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In Alvarez v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., No. B218847, the Second District faced a challenge to the decision of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) denying claimant’s petition for a new panel qualified medical evaluator under section 4062.3(f), in the claimant’s petition for worker’s compensation death benefits. In annulling the decision and remanding the matter, the court held that, as section 4062.3 expressly prohibits ex parte communications with a panel qualified medical evaluator, with the only exception being for communications by the employee or deceased employee’s dependent in connection with an examination, and in the event of unauthorized ex parte communication permits the aggrieved party to obtain a new evaluation from another panel qualified medical evaluator....

Odah v. US, No. 09-5331, involved a petition for habeas corpus by a detainee at Guantanamo Bay and his next friend. The court of appeals affirmed the denial of the petition, on the grounds that 1) petitioners’ challenge to the preponderance of the evidence standard employed by the district court was foreclosed by precedent; 2) to show error in the district court’s reliance on hearsay evidence, the habeas petitioner must establish not that it was hearsay, but that it was unreliable hearsay; and 3) the evidence was sufficient to show that petitioner was “part of’ al Qaeda and Taliban forces....

Back in 2010, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the FDA did not have the authority to regulate e-cigs as medical devices as long as they weren’t marketed with therapeutic claims – as in, “it’ll help you quit smoking.” Well, when the D.C. Circuit closes one door, the FDA breaks open a window. The FDA is set to begin regulating e-cigs as tobacco products, the Los Angeles Times reports. Today the FDA proposed rules that would ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors (already outlawed in some states), while continuing to allow advertising, online sales (presumably with online age verification), and flavored liquids that might or might not appeal to children....

Judicial elections work a little differently Texas, and that’s become a problem. The results? A lot of white males and only a handful of minorities ever make it to the highest courts in Texas. That could change if the plaintiffs prevail in a federal trial in Corpus Christi. Judicial Accountability The Latino plaintiffs argue that statewide elections for the Texas Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals discriminate and violate the Voting Rights Act....

Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board’s decision and award finding the employer liable for discrimination against an industrially injured employee because the employer did not accept a physician’s release to allow the employee to return to work is annulled as the employee did not establish a prima facie showing of employer’s liability for discrimination in violation of Labor Code section 132a, and as such, the burden did not shift to the employer to establish an affirmative defense....

For the small firm lawyers and solos out there who know the ebb and flow of the feast or famine model of law practice, there’s a way to make sure you don’t go hungry during one of those long famines: Firing staff, or cutting hours. Small firm owners are probably thinking that this is rather harsh. There’s no doubt about it, it is incredibly difficult to let go of a valued staff member, especially in the small firm setting....

A gagged and hog-tied Brooklyn man faked his own kidnapping as a way to explain his absence to his demanding girlfriend, investigators say. As one law-enforcement source told the New York Post: “He’s a total moron.” Police say Rahmell Pettway, 36, admitted to spending two weeks away from his home. Unable to explain his extended absence to his girlfriend, Pettway allegedly came up with the fake kidnapping idea, the Post reports....

It’s an old joke that a doctor’s signature is illegible, but what do people say about a lawyer’s signature? If that lawyer is Jack Lew – a Georgetown Law grad, White House Chief of Staff and President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of the Treasury – then what most people are saying is his signature is weird. It’s long and loopy and completely illegible, which is a problem for someone who could be signing all your dollar bills before long....

Can you have a successful legal career and a thriving personal life? The legal industry, with its focus on work over everything else, doesn’t exactly make it easy. Some people are trying to change that, however, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Attorneys should take the lead in reimagining what it means to work as a lawyer, and law firms should act on those suggestions, Justice Ginsburg said recently. Speaking at a meeting of the Washington, D....

Plea deals reached over a crazy glue related revenge plot on a cheating lover spared four Wisconsin women from jail time. In what’s being called the “Krazy Glue Revenge” case, Therese A. Ziemann and three other women took revenge on their cheating lover, the Washington Post reports. At a motel last summer, the women blindfolded and tied up a 37-year-old man while, Ziemann glued his penis to his stomach. All four women apologized to a judge and were each sentenced to probation....

Growing concerns about the spread of Ebola aren’t just limited to talk of restricting flights or quarantining people who have possibly exposed to the virus. The state of Louisiana was granted a court order Monday preventing the incinerated belongings of a Texas man who died from Ebola from being shipped into their state, reports The Times-Picayune. The restraining order comes after the Louisiana landfill in which the waste was to be disposed had already refused to accept the ashes....

Did you ever want something really expensive, you just had to have it no matter how much it cost? Like buying a new car, you bit the bullet, made the first payment and drove off without looking back. It didn’t matter how much it actually cost – interest payments, depreciation, taxes, fees, or whatever. Now consider a purchase that cost between $100,000 and $250,000. Unless you are independently wealthy or have a full-ride scholarship, maybe you should slow down a little on this decision....

In plaintiff’s action against her former employer for sexual harassment under the Fair Employment and Housing Act, judgment in favor of the employer is affirmed where: 1) a statement in defendant’s statement of undisputed facts submitted in its summary judgment motion cannot be used against defendant at trial as an admission; and 2) trial court did not err in denying plaintiff’s motion for JNOV as plaintiff waived her claim that no substantial evidence supports the defense verdict....

We all know that San Francisco has a reputation as a liberal bastion, even in famously left-leaning California, but City Supervisor Scott Wiener is trying to curb the city’s naked enthusiasm on street curbs. This week, Weiner introduced a proposal to ban the exposure of genitals or buttocks on all city sidewalks, plazas, parklets, streets and public transit, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. While public nudity is an arrestable offense in most cities, San Francisco takes an unusual approach: Police don’t cite exhibitionism unless a naked dude is aroused or a private person complains that he is offended....

California may soon be getting rid of the religious and personal exemptions that let parents opt out of vaccinating their children before enrolling them in school, daycares or nurseries. A new bill imposing more robust child vaccination requirements has been approved by the state Senate and is well on its way to becoming law. The law comes largely as a response to an outbreak of measles in Disneyland this winter, which spread to over 100 individuals across state and even national lines....

Are you a 40-something year old single professional woman making less than six figures a year? If you are, you must be incredibly unhappy. This according to a recent survey which revealed the profiles of unhappy workers. Those who were the unhappiest were single females, aged 42, in “professional” jobs (think doctor or lawyer), making less than $100k a year. What about the “happiest” person, according to the survey? Well, that lucky worker is a 39-year-old male who’s married with a wife who works part time....

The information superhighway of yesterday doesn’t cut it today. Think information superplanet. With well over 100 million blogs populating the online stream of information, options of following hundreds of lawyers and law professors on Twitter, and having the ability to ask a question about the law and get an answer from a dynamic online legal community…the only thing left to say is, welcome to Web 3.0. The challenge has shifted from finding information to finding the right information and to trying make online queries and browsing effective for your needs....

The State Bar of California is currently considering a radical change to the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct: a bar on lawyer-client sex. Under the current rules, lawyers are allowed to sleep with their clients, so long as they do not coerce them into the sack or condition representation on sexual relations. (Lawyers must end representation if their lusty lawyer-client relationship interferes with competent representation as well.) The new rules, if adopted, would put an end to California’s permissiveness, prohibiting virtually all attorney-client lovemaking....

When a woman reports for work in men’s clothing – and it is not a costume – it may be time to review your company’s anti-discrimination policy because the laws are changing as dramatically as some people change clothes. In the South, in particular, the legal issues around sexual orientation are definitely not resolved. Jameka K. Evans, a Georgia lesbian who presented herself on the job as a man, discovered that even the judges are fighting about it....

This is the fourth in a series about this year’s California ballot propositions. Today, we discuss what happened to an initiative that was removed from the ballot, Proposition 49. Notably absent (or maybe not) from this November’s list of state ballot initiatives is Proposition 49, which would have called on the U.S. Congress to enact a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United v. FEC. A laudable goal, to be sure: Citizens United, like herpes, is the gift that keeps on giving....