Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Tyler Skaggs died on July 1, 2019, in a room at the Southlake, Texas, Hilton. Investigations have now been initiated by local authorities, Skaggs’ family, and the MLB. His death, caused by the cocktail of powerful drugs found in his system by an autopsy, has... Read More »
Raising the Standard of Living for Workers While Minding the Means of Smaller BusinessesIn 2018, California’s minimum wage increased to $11 per hour for businesses with 26 employees or more and $10.50 per hour for businesses with 25 employees or less. The minimum wage increase is part of California’s plan... Read More »
Residents of Illinois can rest a bit easier after a recent federal appellate court decision, knowing that their spouses will not benefit financially from causing their untimely deaths. In Miscevic v. Estate of M.M., the Seventh Circuit addressed whether a woman who killed her husband would still be entitled to... Read More »
At issue in the case of Carpenter v. United States is the government’s warrantless collection of cellphone records to use as evidence of an individual’s location and movements in a criminal prosecution. The individual in this case, Timothy Carpenter, was sentenced to 116 years in prison for a string of... Read More »
Federal law requires decedents to pay an estate and gift tax for property passed to individuals or trusts after a decedent’s death. The tax, however, does not kick in unless and until the total value of the estate exceeds a certain threshold dollar value, valued at the death of the... Read More »
Non-Disparagement Clauses Conflict with Public Policy in the Digital AgeIn August 2017, Illinois passed SB 1898, amending the state’s Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act to prohibit the use of non-disparagement clauses in contracts for consumer goods and services. The law “provides that a contract or proposed contract for... Read More »
A recent opinion issued by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals serves as a reminder of a particular quirk of Texas criminal law: For sexual assault offenses, married defendants are subject to more severe criminal penalties than those who are unmarried. In Estes v. Texas, the defendant, a married adult,... Read More »
A Pennsylvania law that recently went into effect provides a possible alternative for first-time Driving Under the Influence (DUI) offenders who might otherwise lose their driver’s license. The aternative? Install an ignition interlock system.Pennsylvania law provides for different penalties for DUI convictions depending on the blood-alcohol content (BAC) of the... Read More »
Statistics Show the Number of Cellphone-related Car Accidents Nationwide Continues to Rise, Despite Laws to the Contrary Last year and late to the game, Texas became the 47th state in the country to ban texting while driving. (Now, only Arizona and Montana have no ban, while Missouri prohibits text messaging... Read More »
In a case decided on May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States held that provisions of a federal law prohibiting states from authorizing sports gambling violate the “anticommandeering” doctrine of the U.S. Constitution. The case is Murphy v. NCAA, and it has huge implications for Atlantic City,... Read More »
Company Initiates Recall of Certain Products Due to Safety Concerns The United States Consumer Products Safety Commission is reporting a recall by Honeywell of certain hard hat models. This is a firm-initiated voluntary recall instituted under the CPSC's Fast Track Recall process. The products subject to the April 24 CPSC... Read More »
Millions of workers have signed on to employment agreements containing arbitration clauses. These clauses require employees to resolve any complaints against their employer through private arbitration, rather than through the courts. On May 21st, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the validity of such agreements in the... Read More »
California has had a storied relationship with arbitration. One of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most significant recent opinions on arbitration, AT & T Mobility v. Concepcion, stemmed from a lawsuit filed in California. The state’s attempts to limit the power of mandatory arbitration agreements in both employment and consumer contracts... Read More »
New York Aims to Save Employers Money While Also Enhancing Protections for Injured WorkersIn 2018, significant reforms to New York workers’ compensation law—the most important and impactful changes in a decade—are predicted to generate considerable cost savings within the workers’ compensation system, thus enabling a rate reduction for both public... Read More »
After several years of troublingly-high rates of fatal injury on New York City construction sites, the city enacted a law in October of 2017 aimed at improving safety through worker education. Local Law 196, which entered into effect on March 1, now requires that all workers on large construction projects... Read More »
