There’s an epidemic in this country. It involves vampires. The common sight of teenage girls and their boyfriends acting out Edward Cullen fantasies has spread to 43-year-old men who actively take on the role of Bill Compton from HBO’s True Blood. Even worse? Instead of screaming for Sookie and jealously hating on hotter vampires, they’re biting 3-year-old boys on the neck. Why Mark Adams was watching True Blood with a toddler is unknown....
Lokesh Simon James is suing a strip club he freely admits to have visited. The basis for his lawsuit: James says just do the math. James went to a Clearwater, Florida strip club for three hours. He rang up what he felt should have been a $600 tab. To his surprise, when he checked his credit card bill, he noticed that the Bliss Cabaret had charged him with a $50,000 bill....
Fei Yan and his wife had a solid marriage. They shared everything, kept no secrets. So it was troubling when he got caught using confidential information she had about a pending corporate deal. Yan traded on that inside information and made almost $110,000. For his wife, an attorney, the honeymoon was almost over. Securities Fraud Federal officials said Yan, who worked as a research associate at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology, repeatedly traded on information from his spouse....
Every holiday has its traditions. On Halloween there are pumpkins. And eggs. For the Fourth or July we celebrate independence with ritual explosions. For spring? We trot out the Peeps, those strangely colored marshmallow confections resembling young chicks. They say Peeps are edible and I’m inclined to believe them, but why eat your sugar snacks when you can play with them? That, at least, is what the ABA wants you to do....
Teach a man to use a vending machine, and he’ll panhandle until he can afford some potato chips. Teach a man how to use a coat hanger to rob a vending machine, and he might end up with 28 criminal convictions and behind bars on 23 separate occasions. For Harley Busse, of Chicago, his modus operandi of stealing change out of vending machines got him a 12 year prison sentence for stealing $44 from a university vending machine....
In In re Marriage of Sonne, No. S166221, the California Supreme Court faced the issue of whether the community was entitled to the redeposited amount, paid for with community funds, of a service credit earned by the husband during his first marriage. In reversing the decision of the court of appeals, the court agreed with the husband that the trial court’s apportionment of the service credit arising from the husband’s first marriage was in error as that portion earned was his separate property....
Wordtech Sys., Inc. v. Integrated Networks Solutions, Inc., No.09-1454, concerned a patent infringement suit against defendant and its two employees, related to patents involving technology for automated duplication of compact discs, the court reversed the judgment of the district court for the most part, except the district court’s denial of defendants’ motion for leave to amend. . First, the court held that the district court’s denial of defendants’ Rule 59(a) motion was improper as the jury’s verdict of the two employees’ individual liability of direct infringement, despite the lack of instructions on defendant’s existence or piercing its corporate veil, was plain error that requires a new trial....
Keeping a well-manicured lawn is important for property values, appearances, and good old-fashioned neighborly manners. It might even be required by your neighborhood home owners’ association. But is not doing so a crime? Apparently, in Tennessee, it can be. Karen Holloway, of Lenoir City, was given a five-day jail sentence because she failed to maintain her lawn to the level required by a city ordinance. After an appeal, which included arguments about her right to counsel, the sentence was reduced to six hours, reports Knoxville’s WLTV....
Do you really need someone to tell you that you’re not supposed to ship live puppies in the mail? Stacey Champion attempted to mail a puppy via Priority Mail from Minneapolis to Atlanta in a closed box without air holes, according to U.S. postal workers. Champion was even clever enough to inform postal workers that the box might make some noise “because it contained a toy robot,” the Star Tribune reports....
A friend you knew in law school started his own law firm and is hiring. Congratulations, you have an advantage! Many employers would prefer to hire someone they know over a stranger. Your lawyer friend knows how wonderfully smart and capable you are. He thinks you’d be a great addition to his law firm. But is it a wise idea to work for a friend? Of course! But, keep these five tips in mind to maintain your friendship and sanity:...
New Year’s Resolution #1: start paying attention to my ever-expanding student loan debt. Now, you may think that NYRs are an idiotic concept. Fair enough. My roommate ranted for forty-five minutes on the subject just last week. That’s fine. Call it a resolution, call it a goal, call it good old fashioned budgeting and finance. Either way, the moment you have a job, your focus should turn to your debt. Here are ten ways to assess the debt, free up cash, and finish paying off your debt long before 2075....
Many law schools ask applicants to write a diversity statement which is more than just a second personal statement. Some will even have a writing prompt that tells you exactly what the school wants you to write about. Generally, diversity statements are personal essays that provide applicants an opportunity to tell the decision makers a little bit more about their non-academic, personal background. That means even if a person believes they are the least diverse person on the planet, they should still write a diversity statement as there’s more to a diversity statement than “diversity....
Airbnb has settled a suit with San Francisco, and will require people to register with the city when they rent-out their homes through the company’s website. The company, which lists rental lodgings in 65,000 cities worldwide, agreed to share names, addresses and zip codes of hosts in the city. San Francisco has only 2,100 on its records, but Airbnb has more than 8,000 in the city. “Every host on the Airbnb platform will be registered, which is what the city has said it will be looking for,” said Chris Lehane, global policy chief for the company....
Sixteen Amish men and women convicted of federal hate crimes for chopping off the hair and beards of fellow followers of the Amish faith had their convictions overturned by an Ohio appeals court. The series of attacks, led by the aptly named Samuel Mullet Sr., were charged as hate crimes by federal prosecutors in 2012, resulting in a 15-year sentence for Mullet and lesser sentences for 15 of his followers, eight of whom still remain in prison, reports The New York Times....
Although the FLSA only mandates certain employers comply with the laws on accommodating employees that express milk, or breastfeed and need to pump, state and local ordinances have been passed that put the same or more stringent requirements on even the smallest employers. Generally, for employers that qualify under the federal or state/local law, employees must be provided with a dignified place to take care of their needs. This includes a space that is not a bathroom....
Ariel Ayanna is a former associate attorney for the Boston office of Dechert, LLP. His first year at the firm went by splendidly. He received a positive evaluation and a bonus for his work. During his second year as an associate in the firm’s financial services department, however, things turned sour. When his wife’s existing mental condition worsened, and she gave birth to the couple’s second child, Ayanna did what any “real man” would do: He took care of his wife and children....
Optimum Corp. v. Emcore Corp., No. 09-1265, concerned a patent infringement suit related to methods for improvements in an optical communication system. In affirming the grant of defendant’s motion for summary judgmentthe court held that the defendant did not commit inequitable conduct in obtaining the patents in suit, and thus the the district court correctly ruled that, on plaintiff’s version of the facts, it had offered no evidence that could succeed on proving deceptive intent by clear and convincing evidence....
A federal prison guard in Pennsylvania is accused of shooting his own finger off at his home. If that isn’t strange enough, he allegedly took this drastic measure to remove his wedding ring. Perhaps weirder still: He’s now facing criminal charges over the incident. Police received reports of gunfire at the home of 31-year-old Alfredo Fortunato Malespini III, reports The Bradford Era. When officers arrived, they found a bloody scene....
Former FAMU football player Jonathan Ferrell was killed early Saturday after he was shot by a police officer who was responding to a 911 call for a suspected “breaking and entering.” But police in Charlotte, North Carolina, believe that Ferrell was not an attempted burglar. Rather, the 24-year-old was just trying to seek help after a severe car crash. The 27-year-old police officer who shot and killed Ferrell has been arrested....
In an action seeking a refund of county property taxes, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where the trial court did not err in finding that a 100% change of ownership of the property at issue occurred for purposes of property tax reassessment. Read Fashion Valley Mall, LLC v. San Diego, No. D053411 Appellate Information Filed August 17, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Irion Counsel For Appellant: C. Stephen Davis, Cahill, Davis & O’Neall, San Diego, CA...
