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Despite the fact that the choice of gender on official or legal documents is almost always limited to two choices, male or female, many people feel they don’t fully belong on either end of the spectrum, but somewhere in the middle. One of those is Jaime Shupe, who was born with male genitalia but identifies as female, and feels more like “a third sex.” Fortunately for Jaime and others, courts and state and federal administrative offices are catching up with the evolving definitions of gender identity....

If your ex-spouse won’t pay child or spousal support, what can you do? There are many reasons people fall behind on support payments. It’s possible that the paying spouse is financially unable to make the payments because he or she lost a job or experienced a reduction in income due to illness or injury. It’s also possible the paying spouse simply doesn’t want to make the payments, perhaps out of spite....

Clearly you would not have lent your car out if you knew the person borrowing it was going to get into an accident. And, clearly, you weren’t the one behind the wheel. So other than making sure all the damage gets fixed, the wreck really isn’t your problem, right? Not so fast, my friend. There are some circumstances where you could be liable for another person’s accident in your car. Here’s what you need to know....

Fast food chain Subway is being sued by a California woman after an employee wrote “Big Mama” on one of her orders. Allison Brown, 45, of Murrieta, took the Subway employee’s message as an insult. It caused her to “[break] down crying” and to seriously question her appearance, according to Jezebel. So can businesses be sued for allegdly being rude to customers? In certain scenarios, business entites like Subway can potentially be responsible for the negligent or intentional acts of their employees if the employees are acting within the scope of employment....

New Jersey Judge David Rand has decided not to impose civil liability on Shannon Colonna, a woman who was sued for texting a driver who then caused an accident. David and Linda Kubert were left amputees after Colonna texted with Kyle Best, who happened to have been driving at the time. The couple claimed that Colonna knew or should have known Best was driving. This, they argued, made her liable for aiding and abetting Best’s negligence....

With only days until Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, retailers nationwide are preparing for what they’re hoping will be a throng of excitable, deal-hungry customers. And while the media has a cornucopia of Black Friday survival guides for consumers, there are several things business owners can do to prepare for this shopping holiday. To keep your business safe and prevent a customer melee, here are 10 tips for your business on Black Friday (and the rest of the holiday shopping season too):...

Construction contractor Vamco Sheet Metals Inc. has settled a sex discrimination case with the EEOC, and for some very good reasons. In a press release, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported that Vamco will pay out $215,000 to settle allegations of sexual harassment on a project at a Manhattan construction site. Accusations included pretextual firing, assigning women only menial tasks, and denying women a clean place to pump breast milk....

There’s one rule for daycare facilities: keep our children safe. And for the most part, they do. But every now and then, accidents happen. Many of the accidents that happen are preventable. Here are the three most common injuries children suffer at daycare, and how to prevent them: Playground Injuries: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that over 200,000 kids are injured on playgrounds every year, and almost half of those injuries are serious, including bone fractures, internal injuries, and concussions....

Of all the things parents worry about when their kids take out the family car, civil liability is pretty far down the list. We just want our kids to come home safe. But if your child gets into an accident with the family car, who’s responsible for the damage or injuries? And does it matter if they were out joyriding or driving with your permission? Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s an entire legal concept dedicated to just this scenario....

Their hiring is quick. Their training is quick. And their time with your company is quick. Whether he or she gets fired, quits or leaves at the natural end of their seasonal employment, many employees may think they are entitled to unemployment compensation. This thought is misplaced. Although the nature of the employment benefits may be unique, the rules regulating unemployment compensation remain unchanged. Generally speaking, a seasonal holiday employee is not entitled to unemployment compensation unless required by state law or company policy....

Consider the following quote from National Security Adviser and former United Nations ambassador John Bolton: Those are pretty strong words. But the United States has for a long time had a strained relationship with the International Criminal Court. It was one of seven nations to vote against the Rome Statute creating the court (along with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen), and while former President Bill Clinton later signed the statute, the treaty was never submitted to Congress....

Today is National Nut Day, a day dedicated to celebrating delicious, nutritious nuts. But for parents of children with severe nut allergies, nuts may not be something to celebrate so much as something to fear. Nut allergies have been on the rise. According to a study published last year in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, the percentage of children suffering from peanut allergies in the United States more than tripled from 1997 to 2010, reports CBS News....

Lawsuits against General Motors for alleged recall-related financial injuries have been consolidated and will be heard in a New York federal court. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York will hear more than 80 lawsuits filed by GM customers who claim their vehicles lost value as a result of the recent ignition switch recall, Reuters reports. What comes next for this GM recall case? Consolidation at GM’s Request The recent consolidation of these dozens of GM customer cases was actually at the request of GM....

More small business owners than ever are women. That means some of those businesses have to figure out how to deal with maternity leave for an owner. Executives and owners are entitled to a maternity leave just like any other employee but often it can be hard to let go and accept the time off. Companies don’t run themselves, after all. So any extended leave can lead to complications. New moms deserve some time off to enjoy their little ones....

If you lost a loved one due to the negligence or deliberate misconduct of another, you can sue for wrongful death. To succeed in such a claim you have to prove that the death was caused by another person’s action or inaction and that there was no unforeseeable intervening cause. Proving fault is not always straightforward, and of course there are defenses to claims of negligence. But there are certainly cases when a defendant is found guilty of wrongful death, despite being found not guilty in a criminal trial, as most famously illustrated by OJ Simpson....

As a small business owner, you probably just want to go about your day-to-day operations, running your company, and thinking about ways to expand or improve. The last thing you need is the headache and financial stress caused by some cybercriminal trying to hack into your system. And yes, small businesses are at risk even though large corporations are the ones who garner all the cyber-attack headlines. Luckily, according to Entrepreneur, there are a number of preventative measures you can take to reduce the risk of cybercrime affecting your business....

Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia are facing a potential $775 million lawsuit over overstated fuel-economy claims. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 23 plaintiffs who are currently seeking class-action status. The plaintiffs want compensation for the lost resale and trade-in values of their vehicles because of the cars’ lower-than-advertised fuel economy. This is in addition to the special debit cards that the automakers had previously planned to give to owners of the approximately 900,000 vehicles affected, reports the Los Angeles Times....

If you’re gearing up for the New Jersey ski season, be aware that the state’s new ski helmet law has gone into effect. New Jersey’s ski helmet law requires all minors to wear helmets while downhill skiing or snowboarding, and while on ski tows, lifts and tramways. Adults – parents, guardians and persons in a supervisory position – will face a $25 fine should a child under their care be caught without a helmet....

Looks like the party’s over before it even began. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has rescinded its label approvals for Palcohol, a powdered alcohol product. The TTB stated that the label approvals were somehow issued in error. Apparently, the labels were unclear as to how much powder was in a bag of Palcohol, according to The Associated Press. At this time, Palcohol has the option of revising and resubmitting its labels, but it should also consider potential legal issues....

On Wednesday, a Maryland jury awarded two women a combined $1.6 million in a negligence lawsuit in which they argued that Nordstrom failed to properly protect customers from a mentally ill woman armed with knives. While it seems that the verdict is a signal to businesses that they must protect customers from dangerous persons, this is in fact untrue. The duty that businesses owe their patrons is much more subtle....