We may not all know the term emoji, but we have all seen them or used them. Emojis are small digital images or icons used to express an idea or emotion online. The term is only a couple of decades old and derives from the Japanese words e, a picture, and moji, a letter or character.
Joseph Greenwald & Laake, PA Blog - all
Posted on Thu, 2017-10-05 16:53 by Paul F. Riekhof in Trusts Estates
A recent survey shows that the majority of Americans do not have an estate plan – in the form of either a will or a living trust – in place. Among Americans 72 years old and above, 81 percent do have an estate plan, but 78 percent of millennials (ages 18-36), 64 percent of Generation X individuals (ages 37 to 52) and 40 percent of people between 53 and 71 years old do not have a will.
Posted on Wed, 2017-10-04 10:45 by in
Two recent rulings from Maryland’s highest court have clarified the legal sufficiency of the data underlying expert causation testimony in lead paint cases.
Posted on Mon, 2017-09-18 15:42 by David Bulitt in
On August 7, 2017, the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, handed down a decision that will open a new avenue of defense to battered spouses in the state – in the extreme case where the spouse hires a hit man to kill the abuser.
Posted on Tue, 2017-09-05 10:36 by Burt M. Kahn in Medical Malpractice
Early this summer, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill (H.R. 1215 the deceptively titled “Protecting Access to Care Act”) that would limit the “non-economic” money damages available to patients in medical malpractice cases nationwide to $250,000. This bill is a “solution” to something that is not a problem and would be harmful to tens of thousands of people who suffer serious injuries every year from mistakes by doctors, hospitals, pharmacists and other health-care providers.
Posted on Wed, 2017-06-28 16:33 by Jay P. Holland in
The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Monday, June 26, that it plans to hear arguments later this year on a case that is of great importance to corporate whistleblowers and to people who support them.
The case centers on the Dodd-Frank law, which was passed by Congress in 2010 in the wake of the financial meltdown and provides major protections for whistleblowers, such as freedom from retaliation and potentially large cash awards for pointing out corporate wrongdoing.
Posted on Wed, 2017-05-31 15:04 by Jay P. Holland in False Claims Act
Federal government employees are often in an excellent position to know about waste, fraud and abuse in government programs and to quietly inform others of what they know in order to punish wrongdoing, spur change and save the government vast sums of money. When they inform Congress, for example, about potentially illegal or wasteful practices in their agencies, federal employees are acting as whistleblowers – and they are protected under their own whistleblower statutes.
Posted on Wed, 2017-05-31 14:44 by in
Debtor/Credit – Civil Procedure
Cassandra Murray v. Midland Funding, LLC, No. 2280, Sept. Term, 2015 (Md. Ct. Spec. App., April 26, 2017).
http://www.mdcourts.gov/opinions/cosa/2017/2280s15.pdf
Posted on Thu, 2017-05-25 12:20 by Brian J. Markovitz in Labor Law
More and more frequently, employers are evading the legal requirement to pay overtime to their employees by choosing to pay them on a salaried basis instead of an hourly wage, and then telling the employees that they’re not entitled to overtime because they have an “exempt” job title. But often this practice amounts to nothing more than illegal wage theft from workers who should be classified as hourly and are being denied overtime pay that they deserve.
Posted on Thu, 2017-05-04 14:58 by Veronica Nannis in
Did you know that sometimes civil health care fraud can result in criminal convictions? It’s rare. But when it happens, it ruins lives, careers and risks serious patient harm. What might start small, can quickly snowball when greed eclipses medical judgment. When supervision and peer review get overshadowed by revenue, civil fraud can be a crime.
Civil fraud turned criminal charges
Just some of the media headlines discussing civil-fraud-turned-criminal have included: