The new year will bring another category of prohibited discrimination in California — discrimination based on genetic information will no longer be legal.
Filed under: Business, Employment Law, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments, Real property | Tagged: discrimination, Fair Employment and Housing Act, genetic information, SB 559, Unruh Act | 1 Comment »
To smell is not the same as to see. At least that’s what a California court of appeal recently concluded when it rejected the validity of a warrantless search of a Fed Ex package based on the smell of marijuana alone.
Filed under: Criminal Law, Evidence, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments | Tagged: marijuana, plain smell, plain view doctrine, police officers, search and seizure, warrant, warrantless searches | 6 Comments »
Going further than his predecessor was willing to go, California Governor Jerry Brown has criminalized juror tweeting. Under AB 141, which will go into effect on January 1, 2012, any juror who willfully disobeys the court admonishment against any form of communication or research about the case, including tweeting, may be sent to jail for [...]
Filed under: Civil Litigation, Criminal Law, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments | Tagged: AB 141, civil contempt, criminal contempt, electornic communications, juror misconduct, jury admonishments, tweeting | Comments Off
The Ninth Circuit has made what some may call a pro-family ruling: Attorneys may recover fee awards in civil rights cases when they represent their spouses. Representing your spouse may not be a good idea — there’s a reason why surgeons don’t operate on their spouses — but it turns out that it may be [...]
Filed under: Civil Litigation, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments | Tagged: attorney fee award, attorney fees, legal representation, spouses | 2 Comments »
It’s legal limbo for law grads: They are not yet licensed to practice law (with all the benefits that come with that), but they are saddled with exempt status for purposes of overtime pay. At least that’s what the First District Court of Appeal has recently held.
Filed under: Employment Law, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments, Practice of Law | Tagged: exempt employees, law school graduates, overtime pay, unlicensed attorneys, wage and hour law | Comments Off
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which was intended by Congress to govern the employment relationship, does not cover job applicants. At least, that was the conclusion the Fourth Circuit recently reached in a case of first impression at the federal appellate level.
Filed under: Employment Law, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments | Tagged: employees, employers, Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA, job applicants, retaliation, wage and hour | Comments Off
The following is a guest blog post by Marianne Dellinger, a law professor at Western State University College of Law. Heat waves. Droughts. Wildfires. Wildly varying snow packs and weather patterns. These are all too familiar, especially in California, but are they the effects of global climate change? And if so, are they a “public nuisance” [...]
Filed under: Business, Civil Litigation, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments, Real property | Tagged: AB 32, EPA, global climate change, global warming, greenhouse gasses, nuisance | Comments Off
In the bad old days, taxes were assessed by individual tax collectors with the power to seize property. The only good part was that jury trials were available at common law in actions against tax collectors to recover illegally collected taxes. But once federal tax collectors started transferring tax receipts to the U.S. treasury, and [...]
Filed under: Business, Estate Planning, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments | Tagged: court trial, income tax, Jury trial, tax refund actions | 2 Comments »
The following is a guest blog post by Marianne Dellinger, a law professor at Western State University School of Law. In one of the largest class action law suits ever, Betsy Dukes and approximately 1.5 million current and former female Wal-mart employees brought suit for discrimination against women in Wal-Mart’s promotion and pay policies. The United [...]
Filed under: Business, Civil Litigation, Employment Law, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments | Tagged: class action, gender discrimination, sex discrimination, Wal-Mart, Walmart | Comments Off
