Taxi-alternative Uber is being sued by a young girl’s family after she was struck and killed by a driver on New Year’s Eve. Sofia Liu, 6, died after being hit by driver Syed Muzzafar, 57, in a San Francisco crosswalk. According to the family’s suit, Muzzafar was allegedly logged in to Uber’s smartphone app when he collided with Lu and her family. Could Uber be held liable for the girl’s death?...
Disgraced San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is prepared to resign over issues related to a sexual harassment lawsuit – and it only took a mere 18 alleged victims and evidence of allegedly misused city funds to get to this point. One of Filner’s former aides filed the suit last month, and many more alleged victims have since stepped forward. Filner wanted the city to help pay for his legal defense, and had refused to step down before entering closed-door mediation talks with city officials, San Diego’s KGTV reports....
All Scranton city workers – including cops and firefighters – will be paid minimum wage effective immediately. The small Pennsylvania town is facing bankruptcy. Unsure how to meet the next payroll, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty took the initiative and slashed wages despite a court order not to. All 398 city employees are now paid $7.25 per hour. Unions representing the workers have filed a lawsuit against the mayor and the city, reports Yahoo!...
Shopping cart injuries are on the rise, despite the implementation of safety standards. A new study in the journal Clinical Pediatrics reveals that shopping cart injuries send about 24,000 children under the age of 15 to hospital emergency rooms every year. Particularly worrisome: the number of shopping cart-related head injuries has continued to increase, The Huffington Post reports. So in light of the report, what should you do if your child gets injured by a shopping cart?...
One of the big new features on Apple’s iPhone X is Face ID. What Touch ID did with your fingerprint, Face ID does with your face – using facial recognition to unlock the phone, authenticate purchases, and sign in to apps. And while Face ID may make your phone less secure in the criminal law context, it might be music to the ears of employers, who won’t have to worry about negligent employees mishandling their passwords....
A new law passed in South Dakota last week has been drawing quite a bit of controversy among civil rights groups. Under the guise of protecting civil rights, the law actually protects private, religious adoption agencies from liability for discrimination if they refuse to adopt to LGBT individuals and couples, or potentially even parents that don’t share the agency’s, or even each other’s, beliefs. The subject of whether or not private religious organizations should be permitted to discriminate based upon genuinely held beliefs is a hot button topic as the religious organizations assert that denying them the right to discriminate is in itself discrimination....
You just got done filing your taxes (hopefully), so the last thing you’re probably thinking about is filing them next year. But if President Donald Trump has anything to say about it, your tax filing in 2018 may look a lot different than your 2016 filing. The Trump administration unveiled a dramatic overhaul of the nation’s tax code today, including lowering the rates for some individuals and businesses and eliminating some state and local tax breaks....
This week’s file o’ folly features some sensitive, and some perhaps not-so-sensitive, individuals in positions of authority, plus also a somewhat misdirected call for help: Careers in “The Tombs”? A high level correctional official in New York probably wasn’t in a celebratory mood this week after resigning his position for having thrown a bar mitzvah. Throwing a bar mitzvah is totally cool, unless, I guess, it happens to be in a correctional facility and, oh yeah, for an inmate’s son....
A class action lawsuit was filed by CA residents Seong Bae Choi and Chris Chan Park on Nov. 5, 2009 against the popular car maker Toyota. The plaintiffs claim that sudden acceleration is a problem that is present in many makes and models. This particular problem has caused countless unintended accidents and crashes. They also contend that in spite of Toyota’s knowledge of the problem, that Toyota has failed to address the safety issue....
Few things are as frustrating as a dispute with home contractor. If you’re dealing with such a dispute, should you file a lawsuit? Whether it’s shoddy construction work, protracted delays, or a disagreement over money that is causing problems, sometimes a lawsuit may seem like the only way to get what you feel you bargained for when you hired your home contractor. But if you’re considering a lawsuit against a home contractor, here are three things you may want to consider:...
When involved in legal proceedings, it’s always good to have a friend or two. But when a legal document refers a person’s “next friend,” it isn’t talking about that person’s social circle. Rather, the “next friend” is an individual appearing or appointed by a court to act on the behalf of a person lacking legal capacity, such as a child or a person who has been incapacitated due to illness or injury....
While many are ready to welcome our new self-driving car overlords, technology may not be ready to save us from the common car crash just yet. It turns out Google’s self-driving car doesn’t have the spotless driving record many thought after the company admitted its driverless cars have been in 11 accidents. Google’s Chris Urmson was quick to point out that “Not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident,” but in the future, this might not always be the case....
When you win your court case, you will generally receive monetary damages. Damages come in a few different forms, such as those meant to pay back medical bills and those meant to compensate for lost wages or pain and suffering. In a court case, a party seeking a judgment, or a monetary award, can also be entitled to prejudgment interest if they win. Prejudgment interest is essentially additional money that a court can award based on the interest that the judgment would have earned over the period of time from when the claimant was entitled to receive those monies....
Your landlord may be a snoop. Or he may want to replace those ugly blinds. Either way, you don’t want him in your living space. Can you deny him entrance? What limits are there to a landlord’s right of entry? These are pretty common questions amongst renters out there, and for good reason. People want their privacy, and unexpected guests are rarely welcome. Landlord right of entry laws vary by jurisdiction, but most states apply the following rules:...
Some of us are chronic procrastinators. And those that aren’t get things done ahead of time because they know exactly when their time is up. Either way, it helps to have an idea when it’s too late to get something done, legally speaking. And those deadlines (and related legal requirements) can vary depending on what it is you’re trying to do. So, here’s a list of legal deadlines, from our “When Is It Too Late…” archives:...
You may think that noncompete clauses are reserved for high-salaried employees and executives, but they can be used for hourly workers too. Take employees of the sandwich chain Jimmy John’s, for example. In an employee agreement obtained by The Huffington Post, it seems at least one Jimmy John’s franchisee in Illinois prevents its workers from working at any business that makes a dime on selling subs… for two years after employment!...
An inmate in Colorado who was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a guard was awarded over $1.3 million by a judge who appeared to be fed up with the Colorado Department of Corrections’ failure to properly enforce its policy on inmate sexual abuse. A story by the Denver Post reports that although the inmate settled out of court with the Department of Corrections for $250,000, the judge felt that the “DOC does not effectively enforce a zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse of inmates” and that was “one reason he set the damages so high....
People are people, and crying is something that people do. Literally, there is a connection between the brain and the tear ducts that gets triggered during severe emotional reactions. As people, when we see another person crying, that alone can trigger an emotional response. In an office or work environment, a crying employee can be both a cause for concern and a disruption. As a manager or business owner, or even a fellow employee, if you see an employee or co-worker crying, knowing what to do could be critical, both for the crying employee and business....
Internship season is fast approaching, making now a good time for business owners to start brainstorming potential intern interview questions. Your interview questions should elicit responses that will give you a sense of a would-be intern’s thought process, level of professionalism, and ability to perform under pressure. Such traits can help stave off interns who could expose the company to legal liability. Here are five intern interview questions that may work for your business:...
Wi-Fi is slowly becoming like tap water: If your business doesn’t want to offer Wi-Fi for free, your customers may see your company as a stingy, anti-technological cretin. This may be one reason why more and more small businesses are offering free Wi-Fi. In addition to boosting customer good will, gratuitous Wi-Fi acts as a valuable amenity to customer service-based ventures, reports Bank of America’s Small Business Community Blog. But offering anything new, even something for free, comes with its legal nuances....
