Taking a client out for dinner or grabbing a meal while on a business trip is one thing. Feeding an entire team of ravenous hockey players is quite another. The IRS treats both the same way when it comes to tax deductions, and now the Boston Bruins owner is pushing back. The team is suing the federal government’s tax agency for the right to deduct the full amount of team meals while on the road....
About six weeks ago, Miami Heat forward Chris Bosh sued his ex-girlfriend and current baby momma, Allison Mathis, after he learned that she had entered into an agreement with Shed Media to appear on Basketball Wives, a reality television show that follows the romantic interests of professional athletes. Now Mathis has sued Bosh, alleging that he tortiously interfered with her contract to appear on the show, causing her economic harm and emotional stress....
In what appears to be a long-shot motion, Bill Cosby’s attorneys filed a request for the trial judge to recuse himself due to his wife’s views and work supporting survivors of sexual assault. And, as one might expect, reports seem to indicate that this won’t go over well. While this generally is not cause for recusal, Cosby’s legal team is hoping to take this issue nuclear. They have requested that the issue be certified for immediate appeal if the recusal motion is denied....
Former Jaguars wide receiver Jimmy Smith has been charged with a variety of drug offenses after getting pulled over in Jacksonville, Florida. Smith was reportedly pulled over not because of speeding or some kind of problem with his driving, but instead for the excessive window tint on his 2009 Benz. Unfortunately for Smith, although the tinting might keep someone from seeing anything illicit in plain sight within the vehicle, it apparently didn’t stop police from catching a whiff of burnt marijuana in the car....
The California Courts of Appeal decided a bail bond forfeiture case, an issue of class certification, and Governor Schwarzenegger’s constitutional authority to further reduce individual items in the 2009 budget. In St. John’s Well Child & Family Ctr. v. Schwarzenegger, No. A125750, the First District faced a challenge to Governor Schwarzenegger’s cuts to the 2009 budget, brought by a nonprofit network of five community health centers, six school-based clinics in medically underserved areas in the Los Angeles area and other individuals and various organizations....
Patents are supposed to be issued for new and novel things, not things that anybody could have come up with. A patent can be invalidated for “obviousness” if the thing that is to be patented is based on prior art and that thing would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in that field. In the field of pharmaceuticals, a drug can be considered obvious if it’s the made by adding something to an extant chemical – something that anyone could have done and the result of which anyone would have expected....
Attention patent lawyers: Botch your patent application and you could be sued for malpractice in federal court. That’s what the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has to say about a patent malpractice case involving large law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Brockius. Landmark Screens, LLC brought suit against the firm and attempted to collect damages in a case arising from a rejected patent application. In 2002, attorney Thomas Kohler filed a patent application for an outdoor light-emitting diode electronic billboard, reports Thomson Reuters News & Insight....
Awad v. Obama, No. 09-5351, concerned a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The D.C. Circuit affirmed the denial of the petition, holding that 1) there was no reversible error in the district court’s finding that petitioner was “part of” al Qaeda in December of 2001; and 2) prior decisions of the court of appeals clearly held that a preponderance of the evidence standard was constitutional and that there was no requirement that the government must show that a detainee would be a threat if released in order to detain him....
How do you prepare for bar results? The test was awful and the wait was possibly worse, but now that states are rolling out their pass lists, the day you get your bar results might be its own kind of dreadful. It doesn’t have to be, though, future barrister. While many states have already released their bar exam pass lists, one of the most monstrous states for bar exam takers, California, has not yet done so....
Leading up to the days of his passing, Justice Antonin Scalia was enjoying some quality recreational time. Apparently, he had spent the weekend hanging out with members of the Austrian-based and very exclusive – male only – hunting society known as the International Order of St. Hubertus. The group frequently dons emerald robes emblazoned with the mantra “Deum Diligite Animalia Dilgentes,” or Honoring God by Honoring his Creatures. And beyond that, there is some really weird stuff on this group....
Every law student reacts to finals in their own way. Some wear their pajamas to the law library for a week or two. Some start mysteriously loosing hair. Some sit and cry silently in bathroom stalls. And some, it turns out, fake their own kidnappings. There are, of course, better ways to get around finals. During my 1L year, I remember half-heartedly considering jumping in front of a slow moving Mini....
When Dave DeFazio graduated from law school in 1996, he planned on moving to San Francisco to start his legal career. Instead, he spent his summer working as a river guide in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And he never made it to San Francisco, staying in Jackson Hole to work as a lawyer and ranch hand before starting up his own practice. Now, twenty years into his legal career, DeFazio and his lawyer colleagues have started up the perfect side project: whiskey production....
It seems like guys named Jesse James are in the news a lot lately. First there was the guy who cheated on America’s sweetheart, Sandra Bullock. And now there’s Jesse James Thomas, the single-boxing glove and sombrero-wearing would-be criminal. Thomas was arrested in Sacramento, Calif., after he allegedly leapt on top of a police car and shouted his name while wearing a boxing glove and sombrero. Take a good look at his picture here....
The logical extension of “L’eggo my Eggo”: Po-pos for Pop-Tarts. A woman in Charlotte, North Carolina, had her son arrested for stealing her Pop-Tarts, reports WCNC-TV. The scene of the crime is the woman’s home – probably by the toaster. The report said that the boy was placed under juvenile arrest and was charged with misdemeanor larceny. Details are sparse, leaving pressing questions unanswered. Was it a Strawberry, Cinnamon, or S’more Pop-Tart?...
Fantasy football players in Maryland can rejoice as the legislature has just made the friendly wagering legal in the state. Until October 1, fantasy sports leagues in Maryland were technically illegal although it’s unclear whether anyone was prosecuted under the rule. Earlier this year, the Maryland legislature passed a law which went into effect recently allowing fantasy football leagues to continue unimpaired. Previous law didn’t specifically ban fantasy sports leagues but they fell within the category of unlawful gambling which made them problematic....
One word can describe the JD employment market: grim. No, make that two words: very grim. NALP has recently released some of the statistics about the class of 2010, and the results are dismal - and that’s a generous assessment. The survey of about 41,156 class of 2010 law school graduates showed that only 68.4% of them found jobs that required bar passage. JD-preferred jobs accounted for about 10.7% of employed grads, and sadly there were still about 6....
In a longshot lawsuit, animal rights activists have filed a lawsuit in the name of a horse named Justice that lives in Oregon. While Justice isn’t the proverbial horse with no name that was let free after being rode through the desert for nine days, this horse seems to have a meritorious claim against its former owner. You see, Justice was severely neglected, left to fend for himself, out the rain and elements....
In Alfred E. Mann Found. for Scientific Research v. Cochlear Corp., No. 09-1447, the Federal Circuit faced a challenge to the dismissal of plaintiff’s patent infringement suit, involving patents for cochlear implants, for lack of standing to sue on the ground that plaintiff’s 2004 agreement with a third party (AB) granting an exclusive license to the patents at issue was a virtual assignment of the patents-in-suit. As stated in the decision: “While AMF’s right to choose to sue an infringer does not vest until AB chooses not to sue that infringer, it is otherwise unfettered....
This particular case is so legally weird, even the lawyers stalking the halls here at FindLaw.com are shaking their heads. A former father-in-law in the town of Riverwoods, Ill. is suing his ex-son-in-law for breach of contract in being a very, very, bad husband. That is right, Dad is not just mad about the way his little princess was treated by this frog, he is going to get even – to the tune of more than $75,000 in actual damages and $1 million in punitive damages....
Since Donald Trump became president, some might think that the path to the White House is through reality television. Or perhaps it is the billionaires club, except that didn’t work out for billionaire candidate Ross Perot. So maybe it’s just like the late George Carlin said: “Anyone can become president of the United States. And that’s the problem.” In any case, more pre-law students see law school as the way to politics than in recent years....
