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Allowing debt collectors to use state prosecutors’ letterhead is a controversial practice. It nets counties money (debt collectors essentially rent out the letterhead), but the ABA and other legal organizations say it’s deceptive because a county prosecutor isn’t actually charging the debtor with a crime. To that end, the Sixth Circuit addressed two kinks in the issue: Whether the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) applies to law firms tasked with collecting state debts, and whether their use of the Ohio Attorney General’s letterhead violated the FDCPA....

Now that it’s getting warmer, the idea of going out for ice cream might be tempting. But it can be disappointing when you take the kids out for a vanilla cone at McDonald’s only to find that the soft serve machine is broken. This situation actually happens quite often, at least according to the internet (and McDonald’s own Twitter feed). In fact, the most common complaint McDonald’s receives online is about broken ice cream machines....

When you sign a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement in which you agree not to be the beneficiary of a 401(k) retirement plan, does that extinguish your spousal rights to it? To the surprise of divorced couples and family law attorneys alike, the Eighth Circuit has ruled that no, it does not extinguish your rights. You still may have a right to the 401(k). In its decision, the appeals court ruled that a postnuptial agreement in which each party expressed “irrevocable consent” to a change of beneficiary of the other’s retirement plan did not constitute a waiver of the spousal right to benefit from such plans....

Believe it or not, federal law prohibits disclosing a person’s videotape rental records. Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Act after Judge Robert Bork’s video rental history was leaked during his failed nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. (The author of a widely read article on “The Bork Tapes,” Michael Dolan, said that the leak was a response to Bork’s assertions that only statutes, and not the Constitution, could protect the right to privacy....

The U.S. Supreme Court revived a $148 million lawsuit against Chinese vitamin companies, saying that American courts are not bound by China’s claims that it required the companies to fix prices. In Animal Science Products, Inc. v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., a lower court accepted China’s interpretation of its laws and threw out the case. The Supreme Court said the appeals court gave too much deference to the foreign government....

Firearm Possession Indictment Dismissal Reversed In US v. Reese, No. 10-2030, a prosecution for possessing firearms while subject to a domestic protection order, the court reversed the dismissal of the indictment where 1) the prosecution of defendant under 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(8) is consistent with the government’s intended purpose in implementing that statute; and 2) the district court erred in focusing on the underlying protective order issued by the Hawaii Family Court instead of the challenged federal statute....

Don’t say we didn’t warn you. You can get a DUI in a motorized La-Z-Boy. So of course you can get a DUI on a riding lawn mower. In Idaho. In North Carolina. And now, in Wisconsin, too. An appeals court in the Badger State recently ruled that operating a riding mower while drunk carries the same penalties as driving a car while intoxicated, according to Associated Press. Grass Mowin’ or Off Roadin'?...

Question of whether the Faragher-Ellerth affirmative defense to employer liability applies to sexual harassment and retaliation claims under the New York City Human Rights Law is certified to the New York Court of Appeals where the issue was appropriate for certification because of the absence of authoritative state court decisions, the importance of the issue to the state, and the capacity of certification to resolve this litigation. Read Zakrzewska v. The New School, No....

Last year, a federal court convicted sixteen members of an Ohio Amish group of hate crimes. They cut the hair and shaved the beards of members of their sect who they believed weren’t “Amish enough.” ‘But For’ Is the Causation Standard for Motive The federal hate crime legislation requires that a causal connection between the criminal conduct and the victim’s protected status; the crime must be committed “because of” the victim’s status....

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to re-examine a California policy that requires cops to collect DNA from felony suspects, regardless of whether they are convicted, reports the Los Angeles Times. An 11-judge panel will consider the case, Haskell v. Harris, en banc. In February, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a provision of California’s DNA and Forensic Identification Data Base and Data Bank Act (DNA Act), requiring law enforcement officers to collect DNA samples from all adults arrested for felonies....

Berghuis v. Smith, No. 08-1402, involved habeas proceedings brought by an individual convicted of second degree murder by an all-white jury. The Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit’s reversal of the denial of petitioner’s habeas petition, on the ground that Duren v. Missouri, 439 U. S. 357 (1979), hardly established – much less “clearly” so – that petitioner was denied his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community, because petitioner’s evidence gave the Michigan Supreme Court little reason to conclude that the county’s juror assignment order had any significant effect on the representation of African-Americans in the venire....

There’s a lengthy list of things you can do, and shorter subset of things you should do. Which is just another way of saying just because you can do something, doesn’t necessarily mean you should do that thing. For instance, if you have a subpar experience at the dentist, you can take to Facebook and fire off a series of posts complaining about the office, even insinuating that the company was under investigation for unethical and fraudulent acts....

In Jefferson v. Upton, No. 09-8852, a capital habeas matter, the Supreme Court vacated the Eleventh Circuit’s affirmance of a denial of petitioner’s habeas petition, holding that the court of appeals did not fully consider several remaining potentially applicable exceptions to the presumption of correctness given to state court factual findings under 28 U.S.C. sections 2254(d)(1)-(8). As the Court wrote: “Petitioner Lawrence Jefferson, who has been sentenced to death, claimed in both state and federal courts that his lawyers were constitutionally inadequate because they failed to investigate a traumatic head injury that he suffered as a child....

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has no sympathy for people who try to extort money from Full House’’s Uncle Jesse. This week, the court upheld the sentences of two defendants who were convicted in a celebrity extortion plot involving beloved actor John Stamos. The Cincinatti-based appellate court rejected the defendants’ appeals of indictment deficiencies and downward adjustment errors, proving that you don’t mess with Uncle Jesse. Scott Edward Sippola and Allison Lenore Coss tried to extort $680,000 from John Stamos in 2009....

In a surprising and unprecedented move today, a divided and increasingly deadlocked Supreme Court announced that it was canceling the rest of the October 2015 Term. The announcement revealed a Court frustrated by a series of evenly-divided decisions, unable to reach a viable majority on some of the nation’s most important cases. Speaking from the Supreme Court steps, Chief Justice Roberts said that, while the Court values its constitutional role, continuing on with just eight justices was “an exercise is Sisyphean futility and, frankly, we have better things to do....

So, that was a fun week! Vote counting continues (in many more states than just Pennsylvania), and it appears that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States. Of course, President Trump has yet to concede, which he is under no obligation to do, and he has the opportunity to make several legal challenges to the results in whichever states he chooses. So, until vote tabulation is complete and the Electoral College results are certified, this article is all theoretical....

Being bipolar is not a crime. According to a lawsuit against the Supreme Court of Kentucky and Kentucky’s Character and Fitness Committee, however, the Kentucky “Bar Bureaucracy” treated a bipolar attorney as if it was. That was why, after a two-year battle to become licensed in Kentucky, an unnamed attorney sued the lawyers responsible for the intrusive questioning and unreasonable demands they forced on her to prove her fitness to practice law....

In a petition for review of an order of the Benefits Review Board denying petitioner’s claim for benefits under the Black Lung Benefits Act, the petition is denied where the ALJ’s decision to discredit the opinions of petitioners’ doctors was supported by substantial evidence. Read Greene v. King James Coal Mining, Inc., No. 08-4094 Appellate Information Argued: June 12, 2009 Decided and Filed: July 30, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Lioi...

A recently filed case in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California seeks to enforce a Freedom of Information Act request made by immigration advocacy groups to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The request is aimed at discovering just what is going on with the massive backlog of N400 citizenship applications, which is continuing to grow, resulting in systemic consequences for individuals who should rightfully be granted citizenship....

This post was updated on December 13, 2022. It’s the common divorce trope, from movies to rap songs, and maybe even the advice you got from aunt: if you get a divorce, your spouse gets half of everything. And while that might be the intent of some divorce laws, it’s a bit more complicated than that and it’s likely your divorce won’t quite shake out that way. What and how much each spouse will end up with in a divorce will vary depending on the state you live in and the circumstances preceding the divorce....