Posts

Guest post by Jennifer K. Halford, Esq. Many small business owners hire family members or friends to work for their businesses. And often times that is a good decision. After all, it is convenient. You don’t have to advertise for the position. You usually know the individual’s work ethic. And they tend to be committed to their job because you are the boss. Yet, hiring family and friends is also one of the areas I hear business owners having the most difficulty with....

We’re told that accidents happen, but not every car crash is an accident. While you’re trying to stay safe on the roads, some less scrupulous drivers are trying to scam money out of insurance companies by staging car accidents. (And these scams aren’t just occurring in Asia or Russia.) Luckily, many of these scams are similar and therefore more easily identified, if you know what to look for. Here are some of the more popular staged car accidents, and how to avoid them....

It’s not common, but workplace fights do happen. Tensions build. Voices are raised. Tempers flare. And, in the extreme, shoves, punches, and piledrivers may get thrown about. Whether it’s started by an argumentative customer upset about their caramel macchiato or two colleagues having a heated debate about something-totally-not-worth-fighting-about, injuries can result. So when you’re injured in a fight at work, is workers’ compensation still a thing? Workers’ compensation is a workplace insurance system for work-related injuries....

According to the most recent data from Consumer Product Safety Commission, there are around 70 electrocution fatalities every year from consumer products. And while you might think children are the most vulnerable to electrocution, there were twice as many victims who were 40 to 59 years old, compared to the number of victims who were 19 years old and younger. Electrocutions are also one of the most common workplace injuries, accounting for around 9 percent of all fatal workplace accidents....

After the shock of hearing about yet another airplane crash sinks in, many people start to wonder, “Who is responsible?” Germanwings flight 9525 was flying from Barcelona to Dusseldorf when it crashed into the French Alps. There were 144 passengers and 6 crew members onboard. Nobody survived the crash. What happened? Why did this happen? Despite the many questions still unanswered by the investigation, one question rings clear. Who is going to pay, and how much?...

So you’ve written a screenplay. Before you share it with others, you’ll want to legally protect your script by copyrighting it. While your work is technically copyrighted the moment you create it, certain legal protections exist only when you register a copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. For example, registration with the Copyright Office is required before you can file a lawsuit for copyright infringement. A written treatment or outline of a fully developed, unique story should be enough to qualify for copyright protection, and a completed script usually does....

Drug overdoses can be anything from simple mistakes to suicide attempts and they can have tragic consequences. In some cases those consequences can extend to dealers, friends, or family of the person who overdoses. Some states have begun prosecuting drug dealers with murder if a customer overdoses, and others are bypassing Good Samaritan protections and charging friends who dial 911 for overdosing friends with drug crimes. And beyond possible criminal charges, could you be sued if you gave someone drugs that led to a deadly overdose?...

Pet owners in Massachusetts are rallying behind a proposed law that would allow them to designate a caretaker for their pets in their wills, Reuters reports. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has a Jan. 9 deadline to sign the bill into law. “It’s become clear this is something that’s important to people,” Kara Holmquist, director of advocacy for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, told Reuters. In fact, there are approximately 40 states in the U....

If you live in Colorado or Washington State, you may soon be able to smoke weed legally. That’s because recreational marijuana measures in these states appear to have a decent shot of being passed come the November election. The voter initiatives in the two states would legalize up to an ounce of pot for recreational use. If passed in either state, it would mark the first time that recreational marijuana use is legalized in the U....

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission releases a report every year detailing the various types of discrimination claims workers made. The 2015 report came out last week, and the EEOC says that retaliation claims were the most commonly cited reason for workplace discrimination last year and, thus, the greatest concern for workers. So what is workplace retaliation and what can you do to avoid making the same mistake as many employers who faced EEOC retaliation complaints last year?...

Can prosecutors try and pick an all-white jury? Can you sue a company for breaking the law, even if it didn’t hurt you in the process? And can alleged criminals use legitimate assets to get a lawyer? These questions, and more, will get argued in front of the Supreme Court next month. The Court will hear a total of twelve cases in November – here are the three biggest that you need to know about:...

Florida man Paul Merhige went on a murderous rampage during a family dinner on Thanksgiving Day in 2009 and killed four family members. Now, the parents of the Thanksgiving killer face a lawsuit by Muriel and Jimmy Sitton. The Sittons are the Merhiges’ cousins. The murders happened at the Sittons’ house, where the Merhiges, including their son Paul, attended a holiday family dinner together. The lawsuit alleges that the Merhiges could have prevented the slayings, which claimed the lives of Paul’s twin sisters, his aunt, and Makayla Sitton, who was the Sittons’ daughter, reports NBC Miami....

‘Boys will be boys’ used to be an excuse for bullying, and by the time boys were almost men it was expected that anyone who wanted to join a fraternity would put up with hazing. But today bullying and hazing are – at least officially – unacceptable and this could mean trouble for traditional fraternities. A former Kappa Alpha Psi recruit in Maryland, Johnny Powell II, is suing the fraternity for $4 million, alleging that he was severely beaten and abused during recruiting, NBC News reports....

We’ll look back on 2018 as a banner year for bud. More states legalized it. States that had previously passed legalization measures refined their regulatory schemes. And, despite all indications to the contrary, there appeared to be some positive movement on marijuana at the federal level as well. It was all a lot to keep track of – so here’s what happened to pot this year, legally speaking. President Donald Trump’s former Attorney General didn’t mince words when it came to his distaste for legal weed....

Last week, President Donald Trump signed another executive order, this time creating the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to investigate voting processes and registration for federal elections. Ostensibly, this commission will root out past voter fraud and advise the Oval Office on measures to prevent it in the future. But the American Civil Liberties Union is wondering why there’s a need to create such a commission in the first place....

Walmart has settled a lawsuit brought by the EEOC on behalf of David Moorman, a former manager at a Walmart store in Keller, Texas. The suit alleged age and disability discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). According to Moorman’s claims, his direct supervisors frequently called him “old man” and “old food guy”. After he was diagnosed with diabetes, he requested reassignment from a manager position to an assistant manager position....

Whether TARP’s sun sets at the end of the year or is allowed to rise once again in 2010 is being hotly discussed in the U.S. Treasury these days. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) designated $700 billion to support ailing banks, but the funds were also distributed to automakers and insurance companies. And most recently, the U.S. Treasury plans to buy toxic assets using private and public funds. All in all, about $128 billion TARP funds are still on the table....

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech. The line that has particularly resonated over the years is the one in which King muses about the day when his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” No doubt, we have certainly made strides since the March on Washington, which culminated in King’s speech on August 28, 1963....

Car crashes are a leading cause of death for children 1 to 13 years old. Many times deaths and injuries can be prevented by proper use of car seats, boosters, and seat belts, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But more than half of parents fail to properly install baby seats, the NHTSA found. Improperly installing your baby seat is a big problem in case of an accident, not only because it severely increases risk to your kid....

A proposed bill for small business job creation and opening lines of credit to small business was introduced by the United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. According to a press release by the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, the “Small Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act of 2009” contains provisions that will increase SBA loan limits, extend government guarantees, and get rid of fees that come with SBA lending....