Posts

A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court this week may be of particular interest to homeowners hoping to rescind a mortgage loan. The court ruled unanimously in favor of Minnesota couple Larry and Cheryle Jesinoski, Reuters reports. The Jesinoskis sued their mortgage lender, Countrywide (now owned by Bank of America), after the company refused to rescind the couple’s $611,000 loan. The company claimed that the federal law allowing for mortgages to be rescinded required the couple to file a lawsuit within three years, which they did not do (they merely sent a letter)....

As we all know, the workplace is rife with safety hazards. In fact, one in five American adults say that they have suffered an injury while on the job, according to a new FindLaw.com survey. What’s more, the survey found that certain work-related injuries occur much more frequently than others. Here are the five most common on-the-job injuries, according to the survey: For more information on employers’ obligations when it comes to on-the-job injuries, you may want to consult an experienced employment lawyer near you....

Is a small business owner better off renting or buying space to set up shop? It’s an age-old question, but answers are changing a bit thanks to the evolving habits of modern American workers. Shared office space and telecommuting are just two types of alternative work arrangements that are turning old arguments upside-down in the buy-or-rent debate. Still, traditional concerns about cost control are on the tops of business owners’ minds, as a New York Times blogger recently pointed out....

Traffic tickets are the bane of every driver’s existence, adding potentially hundreds of dollars to already expensive gas prices and maintenance. Which is why, if you’ve decided to fight a traffic ticket, you need to go into court prepared with arguments and evidence at the ready. To help you make the most of that traffic ticket court date, here are the top three things you should focus on prior to and during your fight....

An all too familiar event was reported this morning. The University of Texas at Austin was the scene of a campus shooting this morning, September 28. The UT shooting occurred at the Perry-Castaneda Library at about 8:48 local time, when a gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon before apparently killing himself. The gunman is confirmed dead at this time. University spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon confirmed for MSNBC that no one else besides the gunman had been hurt in the UT shooting....

News of children, teens, and even adults being sexually assaulted or even raped, by religious leaders is unfortunately something that appears in the news too often. Just last week, a lawsuit was filed in North Carolina alleging that a youth counselor who was attending seminary training abused his authority and attempted to groom a teenage girl for sexual assault. The lawsuit alleges that the counselor urged the teenager to confide in him, especially when it came to sexual urges, so that they could talk about those urges to supposedly resist them....

Drivers may worry that if they failed to brake before colliding with another car, they will be responsible for the damages. But sometimes a vehicle can fail to break for reasons other than driver error – perhaps it was the result of poor maintenance or even a manufacturing defect. These factors must be considered when determining liability for a crash. So who is liable in a crash in which one or more vehicles failed to brake?...

You may not know it, but employment laws play a big role in the job hiring process long before you even become an employee. Some laws affect what kind of advertisements the employer can place in looking for a qualified candidate. Other laws affect the legal rights a candidate has as soon as an interview begins. And even if you’re never hired, this may have no effect on your legal remedies....

With the domestic economy still a bit sluggish, you may be wondering whether it may be time to take your small business global. After all, going global may seem like a good idea as you have the chance to reach a whole new customer base and can tell people that you are the owner of a global company. Still, going global may not be for everyone. A panel of entrepreneurs recently addressed this issue for The Washington Post....

Making a few mistakes can be a great way to learn tough lessons about running a business. But some mistakes can cost you more than just your confidence; they can lead to your business being shut down – maybe for good. What are some of the worst mistakes you can make? Here are five big ones that can put your business out of commission: Of course these are just five examples of big mistakes that can shut down your business....

While we all want to find the best talent to work in our businesses, we also want to keep our interviews legal. And walking the fine line between effective and legal interview can be tough. Now that you’ve been warned the illegal questions to avoid in a job interview, including the questions you can’t ask female applicants, what about the questions you can and need to ask? Here are five questions that are essential for any effective and legal interview:...

It may be tempting to ride the wave of a commercial craze by offering your business’ own imitator, but you may run afoul of trademark law. That’s exactly what happened to a bakery in Maine that decided to sell its own version of the popular “Cronut” (a croissant-donut hybrid) and got slapped with a cease-and-desist order. How can your business avoid selling trademarked goods? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – unless you’re imitating a trademarked good....

Drafting a business’s handbook is an arduous process, but it’s an accomplishment that is often a relief to complete. Right now, it may be time to go back and review your company’s dress code section. When drafting a dress code, less is more. No, not less clothes. Less rules. And Not Just the Clothes In keeping the code neutral, steer clear of grooming pitfalls. A company may require employees to come to work professionally groomed, so long as it doesn’t place an undue burden on one gender....

Although a police search of a Chicago home didn’t turn up any laptops from the offices of lawyers representing former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, police made one arrest on a weapons charge. Calvin Ware, 41, was charged with a weapons violation but it wasn’t related to the burglaries. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, police believed Ware was a suspect who broke into the offices of Blagojevich attorney Sam Adam and his son, Samuel E....

Commercial surrogacy sounds like a simple plan on the surface: a person or couple who can’t otherwise have a child agrees to pay a surrogate mother to carry a baby through pregnancy. The person or couple now has the child they always wanted and the surrogate mother has been compensated. But it’s not always that easy, as recent cases in California have shown. There, two women carrying triplets were asked to abort one of the fetuses....

We’ve all come to learn (I hope) that nothing we post on the Internet is private. But it’s a far cry from “not private” to “available for an artist to enlarge, display, and sell for $90k.” That’s what artist Richard Prince for a collection he calls “New Portraits,” which consist of blown up photos from other people’s Instagram accounts, reports StyleCaster. Prince made small alterations, displayed them at the Frieze Art Fair in New York, and sold them for $90,000 each....

Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young stormed out of the stadium after was called a “heated exchange” with coach Jeff Fisher following the team’s overtime loss. The Vince Young meltdown began when he left the field while the game was still going on after facing what turned out to be a season-ending injury to his throwing hand. On his way off the field, Young threw his shoulder pads and uniform into the stands....

Americans love the gym. Whether we miss the activity and exercise from recess and gym class in school or we’re wistful for the waistline from our younger days, millions of us are spending millions of hours in the gym and millions of dollars on gym memberships. And we expect that gyms will show the same dedication to their equipment – buying the best and maintaining equipment in the best condition....

When a delivery truck slams into you, you may be wondering how you can legally recover. You might be thinking, “The driver doesn’t have the money to pay for my injuries or damage to my car, so how can I possibly sue?” And since delivery drivers may be skittish about revealing their employer’s identity, how can you go after the party with bigger pockets? Take heart, here are some potential ways you can sue if you’re hit by a delivery truck:...

Dusten Brown, the biological father in the protracted “Baby Veronica” Cherokee adoption case, has surrendered to Oklahoma authorities for possibly interfering with the visitation rights of Veronica’s adoptive parents, Matt and Melanie Capobianco. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Indian Child Welfare Act did not entitle Brown to custody of Veronica. But that wasn’t the end of the legal battle over her adoption. Last week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court granted Brown an emergency stay to keep Veronica with him pending further litigation over Veronica’s custody, reports South Carolina’s WCSC-TV....