Posts

If you run a business in Alabama, E-Verify is your new friend. As part of a tough new immigration reform bill signed into law on Thursday by Governor Robert Bentley, Alabama employers will now have to use the immigration verification system when hiring new employees. Businesses are also bound by new laws relating to day laborers, transportation, and rental agreements. Though there is much opposition to the new immigration law, at the very least, a recent Supreme Court decision upheld a similar mandatory E-Verify law in Arizona....

What happens when a burglar breaks in to your rented home and not only steals your stuff, but damages property (like the front door) too? Who pays for the damages – you or your landlord? While no one wants to think about the unfortunate situation of their home being burglarized, it’s something both homeowners and renters alike should consider. Generally speaking, both landlords and tenants may end up paying for damages stemming from a burglary....

Many car crashes lead to criminal charges, which in many cases can speed up the pace of otherwise costly litigation. But how do criminal charges impact a civil car crash case? Sometimes, a car crash can be the result of a much bigger criminal issue. Take Omeed Aziz Popal, 36, who pleaded guilty in July 2013 to a hit-and-run spree he committed in 2006 in two cities: San Francisco and Fremont, California....

Workers’ compensation insurance is designed to pay for time lost due to workplace injuries. But with advances in technology, the workplace has expanded to cover far more territory than the office. So what happens if you’re injured while working from home or on the road? Can workers’ compensation cover injuries suffered while telecommuting? Is My Home Office Just Like My Real Office? For the most part, any injury that arises out of or during the course of employment is eligible for workers’ compensation....

You can start a class action lawsuit under certain circumstances. But you need a class of people with similar injuries that need representation, and a court will have to approve that class. Class action lawsuits are consolidated cases. They exist for efficiency’s sake. But they can be intense and complex. These cases involve an inordinate amount of administration and can be taxing on resources. You will need the assistance of an attorney who is knowledgeable in class actions....

No one wants to be bad mouthed, especially by a disgruntled former employee. Companies have tried, unsuccessfully, to censor customer complaints on review sites. However, customers may not be the only people who have bad things to say about your company. Your disgruntled ex-employees may have some disparaging comments and complaints of their own. Can you make an employee sign a non-disparagement agreement as part of their severance package? Non-Disparagement Agreements Unlike non-compete agreements, which are unenforceable in some states, non-disparagement agreements, generally, are enforceable....

Most small businesses gave up on accepting only cash a couple decades ago. And in another couple decades we may look back and think of dollars, cents, and even credit and debit cards as antiquated payment methods. At this point, it’s not a matter of determining whether your small business will accept cryptocurrencies, but deciding when, which ones, and how you will creatively fold them into your existing payment structures. Here’s a quick primer on cryptocurrencies, and how blockchain, Bitcoin, and the rest can be a boon to your small business....

As the summer vacation season winds down, small business owners may want to remind their employees on how their companies deal with remaining vacation time. One of the most common questions: Does unused vacation time roll over into the next year? State and federal employee protections often control how an employer can craft her business’ vacation policies. So depending on your situation and which state you’re in, you may be required to have vacation time roll over....

A young girl on a visit to Sea World got a shocking reminder that dolphins are wild animals when she received some painful bites from one of the intelligent sea creatures, CNN reports. Jillan Thomas, an 8-year-old girl on vacation with her family in Orlando, was participating in feeding the dolphins a few weeks ago. She and other park visitors were warned not to lift the trays that held the dolphins’ food....

In February 2015, two drunk drivers crashed head-on in Staten Island, New York, which left William Cuffee, a passenger in one of the driver’s vehicles, brain damaged and severely injured. Cuffee’s mother, who now cares for her son, recently filed a lawsuit against both drivers, as well as the pair of establishments one driver was drinking in prior to the crash that night. The drivers each pleaded guilty to separate criminal charges related to the incident....

A new study examining the link between the amount of money spent on a wedding and the duration of marriage has come to a somewhat surprising conclusion: Couples who spend less on their wedding tend to stay married longer than those who opt for expensive weddings. In the study, researchers at Emory University looked at over 3,100 married couples, reports the Chicago Tribune. In addition to the amount of money spent on a wedding, the study found several other correlations between wedding ceremonies and duration of marriage that seem to go against conventional wisdom....

Is your small business reeling from the economic effects of a recent disaster? If so, you may qualify for a small business disaster loan to help get you and your business back on your feet. A small business doesn’t have to be physically damaged in order to qualify for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan from the Small Business Administration. These loans focus solely on how cash-strapped a business is, not how much physical damage it’s suffered....

This has been a very bad year for BP. A Texas mother is now suing BP for the death of her infant son – a death she claims was caused by chemicals released into the air during the BP refinery leak this past Spring. The cause of Julius Provosts’ death could not be determined by the local medical examiner’s office, but his mother believes that the exposure to over 500,000 pounds of chemicals released during the leak was the ultimate cause of her son’s death....

Senior year of high school can be stressful, so many demands and so many changes. It was more stressful than normal for Ceara Sturgis, who after having her senior picture taken for the yearbook, found that she would be completely excised from the class list: no picture, no name. Why? Because Ceara Sturgis choose to have her picture taken in a tux, as is traditional for boys, instead of the drape that is often traditional for girls....

A Malawian judge today rejected Madonna’s petition to adopt a second Malawian child. The pop diva’s adoption attempt drew sharp criticism from some non-profits working in the area, and shed a light on the rules and controversies surrounding some international adoptions. As reported by the Guardian, had the court approved Madonna’s petition, she could have returned home with young Chifundo “Mercy” James tomorrow. The problem is that home isn’t and has never been Malawi....

A judge charged five member of a Missouri family yesterday in a bizarre sex abuse case involving a string of child abuse allegations. The men, Burrell Edward Mohler Sr., 77, and his four sons were charged with forcible sodomy, rape of a child younger than 12 and use of a child in a sexual performance. Burrell Edward Mohler Sr., and his sons Burrell Edward Mohler Jr., 53; David A. Mohler, 52; Jared Leroy Mohler, 48; and Roland Neil Mohler, 47 are being held in the Lafayette County Jail with bails ranging from $30,000 to $75,000....

The recent Nelson Mandela trust fight involves him (his trust, at least) and his two daughters, who want to remove two appointed trustees. It also shows what can go wrong when setting up a trust. The Mandela Trust dispute centers on who ultimately will control the trust, The New York Times reports. His daughters reportedly want to distribute much of the trust’s $1.3 million in assets, against the trustees’ (and Mandela’s) wishes....

When we trust the health and well-being of our friends and loved ones to nursing homes, we hope they respect and honor that trust. But if someone you care about is injured at a nursing home, should you file a lawsuit? Each case is different, and a lawsuit may not always be necessary. Still, if you are considering filing an injury claim against a nursing home, here are a few things to be aware of:...

How much is a hand worth? What about a foot? An eye? All of these body parts are invaluable, but when it comes to the law, they have a price. For Tabitha Mullings, that price is $17.9 million. The mother of three sued New York City and Brooklyn Hospital Center for a medical error that left her a quadruple amputee and blind in one eye. After three years, the defendants agreed to settle the claim, worrying that the so-called NYC amputee would garner too much sympathy from a jury....

When It Comes to Medical Test Results, What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You Your doctor may not be telling you everything you need to know about your health – including bad news from lab tests – according to a new study that looked at the exchange of information between primary care physicians and their patients. The study Frequency of Failure to Inform Patients of Clinically Significant Outpatient Test Results examined the recent history of 5,434 randomly-selected patients who were 50 to 69 years old....