snotty certain

Your phone was buzzing and you just had to check the text. Next thing you know, you miss a light change and plow into the car in front of you. Nobody seems seriously hurt at first, so you trade information with the other driver, apologize, and soon return to the preoccupations that led to the accident. A fender bender refers to a minor collision, so generally speaking these are resolved through auto insurance claims....

On the morning of July 30, President Trump finally came out and said it. He thinks that perhaps the November General Election should be delayed. “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history," he tweeted. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" Trump’s suggestion was probably not entirely surprising to Democrats, who have long suspected he’d be seeking to stoke advance fears about a “rigged election....

If you haven’t heard, Uber is going public today with a projected valuation of $84 billion. What you may not hear, however, is what is happening inside some 60,000 private arbitration claims against the company. The tip of that iceberg came up as part of Uber’s public disclosures, which included the revelation that its drivers have filed more than 60,000 arbitration demands. Analysts say it could take $600 million to resolve the claims....

When it comes to lawyers behaving badly, particularly toward their own colleagues, one Illinois lawyer has set a new standard of low, and somehow has walked away with only a six-month suspension from the practice of law. After successfully referring a candidate to his firm’s hiring manager, he began secretly recording that same candidate as he changed clothes in the office. Like many other firms, changing clothes is a common practice at that firm, as it has a casual dress code, but attorneys keep court-ready attire on hand for appearances and client meetings, and change clothing in their own offices when needed....

On March 24, the U.S. Congress passed a historic economic stimulus package - the largest in American history at $2 trillion - in an effort to save the economy, and to provide badly-needed relief to unemployed workers and families. Currently, unemployment claims in the country have skyrocketed to the highest they have ever been, with a record of 3.28 million applying for unemployment last week. This is nearly five times the previous record high, according to the Washington Post....

Another day, another assertion of executive authority. “For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc.,” President Trump tweeted Friday, “try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Case closed!” Considering prior claims regarding deportation policy, rewriting the Constitution, emergency funding for the border wall, and impeachment procedures haven’t been 100 percent accurate, the case seems far from closed....

You can still be sentenced to death in California, but you can’t be executed – not since a surprise ruling last year struck down the state’s death penalty program as unconstitutional. The program wasn’t struck down because executions are inherently cruel punishment, but because the state was too slow to kill death row prisoners. That case is now before the Ninth Circuit, which will decide whether the state’s sluggish and arbitrary death penalty system is so dysfunctional that it’s unconstitutional....

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last week that the court should require the Central Intelligence Agency to disclose records detailing waterboarding interrogation methods used against terrorism suspects in 2002, reports Reuters. The CIA claims that the Agency can deny a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the waterboarding cables because waterboarding is an “intelligence method,” even though President Obama has since declared it illegal....

Petitioner’s petition for adjustment of his visa status is granted where his application was improperly rejected as untimely for the sole reason that his lawyer’s accompanying check for the proper amount of the filing fee was inadvertently unsigned. Read Blanco v. Holder, No. 05-72159 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted May 4, 2009 Filed July 15, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Graber Counsel For Petitioner: Russell L. Marshak, Popkin, Shamir & Golan, Los Angeles, CA...

Briefs are starting to trickle into the Supreme Court in the case of Buck v. Davis, a death penalty case that promises to be one of the more important decisions of the upcoming term. Duane Edward Buck, who is African American, was sentenced to death in 1997, after one of his defense’s own experts claimed that Buck was more likely to reoffend because of his race. Now, Buck’s attorneys and several amici are arguing that he deserves to have his punishment reconsidered, given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding his sentencing....

Ordinarily, governors love it when people from other states come to visit and spend money. But these are not ordinary times. As the coronavirus pandemic has expanded exponentially in recent weeks, several governors have said outsiders are not welcome and have taken steps to stop them. Their fear: outsiders might be carrying the virus with them. In particular, this fear has been directed toward those from “hot spots” like New York and other northeastern states....

In Heishman v. Ayers, No. 07-99016, a capital habeas matter, the court affirmed the denial of the petition, holding that 1) there is no reasonable likelihood that certain false testimony could have changed the jury’s verdict or that the cumulative impact of the false testimony and undisclosed Brady material would have changed the jury’s verdict; 2) although counsel’s investigation regarding mitigation evidence could have been initiated earlier, petitioner did not show that counsel’s timetable was per se constitutionally deficient under professional norms existing in 1980; and 3) the additional mitigation evidence that might have been uncovered was not compelling when weighed against the case in aggravation....

Federal judges have considerable power, but their influence wanes beyond U.S. borders. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan “overstepped his authority” when he tried to block enforcement of an $18 billion judgment against Chevron worldwide, reports The Washington Post. The Lago Agrio plaintiffs (LAPs) have been battling Texaco, (and now Chevron), over the alleged damage for almost two decades. Chevron spent $40 million on remediation pursuant to a settlement that Texaco finalized with the Ecuadorian government in 1998....

US v. Olmeda-Garcia, 09-3042, In a prosecution of defendant for illegal re-entry into the United States, district court’s imposition of a 64-month sentence is affirmed as the only potential error defendant identified is the district court’s silence with respect to a possible disparity that could arise between defendant’s sentence and those available to defendants in other districts, and here, defendant did not adequately develop this argument and the district court was entitled to hand down an otherwise procedurally and substantively sound sentence without discussing the point....

Judges tend to think pretty highly of themselves, and they don’t like to have their authority challenged. Many judges aren’t shy about handing out threats of “holding you in contempt.” That means you have to follow the rules. A North Carolina man recently found this out the weird — or annoying — way when he was ordered to write an essay on the court system after violating rules about recording proceedings....

During a special session of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held at the University of Arkansas’ law school, the court heard arguments in an appeal from a doctor accused of a 2009 bombing. Randeep Mann was sentenced to life in prison in 2010 for the bombing that nearly killed Dr. Trent Pierce, the head of the Arkansas State Medical Board. Mann allegedly planted the bomb because the board had suspended his license following his patients’ deaths from drug overdoses....

In a decision that has all the glossy fun of civil procedure nit-pitpicking, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Sergio Casillas Ramirez properly and timely filed a second amended complaint under FRCP Rule 15(a) and that the lower court ran afoul of Erie. Let this be a reminder to all practitioners that those local court rules mean nothing once the case hits any federal court procedure speed-bumps....

District court judgment dismissing plaintiff’s breach of contract action is reversed where the court erred in applying the abstention principles of Colorado River and abstaining from deciding the matter as a state court lien foreclosure proceeding and the federal breach of contract action were not parallel proceedings. Read Fru-Con Construction Corp. v. Controlled Air, Inc., No. 08-1712 Appellate InformationAppeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of MissouriSubmitted September 26, 2008Decided July 24, 2009...

In an appeal arising from an action brought by an insured alleging breach of the insurance contract involving how defendant-insurer administers supplemental “cancer only” insurance policies that it has sold to individuals, insurer’s petition for various forms of mandamus relief from district court’s orders is denied and the decision of the district court is affirmed in part, reversed in part and vacated where: 1) the first three mandamus factors all cut strongly against issuing mandamus relief on the issue of policy interpretation; 2) the district court did nothing improper with respect to deferring ruling on defendant’s motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction requiring defendant to continue reimbursing plaintiff under its old method; 3) generalized mandamus orders directing district courts to go forth and manage discovery correctly will not be issued; and 4) district court’s decision to issue plaintiff’s motion for injunction enjoining defendant from proceeding with final settlement in a class action case in Arkansas is reversed and vacated as the district court has not certified a class, and it necessarily follows that the court has no cause to take extraordinary injunctive measures to protect the interests of a class....

The nationwide class action suit that involved Google and Nickelodeon allegedly tracking our innocent, innocent children was largely defeated by the defending companies recently. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit felt that planting cookies on children’s computers and devices didn’t run afoul of both state and federal laws, at least not the ones the parents identified. It wasn’t a complete victory for Viacom, Nickelodeon’s parent company, though. The federal court allowed one privacy claim against the entertainment company stand as it had collected children’s information despite promises not to do so....