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After more than 80 tornadoes ravaged the Midwest and killed eight people on Sunday, homeowners will soon file insurance claims to begin the long process of piecing their lives back together. Illinois seems to have been hit the hardest, with six storm-related fatalities, the Chicago Tribune reports. At least two EF-4 tornadoes, the second-strongest category, touched down in the central and southern parts of the state. As tornado victims deal with their devastating losses, here are 10 tips to keep in mind when filing insurance claims for storm-related damages:...

Okay, this is no surprise after Kitchen v. Herbert, the Utah gay marriage case that was argued at the same time as this appeal out of Oklahoma. But still, it’s yet another chapter in the long battle for marriage equality, and the second federal circuit court of appeals ruling, both from the Tenth Circuit, to explicitly rule in favor of gay marriage. Congrats, Oklahoma. Like it or not, you’re second, and if we were putting bets on it, we’d guess you’re headed for the Supreme Court, just like Utah is (and others will be)....

In an employment termination dispute, district court judgment is affirmed where: 1) the Elkhorn collective bargaining agreement and not the Omaha collective bargaining agreement governed any potential employment agreement which existed between defendant and plaintiff Elkhorn police officers, as the city of Omaha succeeded to Elkhorn’s contractual agreements to plaintiffs under the Elkhorn collective bargaining agreement when it annexed the city of Elkhorn; 2) the severance provision of the Elkhorn collective bargaining agreement prevented plaintiffs from possessing property interests in employment positions with defendant; and 3) plaintiff’s termination did not give rise to a due process claim as plaintiffs had no legitimate claim of entitlement to employment with defendant....

Air travel chicanery isn’t limited to celebrity shenanigans like Alec Baldwin’s “Words With Friends” episode on an American Airlines flight in December. Real people get in trouble on airplanes, too. One such person is today’s featured Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals appellant, Alan Johnson. Johnson was convicted on one count of interference with a flight attendant by assault and intimidation and three counts of abusive sexual contact on an aircraft....

The Sixth Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church didn’t really need a court decision to fire its pastor. But the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals said the members had every right to do it, despite the lawsuit in Lee v. Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church of Pittsburgh. Reverend Dr. William David Lee had sued the church for breach of an employment contract. The reverend lost at trial and again on appeal....

Today, the Seventh Circuit decided a criminal case, a sewer district’s suit against a liability insurer, and a case involving a preliminary injunction enjoining a defendant from engaging in piracy. In US v. Oglesby, No. 09-1334, the court faced a challenge to the district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress evidence of a firearm discovered during a Terry stop. In affirming the denial, the court held that based on the totality of the circumstances, the officer clearly had articulable facts upon which he could reasonably suspect that the defendant was armed or dangerous, and moreover, the pat-down was extremely limited to the area on the defendant where the gun was found....

Is the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals the most ostrich-obsessed appellate court in America? Last month, Judge Richard Posner not only compared an appellate attorney to an ostrich in a Seventh Circuit opinion, he included photographs of both an ostrich and a man with their heads stuck in the sand to illustrate his point. Now, the Seventh Circuit is once again answering the call of the ostrich by affirming an Illinois district court’s ostrich instruction in a criminal case....

You don’t need a law license to build a referral network; you need a plan. It’s like building a house. You need a plan before you get out the hammer and nails. And it’s never too early to plan for success. You can build a referral network in law school, or while you’re waiting for bar exam results. Law School Networking Networking is really about building a business, and a solid law practice builds on referrals....

In plaintiff’s action against a debtor seeking damages when it filed for bankruptcy protections and failed to return leased phone equipment to plaintiff, dismissal of the claims is affirmed as plaintiff’s claims accrued more than five years before it filed its complaint and its claims are barred by the five-year statute of limitations. Read In Re: marchFIRST, Inc., No. 08-3600 Appellate Information Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division...

No, this case is not straight out of a Cheech and Chong movie – it’s real. And yes, we are lucky that Judge Posner wrote the opinion because we all know that no one gives a good benchslap like Judge Posner. In Medlock v. Trustees of Indiana University, the Seventh Circuit had to explore the relationship between a student and his university, whether the university’s agents were state actors, and the privacy interests that inure in this unique setting....

I’ve read The Silmarillion. I’ve been waiting for George R.R. Martin to finish his damn Song of Ice and Fire books since before HBO adapted Game of Thrones to television. I can tell you off the top of my head the specs of my custom-built gaming pc. I’ve got nerd cred. So, I say this out of love: Cool it on the fantasy references in legal filings. The Return of the King You may have heard of Paul Davis’ disastrous 2021....

Termination of Disability Benefits Upheld In Muniz v. Amec Const. Mgmt., Inc., No. 09-55689, an action challenging defendant insurance company’s termination of plaintiff’s disability benefits, the court affirmed judgment for defendant where plaintiff did not meet his burden of proving he was “totally disabled” under the terms of the plan, and thus, the district court did not err in upholding the termination of plaintiff’s disability benefits based on a lack of medical documentation supporting the determination of total disability....

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) is a persistent bunch. We don’t know much about air traffic controlling, but this seems like an admirable quality in people who control our planes, and thus our lives. NATCA has been fighting a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) decision to privatize “Level I” air traffic control towers since 1993, when the FAA privatized the Level I towers to comply with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-76....

A federal judge in New York overruled the state’s electoral board decision not to conduct a Democratic primary in New York this year. The electoral board’s decision would have made New York first state to cancel their primaries amid fears over COVID-19. Originally, the primaries were scheduled to take place on April 28. But the state issued an executive order postponing it to June 23 due to the COVID-19 pandemic....

You remember the days of fake IDs. Not that you ever had one; you’ve always been a law abiding citizen. But your friends; oh, the stories you could tell! The key to the fake ID, for those who had one, was to avoid showing it to the cops. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) flagged Fake SC for a secondary inspection border stop. While questioning Fake SC, CBP discovered that Fake SC’s fingerprints did not match Real SC’s NYPD prints....

In Casares-Castellon v. Holder, No. 05-76788, the court of appeals granted petitioner’s petition for review of the BIA’s order deeming petitioner’s timely-filed application for relief under former INA section 212(c), 8 U.S.C. section 1182(c) (repealed 1996), abandoned for failure to submit documents supporting his request for relief within the time prescribed, on the ground that 8 C.F.R. section 1003.31(c) plainly limited any waiver to the actual application or document not timely filed....

In Gall v. Scroggy, No. 08-6553, the Sixth Circuit dealt with a defendant’s petition for habeas relief seeking an order mandating that the Commonwealth of Kentucky vacate his 1978 murder conviction and sentence of death. In affirming the district court’s judgment declaring the conviction nullified, the court first resolved the issue of whether proper jurisdiction existed by concluding that the district court retained jurisdiction to consider and grant defendant’s motion as the option provided by the Commonwealth by the conditional writ was to initiate involuntary commitment proceedings and when it failed to exercise that option, the writ became absolute....

In Padilla v. Kentucky, No. 08-651, which involved postconviction proceedings arising from a drug distribution prosecution, after which petitioner faced deportation based on his guilty plea and claimed that his counsel failed to advise him of the consequences of the plea, the Supreme Court reversed the state supreme court’s denial of postconviction relief, holding that, because counsel must inform a client whether his plea carries a risk of deportation, petitioner sufficiently alleged that his counsel was constitutionally deficient....

Finding love isn’t easy. Especially when the object of your affection is serving time. According to recent headlines, there may be a willingness to overlook a person’s faults (including criminal record) for a love story that most likely won’t end in “happily ever after.” Forget emotionally unavailable. Dating websites should include a checkbox for “physically unavailable due to incarceration” to fully disclose that your fairy tale might be contingent on a jailbreak that will likely result in your own criminal charges....

The hunt for President Trump’s tax returns, the white whale of our time, continues. The Supreme Court handed down two landmark cases on the separation of powers on July 9th, the last day of the term. The justices unanimously held that President Trump does not enjoy absolute immunity from state criminal subpoenas, continuing 200 years of precedent. In a separate consolidated case, the Supreme Court also held that Congress likely needed to narrow the requested information in subpoenas it issued to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, when it requested those same Trump tax returns and other financial information....