In its ruling in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California in June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's bid to remove the protections shielding more than 650,000 undocumented immigrants from deportation. The court determined in a 5-4 vote that the White House failed... Read More »
Nearly 60 years ago, the U.S. Congress passed a monumental bill that had been championed by figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and President John F. Kennedy. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 invokes comprehensive anti-bias law at the federal level, addressing voter equality and nondiscrimination. Based on the... Read More »
Public opinion on marijuana use and legalization has undergone a seismic shift over the past few decades. According to the Pew Research Center, about two out of three Americans now support the legalization of marijuana. In contrast, as recently as 1989, 81 percent of the population favored laws prohibiting the... Read More »
Gianelli & Morris files class-action lawsuit against Anthem alleging unlawful blanket denials of coverage for percutaneous neuromodulation therapy (PNT) device. On June 4, 2020, the California insurance law firm Gianelli & Morris filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The case... Read More »
The University of Miami has agreed to pay $22 million to settle three lawsuits claiming the University’s hospital system administered medically unnecessary lab tests, knowingly took advantage of the Medicare program and forced one of their hospitals to inflate reimbursement claims. The lawsuits outlined three illegal activities by the University’s... Read More »
Hazy days These days, it seems like marijuana laws are ever-changing. With an increasing number of states legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, decriminalizing its possession, and even some governors pardoning past convictions, it's becoming hard to keep up. Recent changes to Texas State law are not only becoming hard... Read More »
It's not just the presence of unmanageable debt that sends people into bankruptcy; it's the constant harassment and collection efforts of creditors. Companies and bill collectors go to great lengths to get what they owe, including harassing phone calls, visits to your home or workplace, wage garnishment, property repossession, home... Read More »
A press release issued by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) in July 2018, called the Takata airbag recall the “largest and most complex vehicle recall in U.S. history.” That was a year and a half ago and already three years into a series of rolling recalls that continue... Read More »
The so-called “insanity defense” has been a staple of crime dramas on television, film, and in real life for decades. The sensationalized version is something like this: A person commits a terrible crime, such as murder. In court, they do not deny that they killed the person. Instead, their attorney... Read More »
The Trump administration has been taking aggressive steps to reduce the number of refugees who are granted asylum in the United States. Besides reducing the availability of asylum generally for refugees, the administration has put restrictions in place intended to make seeking asylum much more difficult. Immigrant rights activists argue... Read More »
In Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media, an African American-owned media company called Entertainment Studios Network (ESN) is suing Comcast, arguing that the telecom giant violated a federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in contracts when it declined to carry ESN’s television channels. ESN claims that the decision... Read More »
On the morning of November 14, 2019, students of Saugus High School gathered in the quad before the start of classes. Nathan Berhow, a student at the Santa Clarita, California, school, reached into his backpack and removed a .45-caliber handgun. Within sixteen seconds, he shot five classmates, killing two and... Read More »
Los Angeles County and neighboring San Bernardino County have recently been home to massive jury verdicts, often dwarfing verdicts in similar (and even related) cases in other jurisdictions. Some lawyers have claimed that this is a problematic trend specific to southern California juries, arguing they demonstrate a need for the... Read More »
Bail has been a fixture of New York's criminal justice system since before statehood. Starting in January 2020, however, bail as we know it will no longer be practiced in the majority of cases in the state of New York. Instead, most defendants accused of a crime will not be... Read More »
Motorized scooters, such as those placed on street corners by Lime, Jump, and Bird, have sparked controversy everywhere they’ve landed. The scooters arrived long before local government agencies had the opportunity to put safety or traffic regulations in place that would provide limits on how, when, and by whom the... Read More »