When you take your infant to the hospital, the goal is to make her healthy, not to walk out with a new injury. Lylah Rose got the flu when she was 2 months old, so her parents took her to the local hospital in Merced, Calif., to check it out. As part of her treatment, a nurse tried to give the baby an IV so she could start getting more fluids....
Good news for Rod Blagojevich’s brother, Robert – federal prosecutors recently announced that they are dropping charges stemming from his brother’s corruption trial. The 55 year-old businessman headed Rod Blagojevich’s fundraising, a program that was found to be soliciting some questionable contributions. More specifically, Rod Blagojevich (who was already convicted on one count in his 24 count trial) attempted to get campaign financing from Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. in exchange for placement in President Obama’s vacated senate seat....
Here’s some food for thought: A multi-millionaire who dies today in the US might not have to pay any estate tax. There may have been a silent and temporary estate tax repeal this year. Now, if you’re thinking about drafting some estate planning documents, you might be left scratching your head. Don’t worry. Your estate planning attorney is also probably scratching their head, too. Up until last year, anything over the $3....
You bought a product and got hurt due to a defect. What should you do now? Look to product liability law for relief. This is the area of the law that holds companies accountable for damages due to product defects. No one can say what your case is worth without serious examination, but here are some basics to consider. Product Liability Primer The principle behind product liability is that consumers’ ordinary expectations should be met when buying things....
E-commerce businesses might have concerns about their ordinary online sales transactions, in light of a new court ruling limiting the effect of email receipts. In Simonoff v. Expedia, Inc., the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that, where a federal law requires that merchants limit the disclosure of credit card information on printed receipts, an email receipt is not a “printed receipt.” But the court’s ruling pertains only to cases brought under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA)....
Violent crimes in the U.S. dropped last year and property crimes declined as well, according to the latest crime statistics and data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI reports that the decrease in violent crimes last year extends a downward trend for the third straight annual decline and a seventh straight annual decline for property crimes, Reuters reports. The reduction in crime occurred despite a weak economy, which is often linked to spikes in criminal activity....
Basketball player Kye Allums has a lot to celebrate these days. The transgender George Washington University junior will be the first transgender man to play on a women’s Division I basketball team. The 20-year-old interior design major said the hardest part of the whole process was telling his basketball coach. “I used to feel like trans anything was really weird and those people were crazy and I wondered, ‘How can you feel like that?...
A Florida woman was awarded $100,000 by a jury in her case against Starbucks stemming from a 2014 hot coffee spill injury. Joanne Mogavero, a 43-year-old mother of three, filed suit after the lid to her coffee popped off while it was being handed to her from the Starbucks drive-thru window. The 20-oz.190 degree coffee spilled in her lap, resulting in first and second degree burns. Of the $100,000 jury verdict, a little over $15,000 was awarded for the actual medical expenses, while the remainder was awarded for pain and suffering....
Some parents will never fear having their rights terminated. Others will voluntarily make the choice. And still others will be forced. For this last group – those facing a court order stripping them of their parental rights – information is the first step to maintaining the parent-child link. Courts involuntarily terminate parental rights only when a parent is unfit and doing so is in the best interest of the child....
Acts of domestic violence can leave a lasting impact on children in a number of devastating ways, either as victims or witnesses of abuse. A growing body of literature suggests children exposed to domestic violence are more likely than their peers to grapple with a host of long-term difficulties, ranging from behavioral and social issues to emotional and cognitive problems, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services....
Many landlords wish to go into their tenants’ units unannounced, but entering without notice can have real legal consequences. While entering a tenant’s unit without notice may be permissible in cases of emergency or abandonment, it’s still a good idea to provide some form of notice. So listen up landlords. Here’s what you need to know about giving notice, and what can happen if you don’t give proper notice before entering a tenant’s unit:...
Sallie Mae, a company that has faced numerous lawsuits for predatory and discriminatory lending practices to students, has found a new target for school loan debt: students’ parents. It’s a smart ploy from the lender/debt-collector – why saddle young, unproven, and possibly unemployed kids with debt when you can put it on older and employed versions that are more likely to pay it back? So if you just got done paying off your student loans, and are feeling that empty nest melancholy double whammy of no kids in the house and no loans on the books, fear not....
New York lawmakers have proposed an expansion of the state’s DNA law requiring police to take samples from those charged with serious felonies. The proposed bill would help to expand the state’s DNA database, ultimately aiming to close thousands of unsolved cases, give justice to grieving families and put felons behind bars, the Albany Times Union reports. In addition, anyone who had their DNA samples collected but is not convicted of a crime, can request the removal of their sample from the state database....
President Obama has signed an executive order barring the federal government and its contractors from discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees. Private employers in many states can still fire employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, so this executive order gives a new layer of employment protection for some LGBT workers. The Huffington Post reports that this order does not include an exemption for religious employers....
So, your business is tightening its belt. Hiring has slowed down, yet, you still need the extra hands on board. You’ve heard about working with unpaid interns. Could that be the solution for you? Many colleges have programs which allow their students to work in business settings and get course credit at the same time. But an unpaid internship has its own host of legal issues. It’s just not as easy as hiring an eager student and promising them a good referral or a chance to work with the big-boys....
The Zika virus has been causing quite a stir over the past year, despite having been around since 1947. A scholarly article published last week in The Lancet estimates that there are 2.6 billion people living within the danger zone of the Zika virus. Until recently, the primary concern with the Zika virus came from pregnant women, as the virus is known to cause microcephaly, severe brain malformations, and other birth defects....
You have been working for a while and you’re ready to have a child, so when you find out you’re pregnant, you’re thrilled. And you think your boss and colleagues will be too – after all, they know you and how capable you are, so they know you’ll manage with aplomb. But it turns out that after the initial exclamations of congratulations, people in your office start changing their behavior. It feels weird....
Prenuptial agreements can specify who gets what in a wide variety of splitsville scenarios. However, as some couples divorcing in the downturn have found, numbers that didn’t sound so big a few years back can now seem much bigger. One way to avoid having a prenup that quickly goes out of date is to make it flexible and use formulas for calculating payments, rather than set dollar amounts. Changed circunstances can affect a prenuptial agreement in a variety of ways....
There’s a new trend that’s sweeping the nation. It’s called the reverse apology. It works like this, beat someone up, steal from them, or find some other way to hurt them. Then, after you are caught red handed, admit to doing it and say that an apology is in order. From them! The editor of Cook’s Source magazine, Judith Griggs, recently tried out the move. (Perhaps inspired by the Rand Paul supporter who kicked a woman in the head and then demanded an apology from the women he kicked?...
After a trial in Texas this year, Johnson and Johnson was ordered to pay $502 million to five plaintiffs injured by the company’s flawed artificial hips. The hips, sold under the name Pinnacle, leached metals into patients’ bodies and failed prematurely, forcing the plaintiffs to undergo additional surgeries and endure more pain. A federal jury was definitely feeling the plaintiffs’ pain, considering that it awarded them $360 million in punitive damages based on Johnson and Johnson hiding flaws in the product and marketing the hips aggressively anyway....
