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Warren Says Wells Fargo's Stumpf Should Resign, Face Criminal Investigation

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Wells Fargo & Co. chief executive officer John Stumpf took fire yesterday from Democrats and Republicans alike, who blasted the executive’s handling of a scandal over the opening of more than 2 million accounts without customers’ authorization, as employees sought to meet cross-selling targets, Bloomberg News reported. “You should resign,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told Stumpf. “You should give back the money you took while this scam was going on and you should be criminally investigated by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.” Warren led a chorus of criticism as lawmakers demanded more accountability from the company’s leadership and made clear the San Francisco-based firm is far from putting the matter behind it. Bank executives are “completely out of touch,” Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.) told Stumpf.

WakeMed Breached Confidentiality of Thousands of Patients

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WakeMed Health and Hospitals will soon notify thousands of patients that their personal and medical information was disclosed in court filings over six years, the Charlotte (N.C.) News & Observer reported today. A federal bankruptcy court in Raleigh ordered the Raleigh hospital to send out the letters and to offer each patient one year of free credit monitoring. The court last month fined WakeMed $70,000 for disclosing Social Security numbers, birth dates and the full name of at least one minor in claims it had filed in federal bankruptcy courts to collect unpaid medical bills. WakeMed had disclosed the identifying patient information from 2007 to 2015. There is no evidence that anyone discovered the personal information in bankruptcy court dockets and used it to commit identity theft or some other abuse. However, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stephani Humrickhouse wrote in a court ruling that an organization like WakeMed that regularly participates in bankruptcy proceedings should have been a lot more careful.

Goodbye to “Honeys” in Court, by Vote of American Bar Association

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The American Bar Association says that it is professional misconduct to discriminate against or harass opposing counsel, or anyone else for that matter, in the course of practicing law, the New York Times reported today. The ethics rule now forbids comments or actions that single out someone on the basis of race, religion, sex, disability and other factors. Nearly two dozen state bars and the District of Columbia bar have similar rules. But there has been no national prohibition of such behavior, which, many female lawyers complain, results in too many “honeys,” “darlings” and other sexist remarks and gestures toward them while they are trying to practice their profession. Any penalties would be determined by state bar associations and might include fines or suspension from practice, depending on the severity of the offense. While critics argued that such a broad rule would impair free speech while representing clients and impinge on the freedom to reject potential clients, no lawyers signed up to speak against the revised rule, which was passed on Monday by a voice vote at the A.B.A.’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

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