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The California Supreme Court ruled last week that a Long Beach ordinance couldn’t save the seaside city from a tax refund lawsuit. Long Beach resident John McWilliams sued the city on behalf of himself and similarly-situated individuals, challenging the city’s telephone users tax (TUT) and seeking refund of taxes paid. He claimed that Long Beach Municipal Code Section 3.68.50(d) exempted from the TUT all amounts that “are exempt or not subject to” the federal excise tax on telephone service and that the city has been mischaracterizing the charges subject to the federal excise tax for some time....

What’s the worst possible decision you can make after paying six figures for a law degree that isn’t paying off? If “take on more non-dischargable student loan debt” was your answer, the William Howard Taft University MBA in Professional Practice Management is probably not for you. But, if you don’t mind a little extra debt, a degree that teaches you what you should’ve learned in law school, and a diploma from a place nobody has ever heard of, maybe the WHTU MBA-PPM is for you!...

Today, the Federal Circuit decided two intellectual property matters involving trademark related to toys and games and Verizon’s patent infringement suit, and an anti-dumping matter involving importation of warm-water shrimp. Crash Dummy Movie, LLC v. Mattel, Inc., No. 09-1239, concerned an appeal of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s decision sustaining Mattel Inc’s challenge to the Crash Dummy Movie, LLC’s (CDM) application to register the CRASH DUMMIES mark for a line of games and playthings....

A lawyer in West Virginia has been suspended after reacting badly to some fake plastic spider Halloween decorations. How badly? He pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot them. Assistant Prosecutor Chris White was suspended after he pulled out a gun in an office setting October 5th and threatened to shoot fake plastic spiders used as Halloween decorations. White, who suffers from arachnophobia, told the other office employees that spiders were “everyplace” and that he did not find the decorations funny....

It’s been a few months since our last installment of resume humor as collected, compiled, and commented on by Resumania.com. In that time the economy has slowly begun to show hints of recovery and recoil and job seekers are still keeping steady with applying, networking, and hoping as they contemplate their next cubicle or corner office. And with no shortage of job applicants, there is also plenty of ripe job application humor....

Today is D-Day for the Congressional Super Committee tasked with resolving all of the country’s financial woes, and there is no deal in sight. This week, the Super Committee members admitted that they had failed to agree on a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction package, and would not attempt to extend the deadline to create a plan. Commentators have been debating whether this news will be good for President Obama in 2012, bad for Bush-era tax cuts, or a factor for the voting public beyond the initial doomsday announcement....

Talk about fast times in higher education. Joseph Weiler, editor-in-chief of the European Journal of International Law, has been sued in a French court for libel, over a bad book review. Professor Weiler published what must have been a fairly sharp opinion regarding the merits, or lack thereof, on the book because the reaction of the author is a bit out of proportion. Unfortunately, this review lead Weigend’s editor to become uncomfortably familiar with aspects of French criminal law when Calvo-Goller sued for libel....

Officials have released a task force report on November’s UC Davis pepper spray incident, and it looks like bad news for the capsaicin cop. The task force determined that police should not have pepper-sprayed students participating in the Occupy Davis protest, reports KABC. It’s up to the courts, however, to determine if they used excessive force. In case you missed the viral videos, memes, and general hullabaloo in November, a group of Davis students appeared to be peacefully protesting while seated on the campus when Lt....

If the legal profession ever becomes more representative of America’s demographics, it might be because of in-house lawyers like you. More and more, major corporate legal departments are requiring that their outside counsel invest in diversity. The most recent corporate client to flex some pro-diversity muscle is Facebook. This weekend, the company institute a new diversity mandate for its outside counsel, the New York Times reports. Under the new policy, teams handling legal matters for Facebook must be at least one-third minority or female....

It’s not that we’re judging Gerard P. Streator for being attracted to the couch on the sidewalk but his decision to have sex with the sofa in public was not a good one. He also had bad timing. An off-duty police officer was jogging around 11 pm when he allegedly saw Streator humping the couch. When the officer called out to him, Streator attempted to flee. So the officer chased the Wisconsin man back to his apartment and contacted the police department....

A program for the state appellate court in Indiana, called Appeals on Wheels, might not be the courthouse inside a food-truck that your modern mind envisions, but it’s still awesome! The focus of the program is to help educate the public about how the justice system works by holding real oral arguments, in real cases, off-site. Unfortunately, unlike The People’s Court, or Judge Judy, the public likely feels a bit let down when they learn a decision won’t be forthcoming at the end of the episode....

Perhaps Cincinnati Bengals running back Cedric Benson was playing a little too rough as he arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault. According to police arrest affidavit Cedric Benson got into an altercation and then spit blood from his lip onto an employee after being asked to leave a bar, ESPN reports. In general, assault is an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact....

Washington Redskins safety Brandon Meriweather was arrested for drunk driving in Virginia on Thursday. Arlington County police pulled Meriweather over for speeding around 3 a.m. Officers clocked the two-time Pro Bowler going 73 mph in a 55 mph zone. Meriweather allegedly smelled like alcohol, The Washington Post reports. The NFL player refused a breathalyzer test and was given a field sobriety test instead. He failed the exam. So where was Meriweather in such a hurry from?...

In plaintiff’s suit challenging defendant’s decision to reduce plaintiff-county’s Medi-Cal reimbursements, arising from a contract dispute involving a contract for hospital inpatient services, ruling denying plaintiff’s petition for writ of mandate and upholding the decision by defendant-agency is affirmed where: 1) defendant properly interpreted the Medi-Cal contract; and 2) defendant properly calculated the nurse to patient staffing ratios by using plaintiff’s assignment sheets. Read County of Kern v. California Dep’t of Health Serv....

For 35 years, retired couple George and Sharlee McNamee have lived on their beachfront property enjoying the amenities of a picnic table, a built-in grill and a thatched palapa. But recently, a court of appeal has ordered the couple to remove their backyard picnic spot set on a private portion of beach at the base of a cliff above Corona del Mar State Beach. The Fourth District Court of Appeal sided with the California Coastal Commission and ordered the couple to remove picnic table and other amenities from the beachfront property....

March has slipped away, but our madness for court websites remains. It’s time for another round of FindLaw’s head-to-head tournament. Last week, Indiana came out as number one in the Heartland, winning best court website in the Midwest. Today, we go West, young men (and women), to find the greatest court website that side of the Rockies. Thankfully, there were few truly terrible court websites in the West. The Tenth Circuit has a solid, standard federal circuit court website....

NASCAR star Danica Patrick’s divorce has gotten the green light from an Arizona judge, who signed off on the racecar driver’s split from (now ex-)hubby Paul Hospenthal last week. Patrick put the pedal to the metal to complete her uncontested divorce. The couple’s community property will be divided pursuant to a settlement agreement that’s yet to be submitted to the court. But Patrick pre-emptively put the brakes on dishing out more money by signing a prenup....

Former NBA star Darius Miles has been arrested at Lambert Airport in St. Louis. Apparently, Darius Miles had a gun - and it was loaded. Miles was drafted into the NBA in 2000 as the No. 3 pick and played for the Memphis Grizzlies as well as with the Los Angeles Clippers. Miles, 29, was arrested after TSA security found that he had a gun during an X-ray screening. There were no details as to where the gun was found, or what type of gun it was, according to the AP....

Ah, viral video memes – is there any end to the fun? Well, maybe when they land you in jail. The latest craze, which was declared over three weeks ago, is the so-called mannequin challenge, where participants freeze in poses while the cameraperson pans the scene, replicating visuals similar to special effects shots from blockbuster action movies. And this was all well and good until 22 gun-toting men filmed their own version, leading to at least two arrests as cops raided the residence involved and work to identify whether the firearms featured in the three-minute snippet are properly licensed....

Did you know the legal marketing industry has its own award season? This niche market gets together once a year to praise all there is to praise about bolstering law firms. And it turns out those who make up the legal marketing industry in the Netherlands are a particularly innovative bunch. Apparently, a Dutch law firm uses a video game to hire new attorneys. Ever the creative bunch, it is called “The Game....