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Katrina storm surge insurance case remanded
Breaking Legal News |
2006/12/28 19:40
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US Senior District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. of the US Southern District of Mississippi remanded to Mississippi state court Wednesday a key Hurricane Katrina case involving whether insurance exclusion clauses for flood damage mean that storm surge damages are excluded as well. With state courts being typically more plaintiff-friendly in interpreting such insurance clauses, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said the ruling was a step towards a fair resolution for the people of Mississippi, and used the opportunity to again call for the insurance companies, including State Farm, Allstate, and Nationwide to negotiate a settlement, as well as make a public call for national insurance reform. The case will now be heard by Judge Denise Sweet Owens in the Chancery Court of Hinds County. There have been numerous Katrina-related insurance cases in Mississippi over the past year. In August, Judge Senter ruled that Nationwide Insurance was not obligated to cover a policyholder's claims for water damage caused by the hurricane because “provisions of the Nationwide policy that exclude coverage for damages caused by water are valid and enforceable terms of the insurance contract†and “similar policy terms have been enforced with respect to damage caused by high water associated with hurricanes in many reported decisions.†|
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Samsung: What's for Dinner? Ask the Fridge
World Business News |
2006/12/28 19:31
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Samsung Electronics, is now developing a futuristic refrigerator equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. Samsung on Wednesday said the refrigerators will inform owners when supplies of products are running low. "We are working on refrigerators wired for RFID. Technologically speaking, there is no barrier to come up with the new items," Samsung spokesman Chae Hee-kook said. "The refrigerator will be able to connect to cell phones for various new-concept applications," Chae said. The RFID refrigerator will automatically sense inventory needs such as when milk or juices run low and will then notify its owner. In addition to the early-warning inventory system, the sophisticated home appliance will offer recipes using available food products. Via cell phones, shoppers will be able to check what groceries in their refrigerators are over their expiry date and what needs to be replenished. "Eventually the RFID refrigerator, when programmed, will be able to take charge of replenishment and re-order after checking for depleted groceries," Chae said. "Shoppers will go to the store to see new grocery orders already packed on their arrival. Or, the items will be delivered to their homes thanks to the smart appliance," Chae said. Despite its prospects, it is uncertain when Samsung will unveil the refrigerator since the appliance will be of use only when perishable items adopt RFID tags. "Some foretell 2008 or 2009 as the debut year of our RFID fridges. But we can’t say for sure because nobody knows when RFID tags will become widespread," Chae said. The RFID tag is a small integrated-circuit chip with a radio and identification code embedded into it, which can be scanned from a distance. The tiny tags that emit radio waves are likely to replace barcodes. More precisely, they would go far beyond barcodes thanks to its unique ability to contain information. A host of retailers are presently testing smart shelves incorporated with RFID technologies that track in-store inventory based on real-time purchases. This allows them to anticipate demand and replenish stock earlier than ever. The techniques also enable distributors to trace products in real time irrespective of their locations. In the future, the cutting-edge technology may be used in the fields of livestock tracking, highway toll collection and premium product manufacturing. |
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Court restores voting rights of 100,000 jail inmates
Court Watch |
2006/12/28 19:21
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A state appeals court is restoring the voting rights of about 100,000 local jail inmates statewide who are serving a year or less for felony convictions. The state said it would not appeal last week's decision from the 1st District Court of Appeal. The affected inmates were eligible to vote until last year, when the state disenfranchised them. For three decades, California's secretary of state had interpreted the state Constitution as barring voting by those in state prisons and those on parole after their release. The appeals court said the state wrongly changed the policy last year to include persons convicted of felonies but sentenced to a year or less in a local county jail. The League of Women Voters brought the case on behalf of three San Francisco County jail inmates. |
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McCarter & English Taps Litigator Charles A. Yuen
Law Firm News |
2006/12/28 19:20
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McCarter & English, LLP, has added litigator Charles Allen Yuen to their team of over 400 attorneys in the Northeast. Her will be an active part of their Newark office and be a Special Counsel in the Insurance Coverage Practice Group. Yuen has experience in handling complex insurance coverage lawsuits nationally. He provides coverage-related advise clients regarding all lines of commercial insurance. He also is experienced in intellectual property, franchise, environmental, and product liability disputes. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School (J.D. 1985) and Princeton University (B.S.E. 1982), Yuen has been widely published, including articles which are regularly submitted to appellate courts by litigants. He joins McCarter & English after representing corporations for thirteen years at New Jersey's Pitney Hardin LLP and six years at New York firms.
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Court Reprimands Ohio Governor Over Gifts
Legal Business |
2006/12/28 19:17
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Governor Bob Taft (R-OH) Wednesday received a public reprimand from the Ohio Supreme Court for ethics violations stemming from charges that he received over 50 gifts worth up to $6,000 during four years in office. The reprimand will be a permanent mark on his record as an attorney, but while the justices had the option of issuing a stronger punishment in their 6-0 opinion, they cited Taft's previously clean record as a lawyer and otherwise unblemished record in public office. In 2005, Taft pleaded no contest and was fined for the original charges, however in April of this year a disciplinary action was initiated by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, part of the Ohio Supreme Court tasked with monitoring lawyer behavior. That office determined that Taft had violated the Ohio Code of Professional Responsibility by accepting the gifts. Taft did not seek re-election due to term limits, and is leaving office in less than 2 weeks. He has said that he would be more interested in teaching than in returning to practicing law. |
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Podiatrist to appeal tax conviction
Tax |
2006/12/28 19:14
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A podiatrist is appealing his federal-court conviction and two-year prison sentence for tax evasion, but a federal judge says the doctor must still report to prison on Jan. 5. Dr. Clifford B. Marston of Gassville operated Sunshine Foot Clinics at Mountain Home and Harrison. The 57-year-old was convicted in May of tax evasion and filing false income tax returns. Marston was sentenced to 26 months in prison and ordered to pay about $300,000 in restitution and fines. U.S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren denied a request from Marston to remain free on bond while his appeal proceeds, and ordered him to report to prison on Jan. 5. Marston filed a notice of appeal in federal court at Harrison on Dec. 22. He said last year that the IRS had misapplied regulations and he believed that most Americans do not have taxable income. |
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DOJ Asks Federal Court to Bar Tax Preparer
Law Center |
2006/12/28 14:27
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WASHINGTON - The Justice Department announced today that it has sued a federal income tax preparer in U.S. District Court in Miami seeking to bar her from preparing tax returns for others. According to the government’s civil injunction complaint, Tashanna McFarland of Miramar, Fla., prepared federal tax returns claiming fraudulent fuel tax credits, a scam that the complaint explains is a serious enforcement problem for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The suit alleges that McFarland operates her tax preparation business out of a booth at a flea market in Miami. Federal law imposes a fuel tax on gasoline and diesel fuel sold in the United States. The tax is included in the purchase price at the pump. Businesses can claim a fuel tax credit in certain rare circumstances, but most businesses and consumers who use cars or trucks on roads and highways are not eligible for the credit. According to the government’s complaint, McFarland claimed the fuel credit on her customers’ returns so they could claim tax refunds to which they were not entitled. The complaint says that on a return for one customer—a babysitter—McFarland claimed that the customer purchased 16,451 gallons of gasoline for business-related purposes. The suit notes that for such a claim to be accurate, the babysitter (whose total income for the year was $9,316) would have had to spend approximately $36,192 for gasoline that year—nearly four times her total income—and would had to have driven approximately 246,765 miles during the year, an average of 676 miles each day, seven days a week. The government complaint alleges that McFarland has prepared at least 970 returns since 2003 and the IRS has identified over $1.5 million dollars in fraudulent fuel tax credits on McFarland-prepared returns. “People who have their returns prepared by others should review them carefully to make sure they are truthful,†said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “The preparer who seems to be saving you taxes now is setting you up for trouble later, when the IRS realizes that you filed a false return and obtained a larger refund, or paid less in taxes, than you should have.†“This problem is primarily being caused by unscrupulous tax return preparers located across the country," said Kathy Petronchak, Commissioner of the IRS Small Business / Self Employed Division. "The IRS is working closely with the Department of Justice to stop this behavior." Since 2001, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained more than 215 injunctions to stop the promotion of tax fraud schemes and the preparation of fraudulent returns. |
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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