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No one likes getting ripped off. Antonio Recinos, 35, called 911 to report that he had purchased about .4 grams of cocaine for $40 earlier that night and had been ripped off, the Hartford Courant reports. Antonio Recinos was arrested on a narcotics possession charge and later freed on $5000 bail. Unfortunately for Recinos, narcotics possession carries the stiffest possible drug possession penalties under Connecticut law. Possession of crack, cocaine or heroin carry maximum sentences of up to 7 years in jail and a $50,000 fine for a first offense....

With the newest nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals passing the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in early August, Patricia Millett is one Senate vote away from her confirmation as a D.C. Circuit judge. Many believe she will fundamentally change the court. Nominee Patricia Millett was confirmed by the Senate committee in a 10-8 vote, one that tracked closely with party lines. Republicans tried to deny her confirmation based on allegations that the Obama administration is “court-packing” an already underworked court, reports The Huffington Post....

Raise a glass to higher salaries and lower law school debt! Or if you’re a glass-half-full kinda person, you might want to just skip it – like skip law school altogether because maybe it’s not worth the investment. There’s good news and bad news for prospective law students who are worried about the cost of a legal education. Based on a new report by SoFi, the good news is that more law schools are proving their worth when it comes to debt-to-salary ratios....

In People v. Vang, No.D054343, the Fourth District faced a challenge to the conviction of defendants for assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily injury and a jury finding that the special allegation was true. In affirming the conviction, the court held that, although the trial court erred in admitting expert opinion on defendant’s knowledge and intent in response to two hypothetical questions, the error was harmless. The court also held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendants’ motion in limine to bifurcate the gang enhancement allegations from the trial of the underlying assault, and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding certain evidence at issue....

A dog on death row was given a last minute reprieve from a Tennessee judge. After being slated to be put down for more than a year, a 4-year-old pit bull mix named Prada will be headed to an animal rescue center. Prada was declared vicious after she escaped from her Nashville home and attacked several dogs. Now the dog will soon be living the good life at Villalobos Rescue Center in New Orleans....

It seems a certain undertaker plaintiff must have forgotten his “safe word.” He brought a lawsuit against his dominatrix for inflicting too much pain, keeping him confined, and robbing him. This is like a customer suing a car wash for making his car too clean. Even the German judge presiding over the case was stumped, so the court ordered the dominatrix to pay 200 Euros (about $260) to a local charity as penance, reports Reuters....

Nearly 2.5 years after the lawsuit was filed, Donald Sterling, the NBA, his wife, and several others that Sterling was suing, have settled the case over the controversial, record-setting sale of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. The $2 billion sale in 2014 came shortly after Sterling was banned from the NBA as a result of racist comments that he made that were captured on a recording. Sterling’s wife, Shelly, had Sterling declared as incapacitated, and was able to make the record-setting sale from the Sterling family trust to Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer....

Some would say the ex-judge lost his pants. Others would say he lost his mind. In any case, former administrative judge Roy Pearson, Jr. famously failed in his $67 million lawsuit against a dry cleaner who allegedly lost the jurist’s pants. Now an ethics board has suspended Pearson for 90 days from the practice of law because of his “manifestly absurd” claims. In a world where the law is sometimes turned upside down, it has to make you wonder: what kind of pants were they?...

In 2011, five separate claims against Naked Juice, a PepsiCo company, were consolidated into a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, reports the LA Weekly. The essence of the complaint centered around the use of the words “all natural,” “100% juice,” and “100% fruit” on the Naked Juice labels. Now, Naked Juice has agreed to pay $9 Million to settle the claims, even though it continues to deny “all of plaintiff’s claims....

The job of a jail guard shouldn’t be too complicated – make sure the inmates don’t escape and don’t hurt anyone. Oh and, if one inmate is testifying against another in a murder trial, maybe don’t put them both in the same jail cell. An Ohio guard didn’t get that second piece of advice, apparently, and it didn’t take long for the murder suspect and the witness against him to come to blows....

A Tennessee law school was negligent in allowing a student to enroll when she hadn’t yet completed her undergraduate degree, a lawsuit claims. Morgan Crutchfield, a part-time student at Lincoln Memorial University’s John J. Duncan Jr. School of Law, seeks as much as $750,000 in her suit against the school, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. Crutchfield was 12 credits shy of completing her undergraduate degree in 2009. The law school admitted Crutchfield, telling her she could finish her undergrad requirements during law school, her lawsuit claims....

Which student would have a learning advantage, a blind one or a deaf one? It’s not a trick question. A blind person might have an advantage over a deaf person learning music, and a deaf person might have an advantage over a blind person learning to paint, right? Sight, Sound, Touch Learning styles are based upon individual preferences. Some people learn better from visuals, like pictures and images. Others prefer sound and music, or verbal learning through words and writing....

“It looks like Lyft got off fairly lightly here,” according to a market analyst commenting on the recent settlement agreement between Lyft and its drivers. Under the terms of the settlement, the ride-sharing company will pay $12.5 million, give concessions, and give drivers notice if they are to be deactivated. It’s good news for Lyft, but not so great news for its bigger rival Uber, whose head is still inching toward the chopping block....

While the world is burning over deeply held religious beliefs, one woman in Massachusetts has succeeded in her quest for official respect for her farcical faith, Pastafarianism. Her driver’s license photo will reflect the religion’s creed by showing her with a spaghetti strainer, according to the Boston Globe. It sounds absurd, perhaps, but given the international uproar over religious headdress in official identifications in recent years, the spaghetti strainer was an important symbolic win for Lindsay Miller and Pastafarians....

Across the nation, from California to Texas to D.C., voters had complained that it was unfair to watch public employees “double dip” by collecting their pension in addition to a salary. But a change came, with many states and the District of Columbia passing laws to prevent “second career” retirees like former police officers from being rehired while still collecting pension money, reports Washington City Paper. The D.C. Circuit is now saying that these laws, which may reduce a rehired cop’s salary to zero to offset his pension payments, must allow public employees to receive a salary....

While marijuana is usually known for mellowing users out, a college student visiting Colorado for spring break jumped off a balcony after eating pot cookies and died, a coroner’s report states. Levy Thamba, 19, wanted to try out the “legal” pot in Colorado, investigators say. But what was slated to be a fun trip turned tragic when Thamba jumped off his hotel’s fourth-floor balcony after a bad reaction to pot cookies, The Denver Post reports....

We all knew the Saints bounty scandal would lead to a lawsuit or two, but few expected New Orleans linebacker Jonathan Vilma to sue NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for defamation. The suspended player filed suit in federal court on Thursday in what appears to be a last-ditch effort to protect his reputation. Goodell, the suit claims, made repeated and public accusations connecting Vilma to the bounty program. But Vilma says none of the allegations are true....

Just as the Ivy League only exists to churn out investment bank employees and yacht consumers, and the Southeastern Conference is really just a de facto minor league for the NFL, Washington D.C.’s budding marijuana industry is getting into the education business. Less than a year after legalizing recreational marijuana, the District’s first smoking school has opened its doors. The D.C. School of Mary Jane will guide greenhorns to the sticky green in the ways of legal weed, from the drug’s history to its health benefits....

Just because you trained to be a lawyer, it doesn’t mean you actually have to practice law, or even work a job that requires you be a lawyer. After all, you didn’t spend all those years in school to work more than 40 hours a week like a chump. Though, to be fair, lawyers are not the only people who work crazy hours, and even non-law jobs can lead to the same level of pressure and stress....

If thieves were smart, they wouldn’t have needed to be thieves in the first place. Some try to steal honey from a hive of angry bees. Other grown men steal from innocent, defenseless little Girl Scouts. This story is just one more piece of evidence that proves that some criminals are idiots. Three hungry burglars were arrested recently after police followed a trail of macaroni salad leading from the scene of the crime to the mens’ hiding place....