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The fate of the Los Angeles Clippers has been unsure ever since the owner, Donald Sterling, made headlines with some racist remarks he made that were recorded and released to the media. On the tape, Sterling is heard deriding his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, for having her pitcture taken with black people and saying that he did not want them brought to Clippers games.

Although Sterling has asked forgiveness for what he said, claiming that they were nothing more than emotional remarks made in the heat of a “lovers’ quarrel”, the public has been unforgiving. The NBA responded by banning Sterling from the association for life, a move which was followed by Sterling filing a lawsuit against the NBA for allegedly violating his civil rights.

Since the incident, Sterling’s estranged wife, Shelly Sterling, has entered into negotiations to sell the Clippers to a less controversial owner. She has agreed to sell the team for $2 billion to Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, but the question remains whether Shelly has the authority to sell the team. Initially, the dispute centered around the questionable mental state of the 80-year-old Donald. Two doctors examined Donald and found him to be mentally incapacitated. Continue reading ›

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As Americans, we love to cite the First Amendment of our constitution any time someone doesn’t like what we say. The one that says that we can say whatever we want without worrying about prosecution. In reality, though, that’s not quite true. The First Amendment does indeed protect freedom of speech, but not all forms of speech are protected under the Constitution. For example, libel, incendiary speech (a.k.a. “fighting words”), and “true threats” are not protected under the Constitution. The problem can be discerning what makes a “true threat”, and the difficulty has multiplied with the use of social media. Without body language and tone of voice to indicate whether something is meant earnestly or in jest, people can find themselves in trouble for saying the wrong things. In a recent case, which will be heard by the Supreme Court in the fall, Anthony Elonis posted some rap lyrics to his Facebook page after his wife, Tara Elonis, left him, taking their two children with her. Like most rap, Elonis’s lyrics were crude and brutally violent, including a suggestion for his son to consider a Halloween costume that included Tara’s “head on a stick”. Anthony Elonis also reportedly fantasized about killing an F.B.I. agent and warned that “Hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten class.” Continue reading ›

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In the United States, we have multiple venues for addressing conflicts. Lawsuits that are filed can be handled by either the state or the federal courts or if there is an arbitration agreement preventing use of the courts through a private trial. In general, federal courts only handle large cases that cover multiple states and involve federal statutes or claims of $75,000 of over between citizens of different states or a country. The state courts tend to handle smaller cases in which the dispute is limited to one state. In some instances, a lawsuit may fit the jurisdiction for either state or federal court. In the past, plaintiffs in class action lawsuits could only file non-federal statutory claims only in state court.

In order to federalize most class actions, the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) was passed in 2005. This law allows defendants to move a class action lawsuit out of state court and into a federal court if the case meets three requirements: 1) The class must have at least 2 members who are citizens of different states; 2) the amount under dispute must reach at least $5 million; and 3) the class must consist of at least 100 members. If the lawsuit meets all of these criteria, the defendants can file a motion asking for the case to be moved to federal court. Since most federal courts tend to be fairly sympathetic towards defendants in class action lawsuits, this is a common practice for defendants involved in large legal disputes. Continue reading ›

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With the invention of cell phones and prepaid plans, people suddenly found themselves getting charged for promotional calls and texts made by various companies. Cold calling was a standard sales technique for most companies for decades, and while some consumers may have found them obnoxious, they were never actively harmful.

That remained true so long as the companies were the ones paying for the calls that they made. When the phone bills were switched to the consumers, people started to complain. Legislators responded by creating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) which prohibits companies from calling or texting consumers, without the prior consent of those consumers, except in emergency situations. Since there are very few, if any, emergency situations which would warrant a company contacting its customers immediately, this effectively forbids companies from contacting their customers via phone, without the proper authorization.

With various laws like the TCPA, it can be hard for the average citizen to keep up with them all. Companies have gotten pretty good at keeping track of them, though, as well as avoiding them. Permission for the company to contact the customer, or a waiver of certain rights on the part of the customer, have become standard in all sorts of contracts. It is for this reason that consumers are often warned to read the fine print before they sign anything, though few of them actually do. Continue reading ›

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For decades, calling customers, or potential customers, about a promotion was standard practice for most companies. Of course, many consumers found this to be annoying, but it was never overtly harmful. That changed with the advent of cell phones and prepaid plans. When landlines were the norm, the caller paid for the call. Now, cell phone users pay for the calls and text messages that they receive. As a result, legislators came up with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to prevent companies from taking advantage of consumers by making them pay for promotional calls and texts. Under the act, companies are forbidden from making calls or texts to consumer phone numbers without the consumers’ express consent, except in the case of an emergency.

The Los Angeles basketball team, the Clippers, have recently settled a class action lawsuit for allegedly violating the TCPA. According to the lawsuit, fans of the California-based basketball team allegedly received promotional texts via autodialers from the Clippers without the required authorization. Rather than facing a long, drawn-out battle in court, which could be very costly and time-consuming, the Clippers and the class of plaintiffs have agreed to settle the case. Continue reading ›

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Although there are laws in place to prevent entities and citizens from harmful comments, such laws have to tread carefully to avoid stepping on the toes of the First Amendment to our constitution. The line got even thinner when the Internet was developed. Now people are free to broadcast their opinions all over the world with a relative amount of anonymity. The combination tends to make people freer about stating their thoughts, but if they’re not careful, those people might find themselves facing a lawsuit for defamation.

Sarah Jones, a former cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals, has also worked as a teacher at Dixie Heights High School in Edgewood, Kentucky. At the end of 2009, a user of TheDirty.com posted a photo on the website of Jones with a man and made offensive comments about Jones’s sex life, and the sex life of her partner. Jones repeatedly asked for the posts be removed, and Nik Richie, the owner of the website, refused. Jones responded by filing a lawsuit for defamation against the company that operates the gossip site, Dirty World, LLC, and Richie. The lawsuit alleged that the posts humiliated Jones, undermined her position as an educator, her membership in the Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader squad, and her personal life.

The content posted on TheDirty.com is never created by Richie, but submitted by third parties. Richie then reviews and publishes the submissions with his own comments. Richie and his attorney cited this as a basis for Richie’s immunity under the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA). Continue reading ›

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Non-compete clauses have been included in employee contracts for decades now. These provisions ensure that employees do not walk off with valuable trade secrets or client lists and take them to a competitor. Putting such a clause in employee contracts makes sense, but only up to a point. A standards noncompete contract will prohibit an employee from working for a competitor within a certain geographical radius for a specified period of time. Six months to a year is pretty standard, but that time limit has been growing lately.

Non-compete agreements were first used largely by technology companies who need to guard their developments very closely. If an employee left to work for a competitor and took everything they knew about their former employer with them, the new employer would have an unfair competitive advantage. It therefore makes sense that companies would try to protect their business interests by preventing employees from going directly to work for a competitor.

The problem that employees have been facing lately is that non-compete agreements have spread beyond just those working in tech and sales. Now, everyone from camp counselors to hair stylists are being required to sign non-compete clauses. Hourly workers in these kinds of positions cannot afford to give up a year or two of work to wait for their non-compete agreement to expire and they have started to speak out against the restrictions that their employers are placing on them.

California and North Dakota already ban non-compete agreements. Now it looks like Massachusetts may be joining their ranks. Governor Deval Patrick has proposed legislation banning noncompete agreements except in a few situations. A committee in the Massachusetts House has already passed a bill incorporating the governor’s proposals, but the new law isn’t in the clear yet and supports and opponents of the bill are fighting furiously over the new measures it would impose. Continue reading ›

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With American legislature changing on a daily basis, it is not surprising to find that many of the laws out there contradict each other and courts are often called upon to determine which statute takes precedence. Such was the case in a recent lawsuit involving auto-calls made on behalf of State Farm.

In May 2007, Clara Betancourt applied for a car insurance policy with State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. While she was applying for the car insurance policy, a State Farm agent asked her if she would like to pay using a State Farm credit card. Betancourt agreed and the agent used the information provided by Betancourt for the car insurance application to apply for the credit card on Betancourt’s behalf. Betancourt provided the agent with her home phone number, her cell phone number, and her work phone number.

Betancourt testified that she provided these phone numbers to State Farm as emergency contact information to be used only “for an emergency or something serious.”

The three phone numbers that Betancourt provided all belonged to Fredy Osorio, with whom she has lived for many years and with whom she has a son.

When Betancourt failed to make a timely payment of the minimum balance on her credit card in November 2010, State Farm authorized FMS Inc., a collection agency, to attempt to collect the debt. State Farm provided FMS with Betancourt’s phone numbers and FMS proceeded to make 327 auto-dialed calls to these phone numbers in a six-month period. State Farm alleges that at no time did anyone answering the phone say that the number did not belong to Betancourt. By contrast, Osorio testified that he told State Farm agents to “Please stop calling” on two occasions. Continue reading ›

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Companies need investors to fund the company’s progress. As a result, in the same way that companies try to play up the positive attributes of a product they are trying to sell, while leaving out the negative, so companies often paint themselves in a better light to try to attract shareholders. However, because shareholders are investing their money (rather than giving it away), companies maintain certain obligations to their shareholders.

When a company fails to hold up their end of the deal in treating fairly with their shareholders, investors have the option of suing the company for damages. When multiple shareholders are wronged, they can file as a class action, giving them greater leverage in the courts. Companies have long looked for ways to put a stop to class actions before they can attain class certification. Now it looks like they have finally gotten a foothold, but how significant that foothold is, remains to be seen.

A group of shareholders of Halliburton Co. filed a class action securities lawsuit against the company, alleging that Halliburton misled investors about cost overruns, its exposure to asbestos liabilities, and the benefits of its 1998 merger with Dresser Industries Inc. According to the lawsuit, by providing false information (or failing to reveal crucial information), Halliburton allegedly caused prices of its shares to increase artificially. Continue reading ›

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The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) applies to all employees working in the United States and regulates things like minimum wage and overtime. For example, under the federal law, all hourly employees must be paid at least $7.25 per hour. Any time that an employee works more than eight hours in a day or forty hours a week, the employer is required to compensate the employee the proper overtime compensation of one and one-half times her normal hourly rate for all overtime worked.

In addition to the FLSA, every state has their own laws to protect employees working within that state. Large corporations who do business in multiple states need to be sure that they are acting in accordance with all of the relevant labor laws in order to avoid a lawsuit.

Recently, Kindred Healthcare (which is based in Kentucky) and its subsidiaries, Professional Healthcare at Home and NP Plus, have been hit with a class action wage and hour lawsuit brought by two employees of the company working in California. The lead plaintiffs, Emma Hawkins and Ginger Rogers, are both caregivers who provide non-medical care to the elderly, ill, and disabled on behalf of Kindred Healthcare.

Kindred contracts out workers like Hawkins and Rogers to assisted living and rehabilitation facilities. According to the lawsuit, these caregivers are made to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, without any of the meal and rest breaks that they are entitled to under California labor law. Continue reading ›

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