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Island Records executive James A. Roppo is being charged with felony assault charges in district court in Hempstead over Twitter. The record executive failed to tweet a message to disperse a throng of tweenage girls who were trying to see pop star Justin Bieber at Long Island’s Roosevelt Field Mall this past Friday. That’s right. He’s being charged over a failure to tweet. According to New York Newsday, he is also being charged with endangering the welfare of a child, obstruction of governmental administration, reckless endangerment and criminal nuisance....

In a suit brought before the DC Circuit, plaintiffs claimed that federal agencies acted unlawfully by neglecting to manage various stocks of ocean fish in the Atlantic. The circuit decided to affirm the decision of a lower district court, finding, essentially, that the plaintiffs were blaming the wrong people for their woes. But even if the plaintiffs had chosen the proper target for their suit, the plaintiffs would still be out of luck, because the law essentially stipulates that a “final agency action” has very particular requirements....

Former Oakland Raider player Jeremy Brigham is under investigation by police over a pee-wee football fight that left Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty wearing a neck brace. The San Francisco Chronicle reports, the scuffle erupted when accusations that Haggerty - whom ex-NFL tight end had just fired as the assistant coach of his Pleasanton squad of 10- and 11-year-old boys - had leaked plays to an opposing team. Supervisor Scott Haggerty accused former Raiders tight end Jeremy Brigham of hitting him on the back of the head and trying to drag him over a 4-foot-high fence....

A New Jersey honors student is suing her parents for financial support and access to her college fund after they allegedly cut her off when she turned 18. Rachel Canning, a Morris Catholic High School cheerleader and lacrosse player, left her parents’ home (voluntarily, according to her parents, though she says it was by force) after refusing to follow house rules, the Daily Record reports. The teenager then filed a lawsuit against her parents to cover her private school and future college costs....

You get paid a lot of money to work at BigLaw. But what if you wanted to get paid a lot of money to not work at BigLaw? If you’re going to fake a sick day, pick a day in the middle of the week. Friday or Monday sick days are far more suspicious. Instead of calling in sick, you can leave early. Just after lunch is a good time. Walk around for a little bit, then just go home....

Court of appeals’ orders terminating a father’s parental rights to his children and summarily denying his petition for modification under Welfare and Inst. Code section 388 is affirmed where: 1) the court did not abuse its discretion when it denied his request for an evidentiary hearing on his section 388 petition for modification as he did not state he was currently unable to provide the children a stable, safe, permanent placement; 2) it did not violate the father’s due process rights when it terminated his parental rights without making an initial finding that his acts or omissions brought his children within any of the descriptions set forth in section 300; 3) a biological father has no right to an express finding of unfitness or detriment before the court may terminate his parental rights; and 4) as required under section 366....

Every year, millions of Americans draft fantasy football teams. Many players raise the stakes by adding cash prizes and bets to the mix. But is playing fantasy football for money illegal? That answer may surprise you. Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 When it comes to fantasy football, federal law is on your team. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 regulates online gambling. But the law specifically makes an exception for fantasy sports that meet the following requirements:...

A disciplinary hearing into whether Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston violated the school’s student conduct code by allegedly sexually assaulting a former FSU student continued today. Winston was accused of raping the student in 2012, reports USA Today. Following an investigation into the allegations, the Florida State Attorney’s office declined to file charges against Winston, citing “memory lapse” issues and other potential holes in the case that would have prevented prosecutors from convicting Winston of any criminal charges....

Kodak has been fighting against Apple in and out of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals this past week. On Monday, the Federal Circuit issued a two-page opinion that upheld the International Trade Commission’s ruling that Kodak was not infringing on Apple’s patents for making digital cameras and related software, reports Reuters. In a related but separate ruling, however, the International Trade Commission ruled against Kodak last week on the validity of a patent to preview digital images on cellphone cameras, reports Courthouse News Service....

Lawyers and law students, you can all take a collective sigh of relief now: Mercifully, despite what she tweeted out on April 1, Lindsay Lohan will not be speaking at the Harvard Law School commencement. Nor will she be speaking at Cambridge, nor Oxford. Thank Loki! Whether Lohan was in on the elaborate spring time ruse, or was the target of some jovial jester, may never truly be known. Though, to her credit, she did use a very flowery, spring-timey, Snapchat filter, which arguably suggests she was in on the April Fools Day prank all along....

More colleges are tackling student athletes’ tweets through the use of social media policies. Most college athletes are between the ages of 18 and 22. If you remember the things you probably said when you were that age, you probably wish that you could take a lot of it back. Unfortunately for college athletes on Twitter, they often post, shall we say, poorly thought-out statements to thousands of their followers. And because of the nature of the Internet, what they say can stick around forever, get retweeted, and then get picked up by mainstream sports media....

Seven members of New Jersey’s Sayreville War Memorial High School football team are facing criminal charges after allegations of locker room hazing surfaced in recent weeks. The players, all juveniles, may be tried as adults on the charges, reports The New York Times. In addition, school district Superintendent Dr. Richard Labbe has cancelled the remainder of this year’s schedule for the perennial powerhouse team. What are the details behind the hazing allegations, and what are the rules for juveniles accused of crimes being tried as adults?...

Say you’re in the business of stripping and giving lap dances. Tax deductible? Nice try, but no. At least, so says a New York Court. Nite Moves, a New York strip club trying to appeal a $125,000 tax on its lap dances from a 2005 audit, argued that the lap dances were “dramatic or musical art performances” and therefore tax exempt, reports Reuters. The court was not convinced, ruling instead that the lap dances were in fact rightfully taxable, according to Reuters....

Getting over a bad haircut is never easy but it can be all the more difficult when it happens unknowingly. Prosecutors accused Jared Weston Walter of giving bus passengers haircuts without their knowledge. Walter is accused of sneakily cutting another bus passenger’s hair with scissors. In Oregon, interfering with public transit involves several elements including: while in or on a public transit vehicle or public transit station, a person engages in disorderly conduct in the second degree as defined [by relevant Oregon law]....

It’s kinda like the movie “The Hangover” – but with a penguin, and without the bachelor party. Three UK men are facing criminal charges after they allegedly stole a penguin from Australia’s Sea World while drunk, and then boasted about their bird-brained exploits on Facebook. The men, from Wales, told Australia’s 7News they groggily woke up after a night of drinking, and were shocked by the sight of a small penguin waddling around the apartment they were staying at in Queensland....

If there’s any house the police want to be careful about busting into, it’s the house of a power couple pair of attorneys. The town of Westfield, New Jersey has just agreed to settle federal civil rights claims brought by Lawrence Rolnik and Kimberly Sorrentino – both lawyers. The case was sparked when police arrived at their home in response to an alleged ‘drunken brawl’ in front of their home. Only $1....

Those who have been following recent concussion-related lawsuits against the NFL and Pop Warner will be familiar with CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurological disease discovered in 99 percent of NFL players’ brains donated to an MIT study. The frustrating thing – for players, their families, and scientists alike – has been the fact that CTE could only be diagnosed posthumously, after a patient had passed away or, as in many cases, committed suicide....

In plaintiff’s action seeking rescission of a commercial real estate transaction and tort damages, the portion of the trial court’s judgment awarding damages to the original property owners is reversed as the trial court’s award goes well beyond the types of damages permitted. Read Sharabianlou v. Karp, No. A120940 [HTML] Read Sharabianlou v. Karp, No. A120940 [PDF] Appellate Information Filed February 5, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Needham CounselFor Appellant: Law Offices Mallette & Libonati and Linda L....

For many law students, and lawyers, their bedroom might be the only place in their homes where they can find the peace and quiet needed to study or work from home. Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever tried to study in bed can attest to, studying in bed is a great way to start an unplanned, and incredibly disruptive (though usually amazing) nap. Additionally, by regularly using your bed, or even your bedroom, as your studying or working location, you might be impacting your normal sleep....

Less than a month ago the Supreme Court granted cert in Teva v. Sandoz, a case where the Court must determine the proper standard of review when reviewing a patent inventor’s claim. While most other federal appeals courts review a trial court’s conclusions to see if they are “clearly erroneous,” the Federal Circuit has had a practice of reviewing an inventor’s claims using de novo review, reports SCOTUSblog. The Court is no longer accepting cases for this term, so Teva is on the October 2014 docket....