Your roommate moves out and leaves behind boxes of her personal property. Are you legally allowed to keep her stuff? That’s just one option you may be considering with those unsightly boxes, which may also be unpleasant reminders of your former roommate. Some other options include: So what are you really supposed to do with an old roommate’s belongings, under the law? A: Throwing out those boxes and moving on with your life....
Ecommerce can be amazing. With a few simple clicks, a small business can be online in minutes, selling products and services across the globe. However, when it comes to the relatively new area of online affiliate marketing, businesses need to beware of money laundering schemes that take advantage of these programs. Affiliate marketing programs incentivize third parties to market the affiliated business for a fee. Some affiliate programs will actually pay third parties percentages as high as 50 to 80 percent when a referred customer makes a purchase....
A man who was arrested and strip searched after taking photographs of New York City Police Department officers has reached a $125,000 settlement with the city. Dick George filed a federal lawsuit against the city for police misconduct after being arrested for disorderly conduct in 2012, reports the New York Daily News. According to the lawsuit, George was arrested for documenting the officers’ “stop-and-frisk” search of three youths. Why was George’s arrest likely a violation of his civil rights?...
An Ohio man recently made a big splash on “Divorce Court” when he admitted to fathering 27 kids with 17 women. Yes, you read right: 27 children. Just two days after his “Divorce Court” episode aired, Nathaniel J. Smith, 39, of Dayton, was arrested and taken to a county jail for failing to appear in court for a child support case. He’s since been released. Smith told the Dayton Daily News he was not aware of the court appearance that he apparently missed – a consequence, perhaps, of having so many kids to support?...
Just in time for the holiday, a traditional American fight over a traditional American symbol: our flag and the pledge of allegiance we say, or in this case, don’t say to it. In Massachusetts, rugged individualist Sean Harrington was alarmed to find as a freshman at Arlington High School that there were no flags in the classrooms and no allegiance pledged. FOXNews reports that Harrington has made it the cause of his young life to get the flags and pledge re-instated in his high school....
These days divorce proceedings often involve alternative dispute resolution. Arbitration or mediation can be available in lieu of court proceedings, can be mandatory steps in the divorce process, or can be used to decide specific issues within a divorce. A growing number of states are facing the question of whether decisions about child custody and parental visitation can be decided through binding arbitration. Today, New Jersey became the latest state to answer yes....
In the brave new world of tech-savvy remote interviews, every job applicant can benefit from a few Skype interview tips. Even if making a good first – or fifth – impression isn’t always done in person these days, many of the same golden rules apply. Here are seven tips to help you get your game-face on for a job interview, Skype-style: Of course these are just a few tips to be at your best in a Skype interview....
When you have a car, you must carry insurance according to most state’s laws. This is meant to protect all of us in case of accidents. But unfortunately it also makes us targets for insurance fraudsters who make false claims. Car insurance fraud costs all drivers because false claims raise rates generally. Insurance scams lead to increased rates for everyone, and can be a direct danger to you. So, let’s look at how auto insurance fraud could impact you – quite literally, in the case of a crash – and how to avoid being a target of someone else’s illegal scheme....
There is a famous case most law students learn about that illustrates the sometimes painful consequences of the First Amendment. In 1977, the National Socialist Party of America (a Neo-Nazi group) planned a march in Skokie Illinois, the home of many Jewish Holocaust survivors. The Supreme Court upheld this act of speech, as distasteful and ignorant as it was, to be a rightful exercise of free speech and assembly under the First Amendment....
There’s a business saying making the rounds: Your company is only as good as your worst employee. And that is never truer than in a small business, where you don’t have that many employees to begin with. So identifying, enticing, and hiring the best possible candidates is essential for small businesses. So here are some of our best tips, questions, and answers for small business recruiting, from our archives: 1. On-Campus College Recruiting for Your Small Business We’ve come a long way from the classic college job fair, with lines of booths and stacks of applications....
Business owners need to plan the succession of their assets and business properly. Oddly, a living will could play into some of that. According to a recent FindLaw survey, most Americans don’t have a living will. A living will is a document that spells out what your wishes are if you’re still alive, but unable to speak for yourself. In a small business, you would likely have a financial power of attorney to take care of your business needs....
A Brooklyn bar is raising its weekend drinking age to 25 in an attempt to keep the atmosphere less rowdy – and to keep neighbors’ complaints at bay. DNAinfo New York reports that Phil’s Crummy Corner, located at the corner of Hamilton and Columbia, plans to stop serving the 24-and-under set after 10 p.m. on weekends, responding to neighbor’s complaints that the tavern is “like animal town” on Friday and Saturday nights....
Even though Mother’s Day is behind us, many Americans don’t need a reason to feel nostalgic and grateful for their mothers. For many orphaned children abroad, a mother’s love is something they have never experienced. Foreign countries are now facing increasing reports of fraudulent activity and child trafficking in overseas adoption practices. Many have now started implementing and considering adoption bans. Overseas governments have been placed in a difficult situation. On one hand, there has been disturbing news in the adoption front....
Smokers’ rights just received another large bucket of cold water. A new study says that children who live in apartment buildings are affected by secondhand smoke – from other apartments. Even those children who live in apartments where no one in the family smokes are showing elevated levels of a byproduct chemical from tobacco smoke in their systems. A study of over 5,000 children living in multi-unit housing found that 99% of white children showed levels of the tobacco byproduct cotinine in their blood, while 96% of African American children did as well, according to a report by Time....
If you haven’t noticed, marijuana laws in this country are changing rapidly. Four states have already legalized recreational pot possession, and a slew of others now allow medical marijuana for those with a prescription. And for those with an entrepreneurial mind, changes in the law mean business opportunities. But just because your state has legalized it today, doesn’t mean your weed retailer can open its doors tomorrow. Several states have set up significant barriers to entry into the medical marijuana market, and if you ain’t got the dough, you may be out of luck....
The Rebeccah Beushausen “Story” Rebeccah Beushausen was a woman whose sad story about her unborn child engendered great sympathy from a wide Internet audience. But it turns out, the AP now reports, that her story turned out to be an elaborate hoax. The AP summarized the gist of Beushausen’s blog-based yarn, as stating she was “an unmarried mother who chose to carry her child who is now terminally ill to term rather than have an abortion because of her deep Christian faith....
If you recently finished school or are newly unemployed, you might be thinking about taking your unwanted free time to travel abroad. And if you were also recently fired through no fault of your own, you’re probably also wondering if it’s possible to collect unemployment while traveling. Unfortunately for those grand plans, unemployment benefits are probably not in your future. At least not legally, that is. Unemployment is intended as a temporary safety net for people who are in the process of finding work....
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the Secret Service is immune to a lawsuit charging them with unfairly discriminating against anti-presidential protesters. But this case brings up another interesting question: Can the Secret Service arrest you for protesting the President? Wood v. Moss Today’s ruling stems from a 2004 trip by then-President George W. Bush to Oregon. When the President changed his plans at the last minute to eat at a local restaurant, the Secret Service moved anti-Bush protesters away from the restaurant, while allowing Bush supporters to remain nearby....
When it comes to what evidence can be used during a divorce case, text messages are fair game. However, text messages may be irrelevant to the proceedings, depending on the reason for wanting to use them as evidence. Text messages are usually wanted to prove infidelity. Unfortunately for the victims of infidelity, only a handful of states allow infidelity to actually have any impact on a divorce. The majority of states subscribe to the “no fault” divorce principle....
Recently in Illinois, a man was ordered to remove Facebook posts encouraging people to record court proceedings. James Weddigan’s social media activity earned him charges for contempt of court, which he successfully appealed, The Washington Post reported. Weddigan won on procedural grounds, meaning that the Illinois high court never addressed free speech on social media or one’s right to record court proceedings. Instead, it found that the lower court confused criminal and civil contempt....
