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The National Labor and Relations Board has no unilateral power to order the reimbursement of attorneys and litigation expenses incurred during an NLRB meeting, according to the DC Circuit. Although the power of the board is wide and expansive, the power to issue a “pay up, or else” order does not exist – even in the face of repeated bad faith instances of NLRB violations. It was in 2014 when the NLRB found that the owner company of Pacific Beach Hotel, HTH Corp....

If you’ve ever wanted to confront a thief for something that’s been stolen, say a bicycle, this one’s for you. Jake Gillum’s bike was stolen from him at the beginning of August. But a few days after it happened, he found his bike listed on Craigslist in Seattle. He lives in Portland. So Gillum and some friends contacted the seller and ambushed him at a shopping mall in Seattle. He got back his bike, the alleged thief was arrested, and he caught it all on camera....

Kansas may be without a state court system soon, if the governor and legislature get their way. The courts face a total loss of funding after a judge struck down a change to the way chief judges were selected. In an attempt to prevent that ruling, the state legislature passed budget legislation in June that would make the court’s budget “null and void” should the law be invalidated. Besides just selecting new chief judges, Kansas court’s system is also responsible for simple things like conducting criminal trials, granting divorces, and probating wills – services that might be harder to provide should all funding disappear....

The Canadian government says it’s protecting foreign workers from sexual exploitation. Strip bars and their patrons say the government is just being prudish. Our neighbors to the north announced that they will be cutting off the Canadian stripper visa. With a shortage of homegrown strippers, Canadian bar owners say their entire industry is threatened. The bars will now either have to pay more to attract Canuck strippers or seek out strippers from a different source – foreign students....

A 14-year-old student in Waterbury, Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit against her teacher and the school board for the teacher’s mocking behavior, which started after she chose to sit for the Pledge of Allegiance to protest racial discrimination. The plaintiff is seeking not only an injunction to allow her to sit for the pledge, but also damages. According to the lawsuit, the student, along with others, chose to sit for the Pledge in her Italian language class at the Waterbury Arts Magnet School as part of a “peaceful and nondisruptive” protest....

Cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden by the Eight Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Is the following story cruel and unusual, or creative and justified? You be the judge. Daniel Mireles and his wife Eloise were convicted of stealing from the Harris County Texas crime victims fund. Eloise Mireles was a public employee and the brains behind the scheme, reports TalkLeft.com. The judge in their case must have spent some real time thinking about how best to punish the Mireleses, because the terms of probation sound like something right out of the Scarlet Letter....

In a ruling that has critics prophesying doom for American industries, a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals held that the government cannot impose countervailing duties against China’s subsidized tires. Because China is a non-market economy, the Federal Circuit upheld the U.S. Court of International Trade’s order that U.S. countervailing duty law does not apply to Chinese imports. However, the federal court of appeal unanimously affirmed the Trade Court’s ruling on a different ground....

For all but a handful of recent grads, finding a ‘partnership track’ associate position may seem like a pipe dream. However, with the increased prevalence of two-tiered partnership structures at many law firms, some job seekers may want to focus on firms with a two-tier partnership structure to increase their chances of ever even making it to partnership. In short, a two-tiered partnership splits the law firm’s partners into two groups: equity and non-equity partners....

This morning, President Trump signed an executive order designed to radically slash federal regulations: for each new regulation put forward, the EO demands, federal agencies must propose two for elimination. Even more, the EO sets a yearly budget for regulatory costs. In 2017, the amount allowed for new regulations is zero dollars and zero cents. The coming year, it seems, could see a major regulatory shift. Trump’s EO is just the start of what is likely to be a sustained attempt to defang the regulatory state....

Did you know that putting on makeup while driving is more likely to cause a car accident than talking on the phone? And, it’s illegal. One Nevada driver learned this the hard way. On April 1st, Nevada Highway Patrol pulled a woman over because she was putting on makeup while stopped at a red light. She thought it was an April Fool’s Day prank. Alas, the law against distracted driving is real and so was her $200 ticket....

In an action for unfair competition and false advertising involving a group health care plan, trial court’s grant of summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) defendant complied with the duty to offer coverage for treatment of infertility in its group health plan under Health and Safety Code sec. 1374.55, as it offered such coverage and it was the employer that declined to buy; and 2) plaintiff’s argument that defendant must cover the entire cost of her infertility treatment to comply with the statute has no support in the statute’s language....

When it comes to making it in the world of in-house lawyering, there’s often more to it than just competent work and logging enough hours. After all, the steps up at the top for an in-house attorney are often pretty far up. How you structure your work-life balance, how you socialize at work, and even how you present yourself in the office, all makes a difference in whether you will be successful at getting to the top....

In honor of Constitution Day, which is – in my opinion – the real birthday of the United States, we’ll help all you 1Ls in your Constitutional Law studies by discussing five classic Con Law cases. Here we go: 1. Marbury v. Madison (1803). Marbury started it all; and by “it,” I mean “judicial review,” which is nowhere to be found in the Constitution and otherwise appears only in The Federalist 78....

You’ve heard of the sex trade, but probably not like this: You may be surprised by the variety of strange things people have tried to trade for sex. We’re not just talking about prostitutes, either. Indecent proposals by some everyday folks – even a judge and a former “Sheriff of the Year” – made our Top 5 list of strange things traded for sex. Here’s our Top 5, in no particular order:...

Scrooge was “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” but to date, I never could figure what laws he might have broken on his journey through Christmas past, present, and future to become less of a pain in Victorian London’s collective bum. Maybe I just wasn’t trying hard enough. Maybe it was a lack of knowledge of English commercial law. Then, I had an idea … an awful, wonderful idea....

Rodney King, that unexpected voice of reason in a wilderness of social chaos, put it this way: “Can’t we all just get along?” It’s a catchphrase that can serve in the most complex situations, including discovery disputes. A judge may not quote Rodney, but the admonition still rings true and lawyers should take note. When the federal discovery rules changed in 2015 to deal with the potential for massive eDiscovery disputes – from the “reasonably calculated” standard to a “relevance and proportionality” standard – one thing did not change: judges want lawyers to sort out their own discovery disputes....

Things aren’t looking up for fans of University of Arkansas football. Burglary charges have been filed against wide receivers Marquel Wade and Maudrecus Humphrey, as well as tight end Andrew Peterson. They three are accused of stealing items from on-campus dorms. Sadly, the trio’s arrests bring the team’s off-season arrest count up to six. Offensive tackle Jason Peacock, wide receiver Kane Whitehurst and linebacker Tyler Gilbert have all three been arrested in since mid-March....

Parolees in California can be required to enroll in drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs as part of their parole or probation. But it’s potentially crossing a line to ask an atheist parolee to surrender to a higher deity that he doesn’t believe in. That’s what happened to Barry Hazle of Shasta County, who was paroled after a prison term for meth possession and then ordered to enroll in a drug treatment program....

Neomi Rao, a nominee for the DC Court of Appeals, should have seen it coming. During her college days, she wrote articles about date rape and feminism that have come back to haunt her. They escaped scrutiny when she was appointed to her current government job. But as fate would have it, now she is looking at the same job vacated by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. After all, who can forget what “boofing” and the “devil’s triangle” mean in confirmation-speak?...

The California Supreme Court this week denied two petitions for writs of mandate challenging the validity of redistricting maps that have been certified by the Citizens Redistricting Commission. The court also denied a request for an emergency stay of the certified maps. California Republicans contested the congressional and State Senate maps in a closed session of the State Supreme Court, alleging that some of the boundaries violated state constitutional requirements for compact, contiguous districts....