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The battle of the baby blogs is on. The New York Times is suing The Huffington Post, saying its “Parentlode” blog infringes on the Times’ trademark, “Motherlode.” Both “Parentlode” and “Motherlode” are blogs that talk about parenting issues. And both were the brainchild of the same blogger, Lisa Belkin. Belkin started “Motherlode” as a Times employee three years ago. She jumped ship for AOL’s Huffington Post last month. Shortly thereafter, “Parentlode” was born....

If you’re thinking about promising raises to a few of your favorite employees, but you’re not totally sure that you can actually deliver on them, get ready to face potential legal liability. Employers should be careful about making promises of a raise because that promise may ultimately be an enforceable term of the employment contract. “Promising” Legal Issues All kinds of statements you and supervisors make, orally and in writing, can be considered contractual statements....

President Obama’s foreclosure rescue program, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), is struggling, according to a new report issued by the Treasury Department. According to the report, almost half of homeowners enrolled in the administrations mortgage program designed to provide relief have been dropped. Nearly 630,000 people who have tried to get their payments lowered through the program have since been turned away. The situation suggests there will be an increase in foreclosures over the next six months....

A Connecticut man who was severely hurt in a Segway accident has won a $10 million verdict against the Segway scooter company. Jurors announced their verdict Wednesday in John Ezzo’s suit against Segway Inc. The New Hampshire-based company makes unique, two-wheeled personal transporters that riders control while standing and leaning in different directions. Ezzo, 23, of Norwalk, Conn., suffered a traumatic brain injury in a Segway accident at Southern Connecticut State University in 2009, The Hour reports....

With the recession cutting into the pockets of many small businesses, it hurts even more when you realize that you lose even more because of inventory loss. According to CNN, this loss is 25% more than the losses that small businesses face from shoplifting. Stealing from employers is not that uncommon. Employees actually stole an estimated $15 billion dollars from retailers last year according to Univ. of FL criminologist Richard Hollinger....

So you are sick of the damage to your car that comes with snowy winters and salted roads and you are not going to take it anymore! You’re ready to sue someone for this tort, someone like the city, and the county, and the state. It can be done, but there are a few things you should know first. Making a Claim While authorities are responsible for wrongs caused by their negligence and you can sue local government with some limitations, there are many obstacles to a case against a municipality for damage to your car from snowy roads....

Winning the lottery often means stepping into a cache of legal conundrums that can cost you a lot of time and money in court. That’s where planning ahead can pay off. The most common legal issues involve disputes over office lottery pools and ownership of winning tickets. But there are other potential problems too. Here are our Top 5 legal tips for winning the lottery: Make sure the lottery and your lottery pool are legal....

In just about every divorce involving children, some child support arrangements will be made. But not every divorce is the same, and not all go as planned. And even if a child support agreement seems perfect at the time, circumstances can change. Whatever the reason, you may find yourself trying to file a child support agreement, enforce or modify an existing one, or end your current child support obligations. But when is it too late?...

We rely on hospitals to make us well. But it doesn’t always work out that way. And while hospitals and healthcare settings try their best to remain sterile and clean environments, infections can and do happen in hospitals. A Reuters investigative report found a crisis of MRSA and other drug-resistant staph infection outbreaks in U.S. hospitals, made even worse by lax reporting requirements. So what happens if you get MRSA in a hospital or health care facility?...

Looking for a new smartphone feature? According to one man, the Motorola Droid 2 has a feature that he never requested: Self-destruction mode. Aron Embry, of Texas, claims that his new Motorola Droid 2 phone unexpectedly exploded in his ear days after he and his wife purchased Droid 2 smartphones. Embry said that he was getting in his car to go to work and decided to make a phone call. During the phone conversation, the Droid explosion injured his face, Embry alleges....

There are times when a tenant is forced to break a lease for reasons she can’t control. Though the general rule is that a tenant must abide by a lease’s terms until it expires, some situations allow a tenant to break a lease without any legal consequences. Even if you believe you’re within your rights to break a lease, a landlord may still try to sue you for damages. 1. When it’s allowed by law....

As noted in a prior post, Lancet Cuts Wakefield Study: A Blow To the New McCarthyism?, the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet’s removal this week of the study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, attempting to link the MMR vaccine to autism, has pushed this on-going debate back into the forefront of the news. A recent and yet to be widely reported story about the legal side of the good since/bad science fight has also come to light....

Even though most people know that a defendant in a criminal case has the right to an attorney, there might be some misconceptions as to whether everyone has the right to a free attorney. Yes, even though the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the “assistance of counsel” for every invididual accused of a crime, it really doesn’t say anything about whether the government has to pay for that attorney. Actually, historically, the law was understood to indicate simply that if you wanted an attorney and could shell out the dough for one, you had every right to do so....

In 2016, the Chicago City Council passed a very lengthy ordinance that governs home-sharing agreements, placing certain requirements on the host and host-sharing platform. A group of individual Chicago residents and a home-sharing advocacy group joined together to file a class action lawsuit against the city, claiming this ordinance violated their First Amendment rights and placed “impossible burdens on hosts.” Plaintiffs were unable to find any sympathy, or standing, for their cause....

No one wants disgruntled employees, and certainly no one wants them to go on strike. If they do, and agencies help backfill with temporary workers, make sure those workers get paid immediately or you’ll find yourself served with a lawsuit. Normally, when employees believe they have worked hours for which they haven’t been paid, the Department of Labor’s Wages and Hours Division (WHD) is contacted to investigate any violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act....

The House Judiciary Committee has approved legislation that would finally level the punishment for possession of crack versus powder cocaine. The Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009 now goes to the full House for vote. In the late 1986 and 1988, Congress enacted harsh penalties for possession of crack cocaine (a freebase, smokable form of cocaine). Under those guideline, still in effect today, the sale of 500 grams of powder cocaine draws a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years....

Legal marijuana has proved perilous for some Washington state retailers, just not in a way that any of them probably would have guessed. Three pot stores in the state have reported incidents in which glass bottles of marijuana-infused soda have exploded on shelves, Seattle’s KOMO-TV reports. The soda, a sparkling pomegranate soda called “Legal” and produced by Washington’s Mirth Provisions, was pulled from shelves. But now retailers must navigate the state’s strict guidelines for tracking and destroying marijuana products....

Family court is obviously the place where people address family legal matters. These courts cover a wide range of cases with quite different qualities, some of which overlap with other areas of the law. There are happy matters like adoptions and sadder stories like divorce, but all family law matters have one thing in common. The people involved are emotional, even more so than in other types of cases arising in criminal or injury law....

After a flurry of reporting that bisphosphonates and bone fractures such as femur fractures could be linked, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it will be conducting an ongoing safety review of oral bisphosphonates and femur fractures. The FDA has made it clear that it this point, it has not found a clear connection between bisphosphonate use and a risk of unusual femur fractures. The FDA intends to use the expertise of outside experts such as members of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research Subtrochanteric Femoral Fracture Task Force....

A Philadelphia food truck exploded Tuesday afternoon, injuring 12 people, including a mother and daughter who were working inside. The blast, captured on video by a nearby surveillance camera, is believed to have been caused by an exploding propane tank, reports Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV. The two women working in the truck, a 42-year-old mother and her 17-year-old daughter, both suffered severe burns and are listed in critical condition. What do witnesses say happened, and what legal questions are raised by this food truck explosion?...