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From May 9, 2014 to May 15, 2014, same-sex marriage was legal in Arkansas when Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza struck down, as unconstitutional, a 2004 voter-approved same-sex marriage ban and an earlier state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. About 500 couples were married within that short period of time. Not long after, the state Supreme Court approved a petition from the state’s attorney general to halt the issuance of such marriage licenses....

Whether you’re already managing an apartment building, or thinking of buying a house as a rental investment, leasing property to a tenant can get complicated. In response to the shady landlords out there, many states have passed strict tenant rights protections, which can put new restrictions on everything from how you structure a lease to what you can do about evicting a tenant. So how do you stay on the right side of landlord-tenant law?...

The first steps after a slip-and-fall accident are crucial. If you pursue a slip-and-fall injury lawsuit, winning your case will typically involve proving that the property owner is responsible. This means the burden of proof is on you as the injured person. The main part of proving slip-and-fall liability requires that there was a dangerous condition that caused you to fall, and that the owner knew about it. If this was the case, here are the initial vital steps that you should take after a slip-and-fall accident:...

An Atlantic City casino’s weight limit policy for cocktail servers is not unlawfully discriminatory, a New Jersey judge has ruled. The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa successfully defeated a lawsuit filed by 22 female servers who challenged a policy that prevented the servers (known as “Borgata Babes”) from “gaining more than 7 percent of their original body weight,” reports Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV. Employers can often require their employees to look or dress a certain way, but is this weight limit a step too far?...

Today, California is set to start issuing IOUs for bills it can’t pay. With Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature at an impasse, the state is preparing to issue IOUs to cover billions of dollars it owes small businesses, large vendors, county agencies and California taxpayers. According to CNN Money, unless a last minute agreement is reached on the budget, the state will begin issuing IOUs to cover approximately $3 billion in budget shortfall....

Can Foursquare help your small business? The company has announced a new feature that can potentially pay off: Small business owners will now be able to create and build a Foursquare ad. The location-based mobile app’s primary function already allows users to “check in” at businesses (or other locations as detected by their phone’s GPS function) to share with friends on social media, and to collect points, encouraging them to use the app more when they’re out and about....

You love your podcasts and you just can’t miss an episode, especially not when you are on the road. But if you are driving in California, make sure you’re not listening through headphones or more than one earbud, whether you’re driving a car or riding a bike. Among the 801 laws that went into effect in the new year is California’s two-earbud driving prohibition. While it has long been illegal to drive with headphones that cover your ears, the little buds that are nestled in the ear were excluded from the rule....

Here are five questions to ask yourself when considering a lawsuit over mental stress or trauma: How long ago was your injury? Under the statute of limitations, you must file your lawsuit within a certain period of time. For example, a plaintiff in California has two years from the date of injury to file a lawsuit for negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress. Physical manifestation of your stress/trauma? While it may be difficult to point out evidence of emotional distress, you may more easily provide evidence of related bodily injury like ulcers, headaches, and other physical signs of distress....

If you get behind the wheels of a car, chances are at some point in your life you will get into some kind of car accident. As a result, you will need a car accident checklist of what to do following the accident. The most critical moments following a car accident are the moments immediately after. There are several things you will need to take care of at the scene of the accident, which usually cannot be recreated later on....

You get patents, trademarks, and copyrights so that someone doesn’t steal your ideas. But those intellectual property protections can also make some money if someone wants to use your ideas. Licensing your intellectual property can be lucrative, but it can also be a legal headache. So here are some things to think about before licensing your intellectual property, depending on the type of property involved and to whom you’ll be licensing:...

Ex-Marine Cesar Laurean has been found guilty of first-degree murder for the killing of pregnant colleague Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach of Vandalia, Ohio. He was also found guilty of fraud and theft charges, and not guilty of robbery. Laurean, 23, was convicted by a North Carolina jury consisting of seven women and five men. They found that Laurean killed Lauterbach, 20, in December 2007. After the allegations surfaced Cesar Laurean fled and was a fugitive until police arrested him in April 2009 in Tacambaro, Mexico....

New language inserted in the U.S. Jobs federal government web site (www.usajobs.com) now protects transgender rights. The structuring of new language introduced on the federal jobs Web site protects a small transgender population (those working for federal agencies) against workplace discrimination. For example, here is a page from the USA Job’s site on how to report discrimination. It includes gender identity as one of the protected classes of employees. As noted by the New York Times, the U....

It’s a long road building your business from the ground up. When the time comes to grow, entrepreneurs often seek funding from third parties, including friends and family, banks, venture capital firms, and anyone else who might have deep pockets. However, getting funding can be wrought with legal pitfalls. Until recently, an entrepreneur was not allowed to publicly solicit investments into their business. However, now that we are in the era of crowdfunding, the rules have changed....

28-year-old Lauren Nicole Smith of Milton, Georgia, has discovered the hard way that going to court for your DUI case smelling like alcohol is a really bad idea. Last Friday, when she showed up in court to answer for a charge of DUI, the bailiff caught the smell of alcohol on her person while conducting a routine weapons-check. As a result, she ended up spending time in jail for contempt of court, which was a proceeding separate from the DUI case....

Can tattoos affect green card applications? Apparently yes, as the State Department is increasingly denying inked immigrants’ efforts to get green cards and become legal U.S. residents, The Wall Street Journal reports. Certain tattoos are linked to organized crime groups, mainly in Latin American countries. That can give rise to possible affiliation with those groups, and can justify a green-card denial based on national-security grounds, The Journal reports. The State Department denied 82 visas in 2010, citing a “reason to believe” the applicants were tied to organized crime....

Personal bankruptcies are up. Jersey Housewife Teresa Giudice notwithstanding, the numbers of average Americans filing for bankruptcy in our wobbly economy is at its highest level since 2005, according to a report by Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. For the year ending June 30, there were 1.57 million bankruptcies, up 20 percent from the year before. This increase in bankruptcy filings brings up several questions. First, why are the numbers measured against so recent a date as 2005?...

Corporal punishment in school is still legal in 19 states which may come as a surprise depending on where in country you live. Most of the states that permit school corporal punishment are in the South or the Midwest and they all have specific regulations about how physical punishment works. Still, just because some physical punishment is legal, doesn’t mean all of it is. If you live in a state that permits corporal punishment in schools, a teacher who hits your child could still be liable for assault....

Given the trouble some companies have gotten into with their employee performance reviews, it’s fair to wonder whether they’re going the way of the fax machine. And while some businesses are scrapping performance reviews altogether, others are trying to modify them to avoid employee lawsuits. So if you’re not ready to ditch your employee performance reviews just yet, at least make sure they aren’t illegal, and hopefully won’t get you sued....

The family of a man who fell to his death while repairing a bridge in Maryland have sued his employer for wrongful death. Bernard Burrows, a 58-year-old bridge mechanic at CSX Transportation, fell to his death when he tried to urinate off a bridge that he was working on. In their lawsuit, the family claims that CSX failed to provide portable toilets for the workers, forcing them to urinate and defecate off the bridge, reports the Philadelphia Daily News....

The former Miss Argentina 1994, Solange Magnano, died this week from a pulmonary embolism complication due to a gluteoplasty procedure to enlarge her buttocks. The model’s death serves to illustrate how severe plastic surgery dangers are; especially through cosmetic surgery tourism. ABC News reports that while the procedure is rare in the United States, that it has been steadily climbing in numbers domestically and abroad through cosmetic surgery tourism. Dr. Julius Few, director of the Few Institute for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery and clinical associate at the University of Chicago mentions how doing plastic surgery in Latin America is cheaper than it is in the United States....