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A Texas woman has brought an interesting lawsuit against the Dallas Cowboys, suing the team and owner Jerry Jones for allegedly burning her butt. Jennelle Carrillo received severe burns to her butt after allegedly sitting on a bench outside Cowboys Stadium, reports CBS. In her lawsuit, the woman says that the incident occurred in August 2010 during the Cowboys’ Blue & Silver scrimmage game. Carrillo says that temperatures at the time were well over 100 degrees....

Firing employees can be tricky. Anybody who has taken part in terminating employees knows that when emotions run high, sometimes lprofessionalism - and even logic - goes out the window. We’ve all heard stories of how employees have reacted to getting fired. Some may get a little violent, belligerent, or downright emotional. Generally, no employer takes pleasure in terminating an employee. But, sometimes it’s simply necessary. Is there anything employers can do to avoid a scene?...

Copycat businesses. They can turn your unique, successful business into one of many, diluting your market share and your profit margin, forcing you to compete for business that at one point came easily. With the power of the internet and the easy spread of knowledge, more and more entrepreneurs are having their ideas stolen by copycats. What can they do? A business, at its very essence, is a collection of intellectual property rights that, together, make money....

You placed all the ads, reviewed all the resumes, interviewed all the candidates, and hired the perfect staff for your small business. Now that you’ve got the best and brightest employees in the office, how do you keep them there? As CNBC reports, one of the biggest factors to employee retention is whether your employees see an internal career path that allows for opportunities to advance within the company. And those businesses that lack internal mobility programs are more likely to see their best employees searching for those opportunities at other firms....

You currently share custody of your children, but maybe you’d like to change that. You’d prefer to be the sole custodian and want to know how to make that happen. The general answer is that you will have to apply with the court that awarded joint custody, and you should probably prepare for some opposition. Let’s consider here what kind of conditions or changed circumstances might justify a change in a custody arrangement and how to prepare to make your case for being the sole custodian....

On the heels of the Iowa Supreme Court’s momentous decision declaring unconstitutional a law limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman, the AP reports that same-sex couple all over the state have started to apply for marriage licenses. Indeed, at least one lesbian couple was able to get married in Des Moines, and the story indicated they believe they were the first ones to do so considering that they had to get a judge to waive the requisite 3-day “waiting period before marriages are considered final....

Eight former guests of the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas have sued the hotel and its builders for $337.5 million after contracting Legionnaires’ disease, a severe and potentially deadly form of pneumonia. The Aria Legionnaires’ incident, which has been confirmed by health investigators who believe the bacteria spread through the hotel’s air conditioning and water systems, is being blamed on the builder’s negligent design and installation, as well as management’s failure to inspect and repair....

Economics is all about supply and demand. But what happens when demand far outstrips supply? Basically, you’ll be hearing from lots of angry customers. This is a lesson learned from Target’s Missoni fiasco. A few weeks ago, excited budget fashionistas lined up outside Target stores nationwide when the Italian design house launched its discount line. Digital shoppers also rushed the retailer full force via its website, causing site outages. It seems Target was unprepared for to handle the massive interest in the new line....

Fifteen people were killed this weekend when a bus, shuttling passengers between New York City and Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, slammed into a guardrail and flipped onto its side before skidding 480 feet. The driver, Ophadell Williams, left Mohegan Sun Casino early Saturday morning on only four hours of sleep, reports the New York Daily News. One of the few survivors of the deadly crash, he told police that he was doing fine until he was sideswiped by a big rig....

Teenage drinking is a crime in all 50 states since we all have a drinking age of 21. But it’s not just a crime for the teenager doing the drinking. In some states it’s also a legal issue for the adult who does the serving. Illinois has just passed a law that goes into effect next year and makes it a misdemeanor for adults to serve alcohol to underage persons. It isn’t the only state with these ‘social host’ laws on the books....

When it comes to hiring employees, the two basic forms of employment are at-will and for-cause. The titles have to do with how an employee can be fired. For-cause, or non at-will, employees can only be fired based on a pre-agreed upon reason, often in the employment contract or handbook. NO the other hand, at-will employees can be fired at any time and for any reason that isn’t unlawful. That’s often what employers are looking for....

Despite the glaring headlines over massive discrimination suits like the recent sex discrimination suit against retail giant Walmart, a new study finds most of these suits are brought by individuals, not classes, and do not always fare well in the justice system. According to the ABA Law Journal, a new study from the American Bar Foundation announced June 9, found that most employment discrimination cases are filed by individuals who receive only modest settlements, if anything at all....

In a recent landmark case, a Philadelphia federal court decided that there is no religious right to discriminate against LGBT foster and adoptive parents. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker ruled that Bethany Christian Services and Catholic Social Services, two state-approved foster care placement services, do not have the right to take taxpayer funds and still override Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services’ (DHS) child placement standards because of religious objections to LGBT lifestyles....

A few months ago, the Obama Administration announced efforts to crack down on predatory payday loan companies, attempting to impose some of the underwriting requirements and lending restrictions as regular loans. Payday lenders, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said, take advantage of consumers by giving them short-term loans with astronomical interest rates, then charge penalty fees and threaten bank account closures and vehicle seizures if customers can’t pay. And it seems like even the “good guy” payday lenders are behaving badly....

The safety and oversight of smaller regional airlines needs to be put under a microscope by the FAA, a U.S. Senate committee said in a letter sent this week to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The increased scrutiny of the operation and safety of smaller regional airlines has been sparked by the February 2009 crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 Buffalo, which killed all 49 people on board and one person on the ground....

All types of businesses are regulated to ensure that certain standards are met and that people are not harmed, or that if they are, there is legal recourse. But some industries tend to be more highly regulated than others, and some are so new that regulators are just starting to figure out what to do. Regulation Nation Let’s take a look at the most regulated industries, according to IBIS World … and some new developments that will surely lead to more laws and regulation for burgeoning businesses in industries currently in development....

You have a great idea. Now how do you make sure no one steals it? Having a website is essential these days, and it can be a great way to get your small business’s ideas and information out to a wider audience. But it can also expose those ideas to some less ethical outfits just looking to lift content from other sources. Copyrights are intended to protect your work from someone else’s unlicensed use, but do they apply to website content?...

As a small business owner, what do you know about tip credit rates for your tipped employees? If you’re unsure about tip credits and how they function for your business, you may want to read on. And, even if you’re sure you know the rules about tip credits, maybe you should think again - the Department of Labor recently revamped them. Being informed on the rules may end up saving you money in the end....

You’re starting a business and you have a quirky name that you want to use in connection with the product. You wonder if you can use the name and if so, how you can protect the name so that nobody else uses it. Here are a few things to keep in mind regarding intellectual property law, when putting a new business name or product name into use. Checking availability. Make sure nobody else is using the name....

It’s been a boilerplate part of every employment application for decades: “Have you been convicted of a crime?” For employers, it may have been an easy way to cull the list of job applicants, or an attempt to weed out any unsavory characters. But there are movements afoot to remove the question from job applications, or, if not, to incentivize businesses to hire felons and ex-convicts. While small businesses may still be wary of hiring someone with a criminal record, there might be a few good reasons to do so....