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Jurisdictional issues can affect any case and are most likely to be more common in America where the variances in counties and states are, perhaps, greater than anywhere else in the world.  Such concerns affect all cases in terms of venue and the ties that parties may have to a certain jurisdiction over another.

The death of Charles Manson has been no exception to challenging jurisdiction.  His recent death has to lead to unexpected claims over his remains and the venue for the matter still needs to be decided.

Shortly after his death, two Wills have resurfaced with each one leaving the estate to a different person.  He died at a hospital in Bakersfield, California but those that wish to claim rights reside in a different jurisdiction.  A judge in Los Angeles considers it to be too early to determine who has the right to the remains and the estate of the cult leader that died in November. He was originally have thought not to have any next of kin and now that people claiming entitlement have surfaced, the decision over his remains and estate should be decided in a separate hearing.  The judge will also decide whether the case should be tried in the county where he lived before the crimes that he was involved in were committed, where he was imprisoned before his death or where he died.  Continue reading ›

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Although most board members of publicly traded companies are paid an annual salary, plus a bonus based on performance (usually in the form of company stock), being on the board of a company or organization tends to be a part-time job and most members have day jobs in addition to their position on the board.

But because board members bear a fiduciary responsibility to look after the financial interests of the company’s investors, they have to be very careful where they get the rest of their income. Accept some money or do a favor for someone from the wrong company, and you raise suspicions that you might have a conflict of interests.

Alan Kahn, an investor in United Flexible, Inc., an aerospace parts manufacturer and an affiliate of Arlington Capital Partners, filed a lawsuit in Delaware against two of Kreisler Manufacturing Corp.’s board members for allegedly conducting a merger in bad faith. According to the lawsuit, the two board members, Edward Stern and his brother Michael, received side deals from Arlington just before the board decided to drop its asking price for the company.

The lawsuit further alleges board members deliberately failed to disclose important information from shareholders regarding the merger. As evidence, Kahn’s complaint points to the fact that the board members refused to make copies of the merger agreement, requiring instead that all shareholders who wanted any information about the details about the agreement needed to be willing to fly to Philadelphia to see a physical copy of the contract. Continue reading ›

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The recent decision by a New York appeals court to affirm the dismissal of a defamation lawsuit filed against President Donald Trump highlights two important defenses to charges of defamation or libel.

In Jacobus v. Trump, public relations consultant Cheryl Jacobus alleged that President Trump defamed her in a series of tweets made during his presidential campaign. In these tweets, Trump repeatedly claimed that Jacobus had “begged” him for a job and “went hostile” after he turned her down. He also interspersed several other insults in the tweets calling Jacobus “A real dummy” and a “Major loser” with “zero credibility.” Jacobus alleged that these tweets harmed her career and disparaged her in the way of her profession, trade, or business.

Days before President Trump took office, the trial court dismissed the lawsuit. The trial court held that the term “begged” was merely an example “loose, figurative, and hyperbolic” language that is generally nonactionable. While acknowledging that the insults were “clearly intended to belittle and demean” Jacobus, the court found that the context of the tweets made it clear to any reader that they were statements of opinion and not fact. Consequently, they were too vague and subjective to be “susceptible to objective verification.” The appeals court affirmed the dismissal in a short order. Continue reading ›

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While some federal courts have been making it easier for employers to use more expansive non-compete agreements to shackle their workers, some states are working to make it more difficult. California already has a blanket ban on non-compete agreements, including those signed in states where they are legal. Now Pennsylvania might be the next state to join California’s worker-friendly approach.

Pennsylvania’s legislators recently introduced a new house bill, titled the “Freedom to Work Act,” which would ban almost all non-compete agreements.

The proposed law, as it is currently written, is not quite as restrictive as California’s ban. Pennsylvania’s proposed Act defines a non-compete agreement as any agreement between an employer and their worker that is designed to prevent the worker from seeking employment with another company, although the Act would enforce non-compete agreements in certain situations, including the sale of a business or the dissolution of a partnership or LLC. The Act also would not apply to non-compete agreements in existence prior to the time the Act is made into law, although it would prohibit the renewal of any such agreements. Continue reading ›

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The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a century-old provision in the Lanham Act disallowing registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademark names violates the constitutional right to free speech. Consequently, plaintiff Erik B. will be allowed to trademark the “FUCT” label on his apparel brand.

Section 2(a) of the Act permits the Patent and Trademark Office to refuse to register a trademark that comprises “immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute.”

To determine whether matter is immoral or scandalous, PTO decides whether a “substantial composite of the general public” would find the mark shocking, disgraceful, or offensive.

Erik founded the “FUCT” brand in 1990, and in 2011 filed an intent to-use application with PTO for the mark to be displayed on clothing. The examining attorney refused to register the mark under Section 2(a), finding it comprised immoral or scandalous matter because it could be interpreted as the past tense of the “F” word.

Erik appealed to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, which affirmed the denial on the grounds that dictionary definitions uniformly characterize the “F” word as offensive, profane, or vulgar. Further, the Board found the mark was used in the context of what it called explicit and degrading sexual imagery depicting extreme misogyny and other violent and anti-social imagery. Continue reading ›

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The line between inspiration and theft continues to be blurry in the world of music, and as it turns out, Lana Del Rey is not exempt from copyright claims arising from those fuzzy definitions.

The latest controversy revolves around Del Rey’s new song, “Get Free,” which is featured on her “Lust for Life” album. According to Warner/Chappell, the music publisher for the band Radiohead, “Get Free” sounds enough like Radiohead’s song, “Creep,” which was a hit in 1993, that the songwriters of “Creep” allegedly deserve at least partial credit for “Get Free,” as well as a percentage of the song’s royalties.

What makes this dispute different is the lack of consensus as to whether a copyright lawsuit actually exists.

On January 7th, Del Rey posted a tweet saying that Radiohead’s song was not an inspiration for her own hit, but that the band continued to demand 100% of the song’s royalties. Del Rey said she had offered as much as 40% of the song’s royalties in negotiations that had lasted a few months, but that Radiohead’s attorneys refused to accept anything less than 100%. Del Rey concluded the tweet by saying they would settle the dispute in court. Continue reading ›

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An important ingredient in an allegation of stealing trade secrets is that you must be able to prove you suffered financially as a result of the alleged theft. With technology changing as quickly as it is these days, it’s important for anyone thinking about suing over misappropriated software to consider how much the technology is really worth.

According to a jury, attorney Peter Francis Geraci failed to account for these two factors before filing his lawsuit against another attorney, Thomas G. Macey, and a computer coder, R. William Amidon.

Amidon had created GapC for Geraci’s law firm, Geraci Law, LLC. According to the federal trade secrets lawsuit, Amidon allegedly stole Geraci’s proprietary software and gave it to Macey, a competitor of Geraci Law, LLC. Macey then allegedly used the stolen software to create a similar program for his own law firm, Legal Helpers P.C., which has since gone out of business.

Geraci used GapC from 1996 to 2006, at which point he switched to a different software to perform the same function. He sued Amidon and Macey for $30 million, although U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah capped the possible damages awards at just over $2 million before sending the jury off to make their decision.

Amidon and his attorneys argued that, not only was the software not proprietary, but that it was already out of date when he wrote it. Continue reading ›

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Family disputes can turn nasty, as can business disputes, but there are few things worse than business disputes between family members.

Recently, Robert F. Tigani Jr. and his brother, Chris Tigani, filed a lawsuit against their father, Robert F. Tigani Sr., for allegedly abusing his position as trustee to divert funds and assets away from his children for his own benefit.

Tigani Sr. is a chairman of N.K.S. Distributors, a franchise of Anheuser-Busch for Delaware that was founded in 1960. The lawsuit alleges he took advantage of his position as chairman, and as trustee of an irrevocable trust that was created by his parents (who founded the company) to ensure the company remained in the family.

According to the complaint, when the trust was created in 1986, Tigani Sr. owned 42% of N.K.S. shares and 58% were set aside to benefit Robert Jr., Chris, and their children, with Tigani Sr. appointed trustee. But the lawsuit alleges Tigani Sr. abused his position to issue himself extra shares of the company, giving him a controlling interest in the distribution company. He allegedly concealed the improper issuance of these funds from his sons, and when they suspected him of misconduct, he allegedly refused to show them company records of the transactions. Continue reading ›

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While many have been cheering the fact that more and more women are coming out of the shadows to talk about the ways in which they were sexually harassed and abused, the current administration is still trying to silence those same women who have had to suffer through the shame and humiliation of having been attacked by members of the opposite gender.

Many of the advancements made under President Barack Obama’s administration are being pulled back under the current administration and many students fear Title IX protections will soon follow. With the appointment of Betsy DeVos to Education Secretary, advocates for those who have been targets of sexual harassment and assault are afraid that much of the steps forward that have been made regarding Title IX in recent years is about to be undone.

New Title IX rules created by DeVos are expected to be announced any day now, and considering DeVos’s recent comments defending those who believe they have been wrongly accused of sexual assault, many people are worried the new rule will work to protect them, rather than those on whom they prey. Continue reading ›

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Bitcoin has been all the talk by way of investors and the question arose this week when prices dropped as to the legality of a Bitcoin exchange shutting down when prices were falling. It is alleged that trade halts were made for a period of two hours.  The price drop was rather substantial from $20,000 to $11,000.  It is said that the outage was for reason of technical difficulties and not intended to rescue the currency from free-falling, as the legality of doing that would be questionable. In fact,  it is illegal for trading to be put to halt without following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s guidelines. Foreign currency exchanges are less regulated, and the for such reasons there are increased risks for loss, malfunctioning trading systems, and fraud.

Some even speculate that Bitcoin exchanges may stop completely if much fraud, technical difficulty, glitches or hackers and/or malware become common.  Legal precedent set in this area of law is rare, though civil litigation in this area has started.  The stoppage has certainly started lawsuits claiming damages. Mt. Gox, a bitcoin exchange in Tokyo, collapsed after it halted withdrawals and eventually conceded that its holdings, worth approximately $65 million at the time, had been stolen by hackers.

The site also came under great scrutiny for possible “insider trading” among its employees before the site started to support Bitcoin Cash, a fork of the Bitcoin project. CEO Brian Armstrong pledged that the company will investigate those allegations internally.

In a previous decision in around late August, a federal judge ordered the return of 11,000 bitcoins worth about $30 million in a decision considered the first of its kind. The ruling stemmed from a class action in which plaintiffs alleged that the defendant had stolen their money and fled to China.  The judgment highlights the decentralized nature of bitcoin, with no person or authority in charge.  It makes it difficult for winning plaintiffs to get their bitcoins that they are entitled to back. Continue reading ›

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