After a contentious divorce and “intense litigation” leading to a support agreement, an unemployed but financially secure Certified Public Accountant (CPA) filed for changes in his monthly obligations. The trial court found that the husband’s assets, professional degree, and experience make him capable of continuing the agreed-upon payments. The appellate... Read More »
Twitter is in the news nearly every day these days. In what some have called the “biggest tech story ever,” the media are closely following each new development in Elon Musk’s efforts to buy the hottest “public conversation” website in the world. Now there is good news for Musk or... Read More »
All across America, thousands of localities have sued pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors for their roles in the deaths of nearly half a million people from opioid overdoses. A federal jury in Cleveland found Walgreen’s, CVS, and Walmart liable for contributing to the drug epidemic in two Ohio counties. Walgreens recently... Read More »
The plaintiff is the aptly-named “Where Do We Go Berkeley?” (WDWG), a homeless advocacy organization. It filed suit against the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) when the Department tried to clear two encampments near freeways that were home to about 30 homeless individuals, many of them physically or mentally disabled. ... Read More »
Often described as a “luxury food item beloved in French cuisine,” foie gras is made from the fattened liver of a duck or goose. Unfortunately, in order to obtain the 50 to 65 percent of fat that produces the “rich and buttery flavor,” the maltreated fowl must be force-fed. A tube is... Read More »
In these post-COVID times when people have started traveling again, it is common to hear news reports about angry passengers who start fights on board. The reasons vary. Some don’t want to wear masks; others are upset about long waits or cancellations, or they object to new rules about limits... Read More »
The facts in Eskra v. Grace read like an afternoon soap opera plot that centers around who will inherit an estate after the husband dies in a car accident. Will it go to the widow or to his child by his first wife? Right before she got married, Brandy Eskra... Read More »
San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood is comprised of 50 square blocks that have a reputation for fostering illegal drug dealing, prostitution, strip clubs and homelessness. The City Attorney tried to ban four drug dealers from the area because they were public nuisances, but an appellate court said the requested relief was... Read More »
Instead of hiring a private eye to discover information about a person of interest, several websites offer users the chance to click on a name and discover all sorts of background information. The basics, like age and city of residence, are free, but a hefty subscription fee is required to... Read More »
Before the government banned cigarette advertising on radio and television in 1971, the airwaves were filled with messages that menthol cigarettes were smoother, more refreshing, and capable of delivering “extra coolness in your throat.” After the ban, Big Tobacco swiftly shifted its marketing strategies to print media and fought back... Read More »
It wasn’t an April Fools’ Day joke. By a vote of 220 to 204, including “yeas” from three Republicans, the House of Representatives passed the 89-page Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Empowerment Act (MORE) on April 1. MORE would decriminalize cannabis at the Federal level. Although it has garnered support from... Read More »
Hiding behind the myths of voter fraud and stolen elections, 27 states have introduced over 250 bills this year that pose new challenges to the right to vote, especially for people of color. These efforts come on the tail of the 19 discriminatory voting rights bills that passed in 33... Read More »
The legislative history of current law, contemporary morals, and the increasingly widespread legalization of marijuana led two out of three judges on the Ninth Circuit to rule that a petitioner’s request for review of her deportation order from the Board of Immigration Appeals, for selling and transporting less than two... Read More »
Writing that the right to vote in Florida is “under siege,” a federal judge struck parts of the state’s “unconstitutional” and “suppressive” new voting law. In addition, he took the rare step of ordering mandatory pre-clearance, an “extraordinary oversight” that will be required for new Florida laws that seek to... Read More »
The federal Juvenile Delinquency Act (JDA) of 1974 aims to prevent future criminal behavior by minor offenders. One young man, who was first arrested for gang crimes when he was a minor, tried to argue that he is still entitled to JDA treatment after he turned 18. The Ninth Circuit... Read More »
