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‘Smelly cat, smelly cat, what are they feeding you?’ Or in this case, why aren’t they taking care of you? That’s the question Johanna Torres and her husband, Matthew Greenberg, are posing in the lawsuit they filed against their neighbor, Rossana Ioppolo, and their condo association. The suit alleges that Ioppolo’s 20 cats got too smelly and the stink traveled to the neighboring apartment, infecting Torres’s and Greenberg’s living space and belongings....

They say all that glitters is not gold – especially if it’s an employee incentive plan. Yeah, but keep your hands off mine anyway, say employees at United Airlines. That’s kind of what they said after the company planned to take away employee bonuses and reward random winners in a $100,000 lottery instead. What the workers really said was: “No !$#!& way!” Big !$#!& Backlash Last week, United announced it was ending a performance incentive program that gave workers up to $375 for each quarter the company met performance goals....

This would make an interesting Las Vegas bet: More wins or arrests involving the Detroit Lions in 2012. Right now, having only six arrests, safe money would be on wins by the Lions. But training camp hasn’t even started, and at this pace there may be more Detroit Lions arrests than games played in 2012, let alone wins the Lions could possibly accumulate. Aaron Berry is the latest Detroit Lion to get arrested....

When Governor Brown instituted mandatory water restrictions on urban water users early this April, he was widely praised for taking drastic action to address California’s worsening drought. Yet, that praise was often paired with skepticism and even condemnation, as Brown had failed to mandate any reductions for agricultural water users. In California, agricultural users are responsible for four times as much water use as all urban uses, or approximately 80% of all water use in the state....

A former Hastings law school dean says that struggling law schools need to make big changes to survive, and mergers may be their solution in a difficult economy. Frank H. Wu, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law who served as dean from 2010-2015, knows the trouble they’ve seen. Facing financial pressures from falling enrollments that rocked law schools across the country, many schools lowered their admissions standards and then saw their students’ bar pass rates fall....

Bay Guardian Co. v. New Times Media LLC, A122448, concerned a challenge to a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff for approximately $16 million, in Bay Guardian’s suit against San Francisco Weekly (competing alternative newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area), claiming unfair competition under California law for offering advertising to business entities at a rate lower than was provided by the Bay Guardian. Underwood v. Pearce, F058001, concerned a challenge to the probate court’s order sustaining decedent’s ex-wives’ demurrer without leave to amend, in a mother and a sister’s dispute over decedent’s estate....

We cannot overemphasize enough the significance of recent changes in both the legal profession and law school education. Between major advances in legal tech and the 2008 recession, it is not the best time to be a young lawyer. Some of the new realities have hit many law schools hard, which has forced them (and even their bars) to start “dumbing down” in order to make up numbers. Law school deans, in fact, are picketing what Above the Law has called the “tyranny” of the LSAT....

Dismayed by the Tinder prospects for a 69 year old male, Emile Ratelband, a resident of the Netherlands, has petitioned the court to allow him to legally lower his age by 20 years. According to his reasoning, “We live in a time when you can change your name and change your gender. Why can’t I decide my own age?” Though this seems utterly laughable, perhaps it is an interesting philosophical debate to have over a beer or two....

A group of landowners in southern Arizona have been arguing for years that a Rails to Trails plan for a right of way on their property constituted a taking. So far, that litigation has enjoyed two tours through the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. This week, the appellate court ruled in its second opinion in the matter that the landowners can keep pushing their takings claims under the accrual suspension rule, despite the government’s claims that the action is time-barred....

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will continue to share his Christmas music playlist with inmates. 12 hours a day, everyday. His Christmas music playlist is aimed to spread Christmas cheer to 8,000 inmates inside Arizona county jails. A federal court has thrown out the sixth lawsuit filed by inmates trying to stop the sheriff from playing holiday music in his jails this winter, the Associated Press reports. Sheriff Joe Arpaio calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff” and plays music from all countries and faiths, but inmates claim that the holiday music pumped in for 12 hours at a time is cruel and unusual punishment and forces participation in religious celebrations....

Lakers point guard Steve Nash is ready to defend himself in a child support battle with his ex-wife, as he told a judge Monday that she got rich enough when they divorced. The NBA veteran informed the court that his ex-wife Alejandra Amarilla doesn’t need any more money for child support because she made millions in the divorce settlement, reports TMZ. The hearing Monday was an appeal to a prior ruling from an Arizona judge that Amarilla was not entitled to child support for their three children, and it appears the divorce battle is far from over....

A Maryland high school student was arrested after giving his teacher a brownie laced with pot. The unsuspecting Anne Arundel County high school teacher was taken to the nurse’s office and an ambulance was called after she reported feeling ill and acting disoriented. According to Baltimore’s WJZ-TV, a 17-year-old student admitted to giving his teacher a piece of the brownie, which he confirmed contained pot. What criminal charges is this teen facing for giving his teacher a “magic” brownie?...

Thomas Jefferson School of Law has had a rough few years. Not the least of its worries was a lawsuit from a former student. But the future is looking just a little brighter for the school, as a jury just reached a 9-3 verdict in favor of Thomas Jefferson Law School. This case is a major sigh of relief for third-tier law schools everywhere. Plaintiff Anna Alaburda attended TJSL, graduated at the top of her class, and eventually sued her school for inveigling her into attendance with allegedly misleading employment numbers....

Who knew porch pirating was a team sport? Turns out one seasonal UPS driver in Florida teamed up with two buddies to cherry pick the best packages to steal. Turns out the seasonal driver needed a little more practice in determining when a delivery customer wasn’t at home. He tipped off his friends that the coast was clear, when it wasn’t, and now all three have been booked into jail on multiple felony charges, including burglary of an occupied structure and grand theft....

Who is putting all these #!%&ing curse words into federal appellate opinions? The judges, apparently. According to Law.com, the “F word” has appeared in approximately 445 federal appellate opinions in the last ten years. Of course, the opinions aren’t referring to “that F-ing Rule 12(b)(6) motion.” Rather, they’re quoting, in full, the curse words of parties who have themselves cursed, sometimes even while censuring those parties for their use of obscenity....

So, “marijuana grannies,” how does your garden grow? Well enough to cultivate 800 healthy marijuana plants, allege police in San Bruno, California. After neighbors reported a break-in at a San Bruno home, cops responded to the residence of Aleen Lam, 72, and Virginia Chan Pon, 65. They found the front door broken open, and nobody home, reports SFGate.com. Two men were later arrested in South San Francisco, in a BMW, in possession of $12,000 in cash, marijuana packaging material and seven ecstasy pills–all allegedly taken from the residence of the “marijuana grannies,” as prosecutors have dubbed the pair....

She can’t buy you a drink, but she could put you behind bars. Robyn Crawford was sworn into the Florida Bar last Thursday at the tender young age of 20. Crawford will be working as an associate state attorney – after graduating from Cooley Law School, no less. So, how did this legal Doogie Howser get into the state bar before being legally allowed into an actual bar? It seems Crawford started taking college classes when she was just 14, got her bachelors at 18, and graduated law school in just two years and a semester....

Last week, the legal search firm Major, Lindsey, and Africa released its bi-annual Partner Compensation Survey and the results were pretty shocking. While male partners brought in an average compensation of $949,000, their female counterparts reported earning just $659,000, a difference of 44 percent. That’s right, female partners make just over half as much as men do. It’s a discrepancy that almost makes 79 cents on the dollar look not so bad....

It’s been a really bad week for foreign steel. Last week, President Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on all steel imports. This week, Japan’s third-largest steelmaker announced its chief executive officer is resigning in a cloud of malfeasance. The events are not necessarily related, unless you are in foreign steel. In which case, that grating sound may be your stock portfolio or your job grinding to a halt. Steel Meltdown Kobe Steel, which supplies steel parts to car manufacturers, planes, and trains, admitted last year that it falsified specifications on steel products to about 500 customers around the world....

A law prohibiting political contributions by federal contractors was upheld by a unanimous, en banc D.C. Circuit last week. The eleven judge panel ruled that the law does not violate the First Amendment or equal protection rights of government contractors, the court ruled. The law was first adopted in 1940, over concerns that businesses would use campaign contributions to influence the government contract process. Those concerns are still valid today, the Court ruled, justifying the narrowly drawn restrictions of the law....