California lemon law rules

The case involves nine public school students who challenged several provisions of California’s Education Code that govern K-12 public school teachers’ employment. The basis of the challenge is that the tenure, dismissal, and layoff laws result in grossly ineffective teachers being transferred to lower-performing schools with predominantly minority and low-income populations, rather than being terminated; and that; therefore, those students receive an inferior education.  Several associations representing school boards, school superintendents, and school administrators filed amicus briefs in support of the students’ position that the laws are unconstitutional. … [Read more...] about California Teacher Tenure Laws Upheld by Appellate Court

Action Taken After Numerous Legal and Legislative Attempts at Solution FailedThe last ten years have seen numerous corporations and industries push legislation that protects them from civil action and this includes the nursing care industry. Two Supreme Court decisions made in 2011 and 2013 made it both possible and easy for companies to use these clauses and nearly impossible for consumers to have them overturned. Whether or not a victim understood the clause at the time of signing is irrelevant as well, as indicated by an appeals court judgement that refused to allow the dismissal of an arbitration clause on the grounds that the man who signed it was unable to read. … [Read more...] about Government Agency Denies Funding to Nursing Homes Requiring Arbitration Clauses

Indeed, debt collectors have become big targets. There is a fast-growing cottage industry of lawyers suing debt collectors, including other lawyers, under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1978. According to Jack Gordon, a former debt collector who sells litigation data through his WebRecon site, the number of cases nationwide more than doubled to 9,365 in 2009 from 4,372 in 2007. He projects the 2010 tally will reach 11,394, a 22 percent increase. (His statistics reflect a count of plaintiffs in each claim, and a small number of suits have more than one.) … [Read more...] about Payback: Lawyers on Both Sides of Collection are Feeling Debt’s Sting

Applying State Farm, the California 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno held that the standard instruction jurors used unconstitutionally failed to restrict the amount of the punitives. The panel also blamed plaintiffs lawyers for mag­­nifying the problem by asking for $1 billion. The lawyers argued that the amount would force the automaker to recall all remaining 1978-79 Broncos and “crush them to dust” and generate publicity that “would reach all owners of this model Bronco so they would know how dangerous this vehicle was.” The court reduced the punitives to $23.7 million. 113 Cal. App. 4th 738 (2003). … [Read more...] about Punitive Precision

In May 2014, the Trust acting on behalf of the estate of Randy Wolfe (a/k/a Randy California) of the rock group Spirit filed a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin related to the first chords in the band’s most famous song, “Stairway to Heaven.” See Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin, 15-cv-03462, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles). The Trust brought the case against Led Zeppelin after a 2014 Supreme Court decision opened the door for a broader interpretation of the time frame to seek damages for copyright infringement under the U.S. Copyright Act. See Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 1962 (2014). The Petrella decision limited the application of the defense of laches and permitted lawsuits to be brought involving older copyrighted works with more recent acts of infringement that fall within the statute of limitations pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 507(b). Hence, in the Skidmore case, despite the decades-old circulation of … [Read more...] about Led Zeppelin Prevails in Copyright Infringement Case: Now on Appeal in Ninth Circuit