From Our Desk
Recreational-Use Immunity for Golf Injury
The purpose of recerational-use tort immunity statutes, which are common across the country, is to encourage private and public landowners to make their property available for public recreational use. To advance this public interest, these laws usually immunize the owners or occupants of real property from negligence liability toward people entering the land for recreation, […]
Real Estate Deals Gone Wrong
The ageless advice to read, understand, and expect to be bound by language in a contract you sign is as sound now as ever. It is especially important with respect to contracts to buy real property, where the financial stakes are often high. Jerome contracted to buy property, delivering a $5,000 deposit to be credited […]
Protect Your Plastic
As new technologies change the way we pay for things, criminals are managing to keep pace as they devise ways to separate you from your money. Doing what you can to protect yourself is one part of understanding the technology and at lease equal portions of vigilance and common sense. Still, we can all benefit […]
Estimated Taxes for Business Owners
Estimated tax is the method used to pay tax on income that isn’t subject to withholding, most notably earnings from self-employment. Many owners of small business—whether operates as S corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies electing partnership taxation, or sole proprietorships—pay their estimated tax using the same IRS Form 1040-ES that individuals use. Payments of estimated […]
When is an Employee a “Supervisor”?
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits the creation of a harassing hostile work environment based on sex or race. To hold the employer liable for the harassment, the plaintiff must show that the work environment was so pervaded by discrimination that the terms and conditions of employment were altered. Isolated or […]
Long Arm of the Law
Long-arm statutes permit a court in a particular state to bring within its jurisdictional reach non resident persons who, by their actions, have had at least such “minimum contacts” with the forum state that it is fair and just to subject them to the powers of a court in that state. In earlier times such […]
Weather the Storm
Superstorm Sandy and, before that, Hurricane Katrina were just two of many dramatic reminders that millions of us are vulnerable to destructive storms that cause injuries, deaths, and property damage on a scale that is often hard to comprehend. But even a comparatively minor storm that doesn\’t dominate the headlines can wreak havoc with those […]
Careful Whom You Add to Accounts
Various types of bank accounts held in the name of a single individual or entity have the virtue of simplicity and the added bonus that the account holder does not have to wait to make decisions until after a consensus has been reached with others. But sometimes other considerations make it desirable to add someone […]
New HIPAA Rule
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has adopted a new rule concerning privacy and security for health information, to take into account changes that have occurred in health care since enactment of the Health Insurance Privacy and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. Some of the key features in the 563-page final rule are […]