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Golf carts are becoming more and more popular as a mode of transportation, They’re smaller, less expensive than cars, and as most are rechargeable electric vehicles, they are affordable to drive. Golf carts are an attractive way to travel short distances. The Villages, a large retirement city in Florida, alone is home to 50,000 golf carts, which are the primary mode of transportation for residents. Put It in Drive The laws about golf carts being street legal vary from state to state and can even vary from city to city, as well as for the type of road (local or state)....

It’s not really something we considered. That was until we read the story of Jackie Gordon Wilson, a San Francisco Uber driver who picked up a couple passengers at their home in April, dropped them off at the airport, then immediately returned to the couple’s home to break in. Lucky for the couple, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “he was scared off by the house alarm, he left and burglarized a home less than half a mile away....

District court judgment finding that the Commission Act empowering the Virgin Islands Commission on Judicial Disabilities to remove judges of the Superior Court violates the Revised Organic Act and enjoining the Commission members from initiating or continuing removal proceedings against plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) the court was correct not to abstain from deciding this case as there is currently no valid avenue for appellate review of a Commission order affecting someone like plaintiff, and thus, Younger abstention was not warranted; and 2) the Commission Act violates the separation of powers principle inherent in the Revised Organic Act as the Legislature purported to authorize the Commission to exercise power to remove judges without itself having such power....

The Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) provides rights and remedies for children who have various educational disabilities, which can include reimbursement from the state if the child has to pay to attend a non-public school. N.W., the subject of this case out of the Sixth Circuit, was born with autism and diagnosed with apraxia, an inability to say what he wants to say. N.W. was removed from public school in Boone County, Kentucky, and placed at St....

The facts of the case aren’t too complicated. California, with conservation in mind, banned the sale, possession, and distribution of shark fins within the state. Why? Because most shark fins are obtained via “finning,” where a shark is caught, fin removed, and the still-alive shark is dumped in the water to die. The fins also contain mercury, so public heath also factored into the discussion, reports the San Francisco Chronicle....

For many of us working stiffs, thinking about an afternoon or evening happy hour with friends, family, or coworkers helps us get through the work day. That first sip tastes like victory in the daily battle against the monotony of office life. And for us lucky enough to live and work near a variety of watering holes, we can tailor our daily choices based on which bars and restaurants have the best specials....

Believe, Pennsylvanians. At least if you want to lead prayers before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. That was the takeaway from a U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Fields v. Speaker, issued in late August. In a 2-1 decision, the majority held that the Pennsylvania House’s policy of only allowing theists to lead prayers does not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. In reaching its decision, the majority referenced the Supreme Court’s “presumption” in Town of Greece v....

Sentence for abusive sexual contact of a child is reversed and remanded where: 1) defendant’s challenge to the government’s performance under the plea agreement is rejected as any error is neither clear nor obvious; and 2) the district court erred in increasing the criminal history category by concluding defendant had a prior sex offense conviction as there was no record evidence the victim in the prior crime was a minor as required by U....

In action to determine whether the utility or developer must bear costs of relocating utilities to accommodate construction of streets within city limits, district court judgment is affirmed where the court did not err in concluding plaintiff must bear the costs, as development is a private commercial development involving no city actors, and the city’s conditions to a permit application’s approval does not convert a private development into public works project....

If you buy a software program and sell that software program to a third person, is that a copyright violation? According to Adobe it is. But not according to the Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit. The circuit court held that Adobe did not meet the shifted burden it held to prove that Joshua Christensen and his company Software Surplus had violated alleged copyright and trademark rights held by the Adobe....

Angrily, an artist shoved and yelled at the man who had bought his painting. Robert Rauschenberg was upset because the buyer later sold it at auction for nearly 10,000 percent more than he paid. “I didn’t work so hard for you to make that profit!” the artist famously declared. The incident inspired the California Resale Royalties Act, which requires sellers to pay visual artists five percent of any profit from resale....

A special unit of the Baltimore Police Department dedicated to getting guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals fell from grace in 2017 when almost the entire squad faced indictments on suspicion of racketeering. The details sound more like a movie than real life, from police accused of planting evidence to a witness being shot and killed the day before his testimony. Now, the City of Baltimore faces another challenge: Making things right with the hundreds of people affected by the actions of these police officers....

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action based on defendant-officer’s use of a taser on plaintiff at a traffic stop, denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity is affirmed where, viewing the circumstances in the light most favorable to plaintiff, defendant’s use of the taser was unconstitutionally excessive and a violation of plaintiff’s clearly established rights. Read Bryan v. McPherson, No. 08-55622 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted October 9, 2009...

A long time ago in a stratosphere far, far away, United Airlines invited people to “fly the friendly skies of United.” But after airline police publicly dragged a passenger off a United plane, “the friendly skies” became a hard sell. Now comes an even more difficult case. A woman is suing the airlines because a passenger grabbed her butt while masturbating mid-flight. That’s not friendly; that’s gross. Too Much Booze According to reports, Monte Wedl had been drinking on the plane....

It’s one thing when a U.S. Senator can’t get a bill passed; it’s another when he can’t get past standing to sue in court. But that’s what happened to Senator Rand Paul on his way to the Capitol, where he introduced a bill to repeal the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. In Crawford v. United States Department of the Treasury, Paul argued that the Act gave the IRS too much power to collect account information from citizens living abroad....

For businesses large and small, gender pay gap lawsuits can be a real problem with no real explanation for why they exist, like other systemic discrimination and disparate treatment claims. Last year, Disney released dismal statistics in the UK about the company’s gender pay gap, showing that men made 22 percent more than women for the same work. And now, the company is facing a potential class action lawsuit alleging that a similar gender pay gap exists in the United States....

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, a well-known vaccine critic and skeptic, was recently asked whether she’d been vaccinated against COVID-19. She responded by saying that the question itself was “in violation of my HIPAA rights.” By HIPAA, she was referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the 1996 federal law that prevents people’s private health information from being shared by health care providers without patient consent. “(W)ith HIPAA rights, we don’t have to reveal our medical records,” Greene continued, “and that also involves our vaccine records....

In US v. Nguyen, No. 08-3940, the court of appeals affirmed defendants’ convictions and sentences for conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute ecstasy, on the grounds that: 1) the parties’ plea agreement did not contain an agreement not to prosecute other offenses; 2) venue was appropriate because there was no dispute that defendant’s co-conspirator was in Iowa and committed acts in furtherance of the conspiracy there; 3) it was not clear error for the district court to find that defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his rights and, as a result, the district court did not err when it denied a motion to suppress; and 4) in light of the evidence that the instant conspiracy involved a variety of pills, many of which were not available for chemical analysis, it was not error for the district court to use the Typical Weight Per Unit Table....

In an ERISA action challenging defendant’s decision to deny plaintiff long-term disability benefits, summary judgment for Defendant is affirmed where defendant: 1) did not rely solely on the evaluations and medical opinions of its own on-site physicians and nurses, and 2) diligently endeavored to discover the nature of plaintiff’s ailments. Read Holcomb v. UNUM Life Ins. Co., No. 08-6183 Appellate Information Filed August 11, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Tacha...

President Trump rescinded Obama-era protections for transgender students on Wednesday. Those guidelines, now tossed, had interpreted civil rights laws forbidding discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ as extending to gender identity. As a result, schools were told to allow transgender students to use the bathroom that matched their gender identity, or risk a loss of federal funding. In abandoning that position, the Trump administration did not just impact the lives of transgender students, he also threw a wrench into the works of a high-profile case the Court is scheduled to hear just over a month from now....