Posts

Football played in a baseball stadium may not be such a good idea, after all. Wrigley Field recently played host to the University of Illinois and Northwestern. Unfortunately, the hosting duties fumbled a bit when the field failed to meet NCAA requirements. The result? One end zone. Yes, one end zone for a football game was the solution used by the Big Ten and the two schools. This game marked the first (and possibly the last) time Wrigley Field hosted a football game since 1938....

Some attribute the superiority of the New York bagel to the production process. Others credit the city’s water. Whatever the truth, one Palm Beach company is being accused of taking the debate one step too far. Andrew Greenbaum is suing The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co., claiming it fraudulently led him to believe it owned a unique patented process that can “Brooklynize” water. If he had known it was a lie, he would have never bought the rights to develop bagel franchises in two counties....

Anyone else greatly annoyed by the flood of LinkedIn email that arrives in their inboxes daily? While most of us just ignore the messages, or feed them to our spam filters, four plaintiffs in California took things one step further and filed a class-action lawsuit, alleging not that they received too many messages, but that the company’s email practices included sending too many messages on their behalf, and without their knowledge....

There are many milestones in an attorney’s career that he or she can proudly brag about. Being the first attorney ever to receive a lifetime ban by the Securities and Exchange Commission because of ethical violations is surely not one of them. Commercial litigator Steven Altman hasn’t tried to get the acknowledgement off his record without effort, however. But the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals hampered his efforts to overturn the ban after it denied his request to review the agency’s decision on Friday....

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a final notice this week announcing the adoption of amendments to Circuit Rule 35. The amendments will become effective on December 1, 2011. The amendments affect the time limits for filing a petition for panel or en banc rehearing to conform to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 40. In compliance with the D.C. Circuit’s local rules, the court published the proposed amendment for public comment in September....

A former assistant district attorney in Dallas County, Texas, earned herself that former moniker due to her alleged actions, while seemingly intoxicated (seems like the likely explanation), while taking an Uber ride home. Unfortunately for the former prosecutor, regardless of the fact that the incident remains nothing more than allegations that never materialized into criminal charges, let alone a criminal conviction, the county DA saw it fit to terminate the formerly inebriated prosecutor....

Feel free to eat all those Christmas cookies and cakes and pour yourself an extra cup of eggnog. There are more than just holidays to celebrate and no need to watch your weight. Next year, fashion models working in France will need to prove they weigh enough and this should, theoretically, help women who model themselves on those ideals of beauty presented in magazines and on the runways. France – following the passage of similar laws in Italy, Spain, and Israel – is cracking down on excessively thin models by demanding that they show medical certificates proving overall good health and an appropriate Body Mass Index (BMI) of at least 18 or over, according to Hint Fashion Magazine....

Caitlin Halligan won’t be leaving her job as general counsel for the Manhattan district attorney’s office quite yet. After two-and-a-half years and two filibusters in nomination limbo, Halligan asked President Obama to withdraw her nomination for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, The Washington Post reports. In a brief letter to the President, she wrote, “I am deeply grateful to you for your confidence in me, and your steadfast support of my nomination....

Across the state of California, local and state lawmakers have quite a few hurdles left to jump before the January 1, 2018 deadline imposed by Proposition 64. Basically, the law required the state to set up the framework to issue licenses by that time, and as we get closer, more and more problems are creeping up. Surprisingly, none are due to inactivity or laziness. Come January 1, the state will be required to start issuing licenses to businesses that wish to sell marijuana for recreational purposes....

Challenge to juvenile court’s order finding the parental rights of the father not reinstated In re A.L., D057412, concerned a challenge to the juvenile court’s order finding the parental rights of the father were not reinstated along with the parental rights of the minor children’s mother. In reversing, the court held that the juvenile court erred by finding that the father’s parental rights were not reinstated because when the appellate court reversed the order denying the mother’s petition, it necessarily vacated the subsequent section 366....

A professor at the University of Oregon School of Law decided that the best choice for this year’s Halloween costume was blackface. The white law prof allegedly smeared his (or her, the professor’s gender is unclear at this point) face with black makeup, then headed out to an off-campus Halloween bash attended by students and colleagues. Did he wow the crowd? Was his costume met with accolades? Was he praised for his wit, bravery, ability to buck P....

This crime has a real bang-up ending. In Memphis, Tennessee, a 45 year-old man is under arrest for firing his gun at two teenagers and managing to hit one of them. In the rear end. The alleged shooter, Kenneth E. Bonds, has been charged with aggravated assault. Bonds would not doubt protest that the only aggravation that should apply in this story is that caused by the sight of the two teens involved....

Imagine this: A dad pays for child support. Expected and normal, right? But imagine a dad who pays child support… for a child who is legitimately not his. According to Michigan law, this is perfectly OK. It’s also exactly what happened to Joseph Chmelar, a recently divorced father of two. Chmelar’s ex-wife had a child with another man while she and Chmelar were separated, but still legally married, Grand Rapids’ WOOD-TV reports....

All has been a bit quiet on the eastern front in the D.C. Circuit. With the exception of Nina Pillard moving forward to a full Senate confirmation and the American Freedom Law Center asking the D.C. District Court to halt the contraceptive mandate, it’s been a pretty slow week month. We may have reached those dreaded legal doldrums, the lethal sea of quietude that may threaten to kill your interest in the D....

Era Alaska Airlines ran afoul of the law when they offered free beer to customers as part of a new promotion. The original campaign offered customers a free 6-oz glass of Denali Brewing Co.’s “Single Engine Red” with each additional glass costing $3 each. It applied to flights offered between several Alaskan cities and was scheduled to run through the end of June according to the Associated Press. But then the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board got wind of the promotion and pulled on the plug on everyone’s fun....

A Patriots fan’s family is suing the New England team over his death, alleging that the man’s 2010 heart attack was caused by a confrontation with a security guard at Gillette Stadium. Husband and father Jeffrey Chartier, 40, died in September 2010 from a heart attack. HIs death followed a 15-minute argument with a security guard over whether his 6-year-old son had permission to be on the field before the Patriots’ Week One home game, reports NBC Sports....

Trial court’s conviction of defendant for evading an officer with willful or wanton disregard and driving on a suspended license is affirmed as the defendant needed a certificate of probable cause to challenge the validity of his negotiated plea to the prior prison term allegation. Read People v. Fulton, No. C058389 [HTML] Read People v. Fulton, No. C058389 [PDF] Appellate Information Filed December 2, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Sims...

Defendant’s vehicular manslaughter conviction is reversed, where the admission into evidence of a blood alcohol laboratory report violated Defendant’s constitutional right to confrontation of witnesses by allowing testimonial hearsay evidence prohibited under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). Read People v. Lopez, No. D052885A Appellate Information Filed August 31, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge McDonald Counsel For Appellant: Janice R. Mazur, El Cajon, CA For Respondent: Lynne McGinnis, Deputy Attorney General, San Diego, CA...

For many, memories of law school classes include a laptop. You’re sitting there, pretending to listen intently in your Corporations class while you scan fantasy football stats or cute kittens frolicking on YouTube. Now imagine if that law professor were to make his way over to you and shut your laptop screen. What do you do? Your a law student, so naturally you would sue him immediately. Perhaps undergrad Krista Bowman is a law student in training....

The Federal Circuit decided two cases today; one involving a challenge to the Department of Commerce’s determination involving frozen warmwater shrimp from Thailand, and a plaintiff’s legal malpractice suit against her former attorney related to her patent applications. In Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Comm. v. US, No. 09-1375, the US Court of International Trade affirmed the Commerce’s determination that, under the first step of Chevron, the multinational corporation provision, 19 U....