Gone are the days that small business owners can just focus on dollars and cents. If you’re not on the lookout for crimes and scams, you stand to lose more than a little profit. Scammers can destroy your small business’ credit and reputation overnight, so you need to be vigilant when protecting what you’ve built. But you can’t stop a scam if you don’t know what to look for, so here are seven of the most common scams targeting small businesses....
More and more people are turning their rooftops into gardens, front-yards into farms, and vacant lots into vegetable patches. And while the burgeoning urban garden movement can add beauty and affordable produce to any neighborhood, it can also bump up against a few city, state, and federal ordinances. So if you’re getting into urban agriculture to be more health conscious, eco conscious, or money conscious, make sure you’re also conscious of the laws and statutes that might apply....
In order to prevent the cost of rental housing from skyrocketing, local governments may institute rent control regulations. Without rent control, rental prices in some cities can be, as former New York City mayoral candidate Jimmy McMillan eloquently put it, “too damn high.” Though as it turns out, McMillan’s rent was actually pretty low: He was recently evicted from an East Village apartment he was renting for well under the market rate, thanks in part to New York City’s rules for rental units....
Though you may be arrested for using illegal drugs, there are generally no additional criminal charges for doing so while pregnant. Two states, Alabama and South Carolina, have upheld criminal child abuse verdicts for prenatal illegal drug use, primarily on the grounds those states believe a viable fetus is a person. In the other 48 states, you are relatively safe. Tennessee had a specific criminal law against using illegal drugs while pregnant, though it expired in 2016....
Under fire from numerous state attorneys general, Craigslist is canning its “erotic services” category for ad listings. That is, at least, in its current form which will be replaced with a modified version. Calling Craigslist a “blatant Internet brothel”, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced, “I was informed by Craigslist late last night that it will eliminate the ’erotic services’ section within seven days, create a new section called ‘adult services,’ and manually review every ad posted there to bar flagrant prostitution and pornography....
Five Alabama police officers have been fired over the beating of Anthony Warren as he lay unconscious following a high speed chase and wreck in Birmingham. The video footage, which can be seen on CNN, is shocking, but perhaps just as alarming should be how long it took for the video to get discovered and actually lead to any consequences. The chase is believed to have occurred in January of 2008, more than a year ago, but just recently (and perhaps accidentally) came to light....
A botched autopsy nearly had catastrophic results for Bridget Lee of Alabama, who had been charged in 2006 with murder for suffocating her baby right after it was born. The AP reports that the murder charge against her was dismissed after subsequent autopsies determined that the baby was actually stillborn, and not suffocated. Suspicions against Bridget Lee were high early on because she decided to hide the stillborn baby in an SUV....
We all love our pets, but often that love doesn’t extend to other people’s pets or strays; especially if they’re straying onto our property and leaving a little something behind. Feral, stray, or wandering cats can be a nuisance – one that tempts us to engage in some extreme behavior. But taking matters into your own hands might be a little too extreme. So if you’re thinking about killing a cat on your property, you should think about this first:...
In a personal injury lawsuit involving negligence, it’s not always true that the person being sued was the only one at fault in causing the accident. Often, the person who was injured was also partly negligent in causing his own injuries. Called contributory negligence, this fault on the part of the plaintiff can potentially be used as a defense by the defendant. But is contributory negligence a complete defense to liability, or can a person who is negligent still win an injury case?...
Michael Andrew Alexander has already been sentenced to almost 50 years behind bars for filming child pornography in the school where he taught but the legal system isn’t done with him yet. Earlier this year, Alexander was arrested as part of an international child porn ring and charged with multiple crimes. He pleaded guilty to some of the criminal charges in a plea deal but now the family of one girl he abused has filed a civil lawsuit as well....
A Mormon Bishop was shot and killed on Sunday, August 29. A man entered The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Visalia, California, and shot Bishop Clay Sannar in the foot and then again in the face. The shooting suspect has been identified by Visalia police as Kenneth James Ward of Modesto, Calif. The shooter was “visibly angry about something” according to eye-witness accounts reported by the Deseret News....
Child custody disputes can be some of the most hard-fought legal battles in the courts. And in the fog of war, a lot of misconceptions can spread. To be fair, the one constant throughout all child custody determinations is that courts or arbitrators will make their decisions based on the child’s best interests. After that, custody will depend on a variety of factors, each of which may be unique to your case....
That sounds like some of the openings we’ve had to write in response to children being injured or killed while at daycare. In fact they’re the words of David S. Cain Jr., an attorney representing the family of 5-year-old Kamden Johnson, whose body discovered in the driveway in Mobile, Alabama last week. The family is suing the daycare Kamden was supposed to be attending on the day he was found, claiming the company was negligent in screening and hiring Valarie Rena Patterson, who has also been charged with multiple crimes relating to the boy’s death....
A quadriplegic man stuck on Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World” ride for about 30 minutes has been awarded $8,000 by a federal judge. Jose Martinez and his wife sued Disney after the incident. They claimed Disney should have known that the ride posed a unique risk of harm to disabled persons, reports the Orange County Register. Disney should have been on notice about the faulty ride, given that it had broken down twice earlier that same day in 2009, the couple alleged....
March Madness is set to begin. So is it time you consider adding a March Madness policy at work? While the general public may know March Madness as an exciting basketball tournament filled with upsets and drama, business owners may associate March Madness with a huge drain on work productivity, lost hours, and distracted workers. March Madness can be particularly distracting early on, when games begin in the middle of the workday and continue through the night....
Businesses with storefront steps may be worried about ADA liability, but a recent federal court case suggests that steps aren’t necessarily a problem. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the popular teen clothing store Hollister, with its beach-property-style stepped entrances, did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). According to The Denver Post, the court ruled 2-1 that because Hollister provided alternative entrances for the disabled, its stores did not violate the ADA....
Telecommuting is becoming a more popular option these days. As long as employees remain productive, you can save money with a smaller office, less overhead and a happier workforce. But before you offer employees the privilege of working at home, you need to create a telecommuting policy that protects the business’s interests. Having the following types of rules written in stone can prevent accusations of favoritism, discrimination and arbitrary conduct....
One small step for stilettos, one giant step for fashion designs and copyright protection? The Senate Judiciary Committee has just passed the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prohibition Act (IDPPPA) granting limited copyright protection to fashion designs. Bills protecting the work of fashion designers have come up before in both the Senate and the House, but have never made it out of committee. For both major fashion houses and small independent designers, this bill would represent a major breakthrough which has been lobbied over and worked on for years, reports The Wall Street Journal....
Hand over the data, and no one gets hurt. The FBI wants Google to turn over location data on its users in close proximity and time to four robberies in Virginia. To date Google claims that it will not honor such broad requests. These “reverse location” requests, which are not tied to a specific device, may be unconstitutional; they are similar to overly broad “general warrants,” which violate the Fourth Amendment....
Chicago’s long-standing handgun ban is under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court will decide whether the Chicago handgun ban should be invalidated under the Second Amendment in the McDonald v. Chicago case. In the D.C. case, the Supreme Court recognized, for the first time, the Second Amendment right to bear arms as applying to individuals, rather than to militia groups (as some argue the text of the Second Amendment suggests)....
