Authorities arrested a woman who was trying to cook meth in a Walmart store this week. Oklahoma woman Elizabeth Halfmoon spent around six hours in the Tulsa store before police busted her. Security officials called authorities after they saw her acting suspiciously. Halfmoon said she didn’t have the money to purchase the materials needed to make crystal meth. So, in her mind, it made sense to make meth in the Walmart store....
Want to know a quick way to get your bail revoked? Show up drunk in court. Sandra Uher, 54, had been arrested for and charged for her sixth DUI in Illinois. Her bail was revoked when she showed up for her latest court hearing date intoxicated. Uher has been charged with DUIs since 1997. Her recent charge was for running a stop sign in a suburban neighborhood. At the time of her arrest, her blood-alcohol content was 0....
In a suit brought by thirty-five current and former nurse practitioners employed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in the Tennessee Valley Healthcare System alleging that, as predominantly female NPs, they are paid at a lower rate than the predominantly male physician assistants performing jobs of equal skill, effort, and responsibility under similar working conditions, judgment of the United States Court of Federal Claims granting the US summary judgment that plaintiffs do not qualify for coverage under the Equal Pay Act, 29 U....
Everyone should do their civic duty to participate in the grand experiment we call America. Vote. Recycle. Do jury duty when called. And if opening that jury summons has ever caused anyone to ask, WWJD?, it looks like we have an answer. She would show up. Yes, she. When the potential juror, formerly known as Dorothy Lola Killingworth presented herself, the judge was skeptical. Circuit Court Judge Scott Vowell said, “It raised eyebrows, so I asked her if that were truly her name....
Although most people don’t enjoy getting a jury summons in the mail, there was at least one Pennsylvania resident who didn’t feel that way. Jeanette Fox’s son, Luke, was very excited when he was summoned for jury duty. But, there was a problem: Luke is only 11 years old and, unfortunately for him, a person has to be at least 18 years old to serve on a jury. So, what happens when someone is over 18 years old and doesn’t want to serve on a jury?...
In plaintiff’s post-award bid protest case against the Department of the Air Force (agency) for awarding a billion-dollar-plus contract to Boeing for long-term maintenance on the Air Force’s fleet of KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft, judgment in favor of plaintiff is reversed and the injunction against proceeding with the contract awarded to Boeing is vacated as the agency’s price-realism analysis based on the set work package was not arbitrary and capricious, and the trial court’s contrary determination was not within the court’s scope of review under the APA standard....
Don’t fake your own kidnapping so you can visit your fugitive boyfriend in Mexico. No, really. Don’t. It’s a horrible idea. Jessica Rodriguez, 22, has had to learn this lesson the hard way. The Avondale, Ariz. resident called her mom and said she had been kidnapped, tied up and blindfolded before being driven to an undisclosed location. Her story was so believable, her mother went to the police. In actuality, she was canoodling in Mexico with her boyfriend, who is wanted in connection with a January homicide....
For those of you in the middle of studying for the bar, are you keeping up with the news? Of course you’re not, and of course you shouldn’t be – the most important test of your life (arguably) is just around the corner, and you should obviously be focused on studying for the bar. Take Aaron Hernandez’s current spot in the news, for example. Former New England Patriots’ player Aaron Hernandez is the leading suspect in a case involving the death of the man named Odin Lloyd....
Wynand Mullins has a great sense of humor and he’s a fan of the movie “The Princess Bride.” So he purchased himself a cute t-shirt with a popular quote from the movie. As luck would have it, he wore the shirt on a plane bound for New Zealand. Fans of the movie, or friends of fans, will recognize the quote: “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die....
During his days as a baseball player, Jose Canseco was known for his on-field prowess as well as his often-strange behavior. Though Canseco retired from baseball in 2002, he has continued to be known for saying, and doing, some fairly peculiar things. Canseco’s latest stunt may be his most far-out yet: After shooting off his finger in a gun-cleaning accident, then losing the reattached finger during a poker game, Canseco is now offering to sell the severed finger on eBay, reports San Francisco’s KPIX-TV....
As owner of VIP’s–Chicago’s only topless bar–Perry Mandera has spent much of the last 18 years attempting to keep the club’s doors open despite pressure from City Hall. But after countless courts, including the Illinois Supreme Court, have declined to find Chicago’s ban on liquor-touting semi-nude establishments unconstitutional, it appears as though VIP’s legal battle has reached its final act. Chicago has officially moved to shut the place down. Since VIP’s Chicago opened in 1991, it has fought the city’s ban on liquor and nude dancing in both state and federal courts, arguing that the ordinance infringes upon the club’s First Amendment rights, reports the Chicago Sun-Times....
If you’re a fan of Jeopardy!, the long-running game show hosted by Alex Trebek, then you already know: Monday’s Double Jeopardy! round featured a whole column dedicated to law firms. Three contestants, all teachers, went head-to-head to see who had the quickest buzzer finger in town – and who knew the most about the law. They did… alright. Think you could have done better? Try answering the questions below. For those of you who are somehow not familiar with Jeopardy!...
Today, the California Courts of Appeal decided a criminal matter, arbitration concerning whether a Cumis fee dispute is involved, and a case involving plaintiff’s challenge to a city’s approval of a supercenter construction project. In People v. Gonzales, No. E046800, the Fourth District faced a challenge to a conviction for failure to register as a sex offender and sentenced to a five-year term of imprisonment. In rejecting defendant’s claim that thre was insufficient evidence to support his conviction for failing to register as a sex offender during the period at issue, the court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that defendant violated section 290 by failing to register the house at issue as his residence....
Stevenson v. Bd. of Ret. of the Orange County Employees’ Ret. Sys., G041816, concerned a challenge to the trial court’s denial of plaintiff’s petition for administrative mandate challenging the decision of the Board of Retirement of the Orange County Employees Retirement System (Board), excluding his overtime in calculating his pension allowance. In affirming the trial court’s decision, the court held that the administrative record contains substantial evidence showing plaintiff’s grade or class within the meaning of section 31461 was that of investigator, and as such, the overtime he worked that was unique to investigators in the narcotics bureaus was properly excluded from his “compensation earnable”....
Introducing our Ex-Lawyer of the Week: Nathan Sawaya. Sawaya, 38, once earned a six-figure salary as a corporate lawyer in New York City. Now, he spends six figures each month on LEGOs, which he turns into life-sized works of art. No one “has done more to advance the concept of LEGO as its own artistic medium” than Sawaya, the co-authors of The Cult of LEGO told New Jersey’s Star-Ledger. It’s a far cry from Sawaya’s former legal career....
Facebook has squeezed out of lower court ruling that the company infringed on a Texas-based software developer’s database patent, inelegantly named the “Database system and method for data acquisition and perusal.” Software company Indacon sued Facebook in 2010 alleging that the social media company infringed on patent no. 6,834,276, which it claimed was violated when Facebook integrated linking and searching features into the Facebook interface. The Material Terms At issue were the proper claim construction of several terms, including “alias,” “custom link,” “custom linking relationship,” and “link term....
It’s hard to read the future in tea leaves, especially if you don’t believe in them – except for an occasional sip of herbal tea. So predicting the future of Facebook’s legal battle over its virtual reality headset is, well, certainly not our cup of Nostradamus. We’re just lawyers, not soothsayers. Like that’s going to stop us … Anyway, Facebook is going to settle or lose. We can say that with some confidence because a jury already decided that Facebook infringed on a copyright for the VR technology in the case....
Most of you are probably not aware that the magnetic fasteners that you have on your bags are all part of a controversial intellectual property case that was just decided. Romag, the patent holder of those magnetic button fasteners successfully brought a suit against Fossil and other companies for selling counterfeits of its fasteners in Fossil bags. But “real” and “fake” can assume different meanings when dealing with certain foreign countries....
One Learjet; an Aspen vacation home; a Ferrari race car and other sports cars. All will be available soon, with one caveat: They are subject to forfeiture in the convictions of the general counsel and the chief executive officer in a payday loan scam. That’s right, payback is a Beemer. Payday Loans Timothy Muir, former general counsel of AMG Services, Inc., and ex-CEO Scott Tucker were convicted of 14 counts, including money laundering, wire fraud and violations of racketeering, and lending laws....
In a suit brought by HP against Acceleron, a patent holding company, seeking a declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of a patent related to Blade Servers, grant of defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of declaratory judgment jurisdiction is reversed where there is a definite and concrete dispute between HP and Acceleron with adverse legal interests as the facts of the case, when viewed objectively and in totality, show that defendant took the affirmative step of twice contacting HP directly, making an implied assertion of its rights under the patent against HP’s Blade Server products, and HP disagreed....
