Bullying and My Predictive Abilities — New York at Risk

If there is anyone who started with me when I made my first post in July, 2002 you will know that one topic that has come up repeatedly is my watch on the movement to have some state enact an anti-bullying law. It is much easier now than in the early days, because of  Professor David Yamada's Minding the Workplace Blog, which covers those developments regularly.

In addition to being a tenured professor and Director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University School of Law in Boston, he is also the author of the model Healthy Workplace Act, which has been the basis for most of the bills which have been introduced in various legislatures (23 states according to the Healthy Workplace Campaign website).

The first was just 10 years ago.  Already in 2013, there have been eight states where some version has been introduced. Professor Yamada has an update in this post, Healthy Workplace Bill: March 2013 update.

In that article David notes that he and I have had a cordial disagreement over the years over the need for this legislation, as he also notes my recent sigh that I was becoming resigned to some state adopting such a cause of action much quicker than I would have ever thought when I first posted on the topic in January 2003.

Hopefully, that prediction will turn out as accurate as my March Madness brackets do, the latest versions of which are less than 72 hours from demolishment.

But, if I were to go even further out on a limb and predict which state, New York would not be a bad prediction. Why? Well because on May 12, 2010, the New York Senate became the first house of any state legislative body to pass anti-bullying legislation which would create a private cause of action. Anti-Bullying Legislation Passes NY Senate. The bill did not pass the Assembly and so died at the end of the legislative session.

However, new legislative session and in the 150 member Assembly, AB 4965 was introduced on February 13th, with 74 sponsors. (Do the math, it is not pretty for opponents.) The companion bill S3863 was introduced in the Senate on February 25.

If you happen to live or do business in New York, you might check out some of the reasons why I think this legislation is so dangerous, see Bullying As a Cause of Action — One Large Step Closer.

And if you agree, please send a copy to your Senator or Assemblyman.

Quickly.

Stipulating Your Way Out of Federal Court

In certain parts of Texas, it is not uncommon for plaintiffs to stipulate that they will not demand or accept an amount in excess of $74,999.99 in order to avoid the amount in controversy requirement when the grounds for removal is diversity.

It works, and yesterday was explicitly sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court in The Standard Fire Insurance Co. Knowles (3/20/13):

Knowles also points out that federal courts permit individual plaintiffs, who are the masters of their complaints, to avoid removal to federal court, and to obtain a remand to state court, by stipulating to amounts at issue that fall below the federal jurisdictional requirement. That is so.  ... But the key characteristic about those stipulations is that they are legally binding on all plaintiffs.

But that was really not the point of the holding, just an explanation along the way to the real holding of the Court in Knowles: a plaintiff filing a Rule 23 class action, can not avoid federal jurisdiction by stipulating to an amount in controversy less than the $5 million threshold for removal under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005,  CAFA for short.

In a straight forward and unaminous decision, Justice Breyer makes a simple point. In order to avoid federal court the stipulation must be binding and no one has the power to bind future members of a class at the time of filing.

Expand Your Legal Skills With a Competent Lawyer Website

Like any other professional field, the domain of legal practicing is highly competitive. No matter in which country you are settled in, a bit of online search will reveal that there are numerous law firms that are ready to satisfy clients with varied range of legal assistance. The leading law firms of a country hire the brightest scholars, who passing every year from law schools and appoint them accordingly for addressing clients’ problems, depending on the lawyers’ area of expertise. Now, as the world goes web and e-commerce is the most effective source of doing business, almost every legal service providing organizations wishes to be on top of the Google search engine ranking. This allows them to attract customers, expand goodwill and earn significant amount of profit. It is not difficult to understand that web marketing is essential for law firms and this is where the importance of a lawyer website can be realized. Pondering over the increasing demand for web marketing solutions several websites h ave been launched that take complete care of the lawyer marketing. So, if you already have a website for your organization but haven’t yet been able to secure a reliable position in the web or planning to start an organization, feel free to assign one the reputable firms with the responsibility. Creating a potential impression for the clients through the website is important, no matter in which business you are in. This is equally true for a law firm. Thus, creating an appealing lawyer website and promotion of the same should be your primary target, provided all your resources are ready. The major responsibilities fulfilled by a lawyer marketing organization are: web design, search engine optimization (SEO), making the site ready for smartphone and tab users, preparing content, maintenance of the website and search engine marketing (SEM). You should choose such an organization only that provides all these services under the same roof. While this is cost effective, you also receive comprehensive range of benefits from one service provider. Selecting a lawyer marketing organization and contacting them can be daunting as you may not know the judging parameters for the same. First, you should be seeing the range of services that the lawyer website is offering. Check out whether the benefits that the site is providing match your requirement or not. While going through a lawyer website, you should also find out their blogs and how completely they are addressing the purpose of your organization. Even a small lawyers’ web marketing site may accomplish your requirement. So, take a note of the contact address and give them a call or personally visit them to clarify your doubts. A genuine organization will be more than happy to help you in this context. If you are an independent legal practitioner and wish to promote yourself to more number of potential clients, developing a lawyer website will surely be helpful. In such cases also a lawyer marketing organization can help you out, provided your budget matches their requirement. Always make sure to specify all your requirements correctly to the professionals and tell them to let you know of every step of progress made. by Maryparker

Reasons To Employ A Bankruptcy Lawyer Or Attorney?

Bankruptcy can be explained as a serious overuse injury in that somebody will no longer sports this capability to pay his or her obligations, or period once the amount of the loan basically will become higher than their possessions. This kind of horrible problem would happen to anybody, anytime. Unpaid charges or perhaps a delinquent amount borrowed extracted from a monetary establishment is usually a major source of get worried as well as psychological tension for a person. There has been a situation people have dropped unwell or have created various conditions because of the continual force of handing over the money they owe. Your collectors nowadays display tiny whim in relation to the difficulty of commercial collection agency. For all these kind of reasons it is even more crucial these days to be able to employ the Los Angeles bankruptcy lawyer. Bankruptcy attorneys in la do a very good task in terms of client satisfaction can be involved. A good bankruptcy law firm not merely aids in their expertise and also experience, and also bakes an effort to understand the emotions regarding their client. Often time’s individuals can be at night bankruptcy methods with no appointing a lawyer. Even so, make sure you make aid of an attorney in order to reduce pitfalls and for maintaining the actual tricky issue manageable. A new bankruptcy lawyer in la region is equipped with every one of the necessary characteristics for converting a case inside the positive route. The expertise of any bankruptcy lawyer can show crucial especially during filing the particular bankruptcy or seeking on an off shoot on your side. On this framework, a new California bankruptcy lawyer can prove more than convenient for the job together with his knowledge and experience. Generally, bankruptcy lawyers are anticipated to execute numerous functions simultaneously. Because of this things will get easily difficult if not managed good care and attention. Sooner or later, it boils down to the expertise of your law firm with his fantastic power to manage being forced. Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney in la are usually renowned for their sincerity and also credibility which have turn out to be uncommon currently between the attorneys across the world. When you choose to retain the services of lawyers out of this location, they would make suggestions for any obvious comprehension upon each of the legitimate issues required for true. Moreover, their particular help will make it easy so that you can understand the exact nature with the case. Therefore, armed with their legal services, you'd definitely be in an improved placement to make the appropriate choices as far as your bankruptcy case is worried. Which has a bankruptcy lawyer in la you'd certainly gain edge comes to studying such things as revenue as well as personal debt. This specific awareness can assist you to make appropriate motion on the perfect time together with your lawyer. Remember, filing the actual bankruptcy circumstance isn't finish, but merely a portion from the continuing method. A California bankruptcy lawyer as well as any attorney at law as an example would be right now there to help you out so as to. However, the actual steps and strategies for the method rely totally on the variety along with nature of your bankruptcy. Visit http://www.aminilawpractice.com/ for more information about california bankruptcy, california bankruptcy lawyer, Los Angeles bankruptcy lawyer, bankruptcy lawyer in la. by Riyazz Ali

Most IT Assets or Pc Instrumentation Will Cause Environmental Risks

Because of legislation that impacts the disposal of older, out-dated network and knowledge centre assets, it's become a reason that a lot of executives area unit asking "why ought to I take into account IT quality recovery?" Since most business organizations haven't got the required resources to hold out disposal of this instrumentation in an exceedingly reliable and secure manner, they're considering IT quality recovery services. These will check that that vital knowledge is disposed of during a exceedingly secure manner and your instrumentation is disposed of in an environmentally correct method. Most IT assets or pc instrumentation will cause environmental risks and cause legal liability problems, if not disposed of properly. The accountable utilization of electronic scrap, additionally called escarp, involves dismantlement, cathode-ray tube glass separation, shredding, final sorting, goods sales and news. It’s turning into progressively regulated and tougher to be in compliance with correct disposal and documentation of out-dated IT assets. Many firms area unit hiring IT quality recovery firms to handle all of the red-tape problems concerned, once change their pc networks, transferring vital knowledge and taking away the previous instrumentation. These firms will handle the vertical combination of disposal from pickup through utilization and management the chain of custody to assist scale back liability risks. Information has to bear quality recovery provision, tracking, check and audit, knowledge erasure and destruction, as a part of the IT quality recovery, to manage the retired assets expeditiously and firmly. It takes a large vary of services in IT quality recovery to make sure that you just area unit in compliance and also the knowledge contained on the previous instrumentation is secured and erased for security reasons. Even if a number of the previous IT quality instrumentation are often resold, you continue to ought to be assured that your confidential knowledge cannot be retrieved, particularly within the case wherever you have got business transactions that contain confidential or money data. Eliminating previous and out-dated network instrumentation is a lot of difficult than simply throwing it in an exceedingly container or deleting files and worksheets. as a result of the information is burned onto the disk drive of computers, it's attainable for an individual to retrieve knowledge that you just thought had been deleted. Some arduous drives create a backup copy of knowledge, even once the drive has been cleaned and reformatted. That’s however enforcement is ready to retrieve antecedently deleted data on criminal computers. IT quality recovery firms shrewdness to securely dispose or transfer the information and area unit subject to rigorous laws on compliance for data erasure and proper disposal or utilization of the instrumentation. the most effective associated most value economical method for many businesses is to rent the services of an IT quality recovery company, once upgrading their system, or taking away noncurrent network assets. Because the legal ramifications on compromised knowledge are often extreme and compliance on environmental laws carry stiff penalties, the foremost assured and competent thanks to lose IT quality’s is through a good IT asset recovery firm. they're going to handle all of the required following to take care you're in compliance which you'll be able to rest assured that your direction is unbroken secure. by Jeffrey Paine Attorney

Workers Compensations-An Outline of What You Should Know

Majority of people assume once they get injured while at work, they will be adequately covered by workers compensation. It is the general assumption medical bills will be covered and during the recuperation process, wages will get paid. Assumption is not a smart choice. Workers compensation is administered and paid by insurance companies and they always try to make things complicated. Consequently, having workers compensation does not guarantee that you will get paid for injuries that occur while on the job. In essence, this type of compensation was designed to reduce lawsuits between you and your boss. Workers compensation is designed to eliminate stress and conflict. In a nutshell, it is an uncomplicated and quick way of ensuring you get your wages and an assurance that medical bills will be covered. Rather than filing a lawsuit because injuries sustained during work, you start by filing for a claim with your workers compensation insurer. The insurer is supposed to carry out an investigation to determine you got injured while at work. Get a Lawyers Help Since you are dealing with an insurance company that serves the interests of the employer, you should speak with your attorney. For short absence from work and minor injuries, no major concerns arise. However, there are instances when the injuries might be severe necessitating longer absences from work. More often than not, this complicates things. Benefits for those Covered The benefits of workers compensation are pretty obvious. Those covered get wage replacement and medical expenses are covered. The work of the insurer is to protect the employer in order to prevent the possibility of a lawsuit. Fault is never an issue in this case and the coverage is effective it is established that: 1. You were injured while working for the employer 2. The relationship between you and the employer is existent. The employer is the person who hires, pays wages, withholds taxes, and dictates the time, place and manner in which duties are supposed to be performed. An employee is the one who collects wages and carries out duties in accordance to employer dictation and specified time. Therefore, self employed and independent contractors do not fall in the category of employer-employee relationships. For the workers compensation to be effected, where and the time you got the injury must be established. For instance, if you were working past the set work hours and you were not doing any work related task compensation is not offered. Majority of workers compensation policies requires a report of the activities preceding the injury. To be on the safe side and ensure you get fair representation, always consult with an attorney. by Gaurav Singh