Is Big Brother your next door neighbor? In an effort to catch neighbors in the act of doing everything from keying their cars to dumping dog waste, homeowners are bringing out the eye in the sky; or at least the video surveillance cam purchased from a local electronics store. For allegations that used to be he said/she said, there is now bad behavior caught on tape and posted to YouTube....
It seems that tort law is on your side even when you are on the wrong side of the law. A robber wants to sue the store he robbed from. AP reports that a “Michigan judge says a man who claims he was chased, shot and beaten by workers at a store he’d just robbed can sue the men. But only if he comes up with $10,000 within two weeks.”...
Here’s a look at the EEOC’s settlement and the lessons for small business owners. Time’s Up According to the EEOC, Patricia Bonds was working as a food clerk at a Safeway in Westminster, Maryland when she sustained a work-related injury that substantially limited her ability to lift heavy objects. Safeway initially reassigned Bonds to the customer service desk, but then claimed she had exhausted her time limits for modified duty and abruptly placed her on indefinite unpaid leave....
Parents often push their teenage kids to work summer jobs to keep them from turning into permanent fixtures on the couch or in front of the TV. But there are some legal limits that parents need to know about. Federal and state child labor laws prevent children of certain ages from working certain jobs. Still, the law can allow teens to make an honest living over the summer while keeping themselves occupied....
You’ve got questions; we’ve got answers. If you have not yet asked or answered a question in FindLaw’s Answers community, what are you waiting for? This amazing free resource supports a dynamic community of legal consumers and attorneys helping each other out. Simple as that. We see a lot of great questions in our Answers community every day. Here’s a look at some recent questions relating to disability insurance from our FindLaw Answers boards:...
As fires in Sonoma County, California rage on, the first concern is safety: getting residents out of harm’s way and getting injured residents necessary medical treatment. And when the flames are out, people will turn to rebuilding and compensation for property lost to the fires. Most residential and commercial property owners will turn first to their insurance policies, fingers crossed that they cover fire damage and natural disasters. If you’re filing an insurance claim after a fire – or wondering if your policy covers fire damage – here’s what you need to know:...
Starting a business involves so many different types of tasks that the business owner, especially in the beginning, has to wear a lot of hats. This is why many people who wish to start a business consider franchising, or purchasing the right to open a branch of an existing business. Buying into an existent brand that is already successful doesn’t eliminate the risks or difficulty of running your own shop, but it certainly limits them a lot....
The beginning of a new year is a perfect time for business owners, especially new business owners in partnerships, to take a step back and make sure everything is in order. A lot can change over the course of a year, and the beginning of the year is a good time to look at where you, as a business owner, are personally vulnerable to losing your ownership interest. Conversely, if a business partner has not been living up to their end of the partnership, it may be time to squeeze them out....
If your business is flooded, you need to get on top of your legal to-dos, or you’ll be financially underwater. Just look at what happened to UCLA’s campus after a water main burst, sending more than 20 million gallons flowing through the campus. While the Los Angeles Times suggests that the UCLA incident may be more of a red flag for the city’s infrastructure, business owners should be ready to mitigate flood damage no matter what the cause....
As an American citizen, you’re entitled to a number of constitutional rights. But what can you do if your civil rights are violated? Here are three potential ways to sue if your constitutional rights are violated: Civil rights lawsuits can be exceptionally complicated and often require specific procedures in order to proceed. Working with an experienced civil rights lawyer may be the best way to ensure that a violation of your civil rights gets the legal attention it deserves....
Why are we so fascinated with multiple births? You can ask Nadya Suleman. With a name she has now trademarked, “Octo-mom” gave birth to octuplets by in vitro fertilization in January, adding to her litter of 6. Suleman has been in the news and in court on various occasions over her sizeable brood. In the latest court filing, a California state court ruled last week that a third party could indeed bring a petition for guardianship over the finances of her 14 children....
Angry and frustrated at your employer? Ready to make them pay by going to the public library and studying up on wage and hour laws? Hold on there, slick. Before you go barreling into a legal bout with your boss over the overtime you weren’t paid for and the unpaid time you were forced to work, try and consider all the ways an attorney could do it better. For starters, here are five things a wage and hour lawyer can do that a non-lawyer probably can’t:...
Now that the federal government shutdown is over, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is facing a backlog. During the shutdown, many small business owners were left to deal with the consequences of the SBA being closed since October 1, The Washington Post reports. Despite the SBA finally reopening, however, this doesn’t mean that normal operations will fully resume just yet. What’s on the SBA’s plate, now that furloughed workers are back on the job?...
There should be a soap opera dedicated to Silicon Valley drama. Between Facebook’s data breach, Apple’s phone throttling, and the industry’s sexual harassment scandals – to name a few – there seems to be a never-ending stream of gripping headlines these days. Keeping that trend going, Apple said in a leaked internal memo that it “caught 29 leakers” last year. Now, 12 of those employees have been arrested for leaking internal information....
Why take the risk of starting your own business from scratch when you can buy into an already successful chain? Many entrepreneurs think about this every day, which is why they buy franchises. But buying a franchise isn’t as easy as just slapping someone else’s logo on your front door. We’ve written a lot about franchises over the years and have gathered some good information you should consider before taking this step....
When making child custody determinations, courts and child service agencies will make decisions in the child’s best interests, and those interests can be examined through a variety of factors, from safety and stability to continuity of family, friend, and school relationships. Absent clear evidence of abuse or absenteeism, rarely is one circumstance solely determinative of custody. But one Oregon couple is claiming that a single factor, their IQ, has been used to deny them custody of their two young children, even causing Department of Human Services to step in and take the couple’s second child before he could even leave the hospital....
What happens to our data after we die? Does it join us in the big cloud somewhere in the sky? Or do our relatives rifle through it, looking to resolve some long-standing family feud, like who mom loved best? A German federal court recently ruled that heirs have the right to inherit digital correspondence from a deceased person, including minors. Such access is against the wishes of most social media companies, who promote first and third party privacy rights over the rights of relatives....
Cancer patient Brittany Maynard isn’t taking her terminal cancer diagnosis lying down. She moved to Oregon and is planning her assisted suicide. Maynard, 29, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer nine months ago, but she didn’t want to “die a horrendous death,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Instead of languishing in front of her loved ones while the cancer spread, Maynard moved from California to Oregon, where she plans to take advantage of the state’s “Death with Dignity” law....
There is no shortage of material – both serious and comedic – regarding that strange species known as “the teenager.” Even though we all spent time on that rollercoaster of emotions, most of us are regularly baffled by the ups, downs, and insanity of teenage behavior once we’re adults. It’s no secret that the juvenile brain is still developing some key functions, and that becomes abundantly clear for those who are regularly exposed to teenage crime....
Dermal Fillers Gone Bad. It happens much more often than you think. Sometimes a qualified medical professional has a cosmetic surgery mishap, leading to negative side effects. But more often, an unqualified person is injecting fillers that may not be approved for the intended procedure. In many of these cases, a lawsuit is possible. But can you prevail? That’s another story. Take, for instance, the story of Cardi B. A few years ago, she received dermal fillers for a butt enhancement in someone’s basement for $800....
