It is extremely rare for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn one of its prior decisions. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), comes to mind. But, that decision overruled the “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) decision. See that decision in Brown
Once again, the President has attacked a federal judge, claiming the judge is based. Judge Amit Mehta found that it was “simply unfathomable” that a Congress that is constitutionally authorized to remove the president cannot investigate that that same president. The judge was denying a request from the White House to stop a subpoena to
California started a new rule requiring lawyers to submit finger prints to the bar association. All lawyers receive a background check when they first apply to the bar association in most states. But, what happens after admission to the bar? Do lawyers generally stay clean? Well, so far the California Bar Association has learned of
Luis Cristain sustained an injury at work. His employer, Hunter Buildings and Manufacturing, fired him soon after he fell from scaffolding. Eight days later and a few days after filing a claim for worker’s compensation benefits, the employer moved him to a position where he would be supervised by Kevin Edmonds. Mr. Edmonds had already
In every civil lawsuit, we have this process known as “discovery.” One side can ask the other side for the evidence or potential evidence it possesses. For the discovery process to work, there must be some minimal level of cooperation between the two sides. That requirement allows some room for unscrupulous lawyers to ignore or
Every discrimination case involves some amount of he said/she said. Most acts of discrimination occur behind closed doors. So, the testimony will be all about a swearing match. But, that does not mean the two stories cannot be confirmed or denied. In a discrimination case, we would want to know, for example, the circumstances behind
“You get a rest break every four hours,” the seasoned warehouseman told me back in the 1970’s. He knew everything. I just assumed he was right about this, too. But, since then, I have never seen anything in law or regulation stating that workers were entitled to a 15 minute break every 4 hours. But,
Sexual harassment cases are complicated. The legal standard is that harassment by co-workers which is “severe or pervasive” will constitute a hostile work environment – if of course, management knows about the harassment and does nothing. But, what happens when the harasser is a customer? If an employer is aware of the harassment and does
Well, the Supreme Court disagreed with me. But, only by a 5-4 vote. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the President’s travel ban and rejected the appeal of the state of Hawaii. See the opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, No. 17-965 (6/26/2018) here. I previously wrote about that travel ban and its
In a recent decision, the Fifth Circuit overruled Judge Lynn Hughes, again. The Fifth Circuit reversed Judge Hughes’ grant of summary judgment on several claims. The claims started when Karen D’Onofrio left Vacations to Go, the largest seller of ocean-going cruises in the world. Karen was a sales representative for Vacations. After a couple of