Alabama

ELEVENTH CIRCUIT--The split between federal circuit courts over the validity of the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act widened in early April when the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta (11th Cir.) struck down the law as unconstitutional. The Fourth Circuit struck down the DPPA in September 1998, but two other circuits, the Seventh and Tenth, held that the law passed constitutional muster.

ALABAMA--In a late-October letter, the Alabama Bar Association agreed with state news organizations that its code of ethics for lawyers does not justify closing all meetings of public bodies with their lawyers. Under state law, such meetings must be open except when their purpose is to discuss a pending lawsuit in which the board or commission is a named party.

ALABAMA--The former mayor of a small town in Alabama filed a multi-million dollar libel suit in early October in a state court in Eutaw, Ala., against a local weekly paper.