hurt because I feel that my son, my only child, was denied access to a college not because he failed to work and study hard enough, but because wealthy individuals felt that it was OK to lie, cheat, steal and bribe their children's way into a good college."

Kay Toy alleged in the lawsuit that her son, Joshua Toy, who applied to some of the colleges where the cheating took place, was overlooked in favor of people who had wealth and influence.

"I'm now aware of the massive cheating scandal wherein wealthy people conspired with people in positions of power and authority at colleges in order to allow their children to gain access to the very colleges that Joshua was rejected from," Toy claimed in the lawsuit. "Plaintiffs simply wanted a fair chance for themselves or their children to go to a good college, and that opportunity for a fair chance was stolen by the actions of the Defendants who feel that, because they are wealthy, they are allowed to lie, cheat and steal from others."

—Source: Newsweek.com

The skies may be friendly, but maybe not the airports. Orlando International Airport’s owner, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (GOAA), has filed a lawsuit against Melbourne Airport Authority (MAA) for naming its airport Orlando Melbourne International Airport.

According to the lawsuit, GOAA claims the MAA is deliberately trying to mislead passengers and is promoting "unfair competition" by using the word "Orlando" in its name. GOAA is demanding "Orlando" be removed from the name and compensation be paid. For the record, neither airport is in the heart of the city: Orlando International is 12 miles outside of the city center; the smaller Orlando Melbourne International Airport is about 60 miles southeast of the larger airport and 70 miles from the city center.

Negotiations have been under way to resolve this matter since 2015 when the name was first used. The current lawsuit was recently filed after ongoing negotiations failed.

Attorneys for the GOAA wrote that: “Given the passenger volume of Orlando International Airport, its established reputation, extensive capital investments, superior customer service amenities, and its location in Orlando, one of the Nation’s top tourism destinations, it is obvious that MLB is attempting to use the Illegal Advertisements to confuse customers in order to divert business from Orlando International Airport and misappropriate GOAA’s established goodwill and brand recognition of the Orlando International Airport Trademark."

MAA counters that the argument has no merit. News reports indicate GOAA is using taxpayer money to fund the lawsuit.

—Source: simpleflying.com

Two Stanford University students have filed a class action lawsuit against the eight universities named in the college admissions scandal, claiming their degrees from Stanford have been tarnished and that the rigged system of paying for admission denied students a fair chance to be enrolled at an elite university.

Stanford University, ranked #7 in US News & World Report rankings, is named along with USC, UCLA, the University of San Diego, the University of Texas at Austin, Wake Forest University, Yale University and Georgetown University. The class action lawsuit seeks damages for any student who applied to one or more of those universities and was rejected between 2012 and last year.

The named plaintiffs in this case, Stanford students Erica Olsen and Kalea Woods, both allege they were among those who were denied by elite schools named in the investigation. Olsen said she applied to Yale, paid a $80 application fee, and was denied admission, despite a nearly perfect SAT and ACT score and her extracurriculars. Olsen is a student at Stanford.

“Had she known that the system at Yale University was warped and rigged by fraud, she would not have spent the money to apply to the school,” the lawsuit states. “She also did not receive what she paid for — a fair admissions consideration process.”

—Source: LATimes.com