Posts

In many industries, salespeople earn a living thanks to commissions, which can often get characterized as kickbacks. However, sometimes commissions or kickbacks aren’t necessarily a good way to sell. They may not even be a legal way to sell, particularly in heavily regulated sectors. In short, a kickback is illegal when there is a law prohibiting it, or similar conduct. These will often exist in the context of consumer protection laws, as well as government funding....

Man kills 100 sled dogs. And files for workers’ compensation. Yes, you read that right. An employee of a British Columbia’s Outdoors Adventures, a company that offers sled dog tours, has filed a workers’ compensation claim stemming from the post-traumatic stress disorder caused by having to kill 100 sled dogs in two days. Despite having killed dogs previously (for euthanasia purposes only), the man was not mentally prepared for the task at hand....

Consider this scenario: You lent $10,000 to your cousin Arty but when time comes to pay back that loan, Arty says “No! It was a gift!” Your conflict with a deadbeat cousin aside, what does the Internal Revenue Service have to say about your non-business bad debt? For starters, let’s look at how the IRS treats non-business bad debts. Bad personal debts are treated as short term capital losses. This means that you can deduct them from your income tax calculation, but only up to a maximum of $3,000 above your capital gains for the year....

When reports surfaced this week that Bill O’Reilly had been accused of domestic abuse during divorce proceedings, the news only came to light because a source leaked the information. The actual documents of the case were filed under seal, and testimony was given during closed hearings. But, as NASCAR’s CEO Brain France learned, not all sealed divorce documents stay sealed. So how do you seal divorce papers, and how can you make sure the filings of your divorce stay sealed?...

The World Wide Web is the wild wild west for intellectual property. Those esoteric concepts of copyrights and trademarks and patents often fall by the wayside for businesses looking to promote their business, or maybe even get their start, both online, and in the real world. Photos, videos, and other content are easily steal-able online, and just because it’s easy, that doesn’t make it legal. As such, businesses do need to be careful when selecting which photos and what type of media they want to use for promotional purposes....

Last week, we discussed how compensatory damages for car accident claims are split into two categories: special damages, which cover things like medical expenses, damage to the car, and the loss of income now and in the future; and general damages, which attempt to account for pain and suffering, mental anguish, and loss of consortium. Here’s a more specific breakdown of general damages, including how to recover them after a car accident....

The world is going to hell in a hand basket. Violent crime is up. Playgrounds aren’t safe. People are being beheaded in Arizona. It’s clear–things are getting worse. Or is it? According to an FBI report, violent crime fell for the third consecutive year. In fact murders have dropped to their lowest level in over 40 years. In addition, just in the last year, robberies have dropped by 8 percent, property crimes by 4....

Foreclosure prevention is off to a slow start. The $75 billion White House initiative to save up to four million homeowners from foreclosure woes over the next three years through various programs, including incentivizing mortgage modification, is well behind its projected goals and Washington is on the case. An initial progress report of the “Home Affordable Modification Program” (HAMP) revealed that only 9% of delinquent borrowers– or just over 235,000 loans– are in trial loan modifications thus far....

If you’re thinking of starting a nonprofit tax-exempt entity, you’ll likely know that there’s quite a bit of research involved. Once you start digging, you’ll come across words that might make absolutely no sense whatsoever. So here’s to demystifying these crazy words and making the law of tax exempt organizations a little more user friendly. Have a look at our top 5 legal terms for nonprofit law. Private inurement. Most people have never heard of “inurement,” let alone “private inurement....

Guest post by Jennifer K. Halford, Esq. I was speaking last week with a business owner who suffered through an ugly dissolution of his business partnership. He and his friend had been in business together for over eighteen years. And they never saw the dissolution of their business or their friendship coming. People go into business with their friends believing that the friendship will endure. And that is often true when the business is doing well and the bills are getting paid....

If someone else decided to use your property as a parking lot (or if your property is a parking lot and someone has overstayed their welcome) you probably want that car gone now, and maybe you want to do it yourself. But getting a car towed off your property is one of those situations where self help might not be the best remedy. So what are your options for towing a car on your property?...

Facing serious criticism, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn suspended a second early release program for state prisoners, pending review. According to the Associated Press, this early release program is separate from “MGT” (meritorious good time credit) secret release program that was recently halted. The Corrections Department confirmed that Gov. Quinn has stopped a separate program to release 1,000 nonviolent offenders who are within the last year of their sentence. About 170 prisoners have been released to electronic monitoring under the program Quinn announced in September....

There are currently 16 lawsuits pending against American military contractors KBR and Halliburton, claiming that they poisoned scores of American troops by burning everything from human corpses to asbestos in huge open air burn pits. These lawsuits also include a Turkish company called ERKA. However, this post will focus on the American parties named in these suits. KBR was Halliburton’s subsidiary until 2007. They are now two separate corporate entities....

We are constantly reminded – and constantly reminding our children – that what goes on the internet stays on the internet. While the internet has made everything from communication to shopping easier, it’s also made it easier for our online mistakes to catch up with us and for online marketers to track us across the web. It may seem impossible to cut the cord at this point, rest assured that there are ways to delete yourself from the internet....

There seems to be a new trend in minimum wage increases across the country. Los Angeles is now the latest city to approve, in a 14-to-1 vote, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Los Angeles follows in the footsteps of Seattle and San Francisco, which have already approved $15 minimum wages. Los Angeles’ Minimum Wage Increase The new wage hike actually isn’t as dramatic as headlines proclaim. The city’s minimum wage, currently $9 per hour, won’t actually reach $15 per hour until 2020....

The U.S. District Court in Denver, Colorado issued a major win for intersex people. Put a “W” in the “X” column! Though the judge in the case stated the ruling was particular to the case at hand, it will still serve as a powerful message that the United States may be ready to join other developed countries in the adoption of gender designation and identification. Dana Alix Zzyym was born Brian Orin Whitney in 1958, with ambiguous physical sexual characteristics, and identifies as nonbinary in gender....

We all know that everyone considers dogs as a man’s best friend, but should people be able to file pet lawsuits for negligence, emotional distress and loss of companionship? According to the Rutland Herald, many people in Vermont think so. A woman there filed a lawsuit over alleged medical malpractice on her two cats in 2002. The Vermont court did not agree with her argument, though. The ruling was quoted by the Rutland Herald as saying, “Viewed from this perspective, plaintiffs request a judicial expansion of law to recover for loss of a pet what the law does not allow for loss of a broad variety of critically loved human beings....

Are we mistaken in thinking that there seems to be quite a surge lately in criminals with cute and catchy names? Perhaps it is just an occupational hazard of writing about crime on a regular basis, but since when did every Tom, Dick and Harry thief get a nickname, let alone a Facebook fanpage? Please note the recent the rise of the Geezer Bandit (still at large), the Barefoot Bandit (recently nabbed), the Bouquet Bandit (also recently in custody)....

Being a smoker in California just got a little tougher. County supervisors in Marin have passed a new ordinance that bans smoking in apartments and condominiums. The new rule will affect complexes located in unincorporated areas of Marin County. Marin itself was recently named the healthiest county in California by a report from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. While some may find the ordinance bizarre, it’s actually not the first of its kind....

South Carolina lowered the Confederate battle flag that had flown outside its State House this morning and moved it to a Civil War museum nearby. The law calling for the flag’s removal progressed quickly through the state legislature and was signed by the governor yesterday. While many had called for the controversial flag’s removal since it began flying on capitol grounds over 50 years ago, debate intensified following the racially-motivated killing of nine black parishioners in a historically black church last month....