I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
PA Legislators Finally Develop Sympathy… For Illegal Gun Sales
The Republican Party controls both the Governorship and the General Assembly in Harrisburg, and they have made it one of their top priorities to prevent injured workers, consumers, and patients from receiving fair compensation for their preventable injuries. Back in September, I wrote about this attack on Pennsylvanians’ rights, discussing a legislative alert put out by the Pennsylvania Association for Justice which described some of the bills that Republican legislators had proposed as a means of further eroding Pennsylvania's civil justice system. Those bills included, for example, HB 304, which would impose a 15 year statute of repose in all ... Continue Reading
Pregnancy Is (Legally) Like A Disability If Employers Accommodate Temporarily Disabled Workers
Via Eric B. Mayer's Twitter feed, I saw that a few days ago the Wall Street Journal's blog for working parents, The Juggle, posted on a hot legal issue these days, "Should Pregnancy Be Treated as a Disability?" A recent study by a University of Dayton law professor, Jeannette Cox, asserts that pregnant women should be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, to protect them from being fired or forced to perform labor that could be harmful to mother or child. (The paper is forthcoming in March in the Boston College Law Review.) The ADA doesn’t recognize pregnancy as a disability, leaving pregnant women physically ... Continue Reading
Employer Violations Of Wage Payment And Overtime Laws Remain Depressingly Common
There was a recent thread on Reddit titled, "Hey Reddit, what's your best 'I got fired on the spot' story?" Included are plenty of the types of stories you would expect, like employees playing pranks on one another and employees who got so fed up with their jobs they stopped doing them and were fired in response. But a disturbing trend emerged: many were fired illegally. Consider these examples, which I've edited down for space: The next day I [a waitress] went into work and my boss FIRED me for stealing money from those [rude customers]. They told her that I'd ... Continue Reading
Can Sandusky’s Sexual Abuse Victims Sue Penn State?
[UPDATE, November 30, 2011: A previously unknown victim has filed a civil lawsuit against Sandusky, Penn State, and the Second Mile. A copy of the complaint is available here; it alleges the theories I described below, plus claims of negligent and intentional misrepresentation. There's nothing wrong with those claims, but I don't think they add much value. Intriguingly, the Complaint says the victim was 10 years old in 1992 — which means the statute of limitations turns on his birthday. If he turned 18 before August 27, 2000, he can't use the 2002 amendments to preserve his claim, and will instead have ... Continue Reading
Occupy Philadelphia City Hall And The First Amendment
The Occupy Wall Street mass protests have come to Pennsylvania, including in particular Philadelphia City Hall. If you don't know the details, Naked City has an interview with one of the Occupy Philadelphia organizers. According to the news articles, a "legal representative," whoever that may be, has handed out to protesters a pamphlet explaining their legal rights, but I haven't been able to find a copy of that online. If you’re going to protest, you owe it to yourself to print out and keep with you these two handouts from the Pennsylvania ACLU: You and the Police: Rights, Responsibilities and ... Continue Reading
Can Jaycee Dugard Sue The Government For Negligent Parole Supervision?
I've written several times before how difficult it is to sue the government for failing to do its job, like how you can't sue the police department for failing to enforce a court order. It's tough to sue the government even when they wrongly entrap and then kill your son for the trivial 'crime' of sports betting. The government doesn't even need to train its prosecutors in the basics of constitutional law. "Civil rights" is a tough area in which to practice law, if you're representing the plaintiffs. There aren't "typical" civil rights cases, because typical isn't good enough under ... Continue Reading
Can The West Memphis Three Sue For Wrongful Imprisonment?
The "West Memphis Three" have long been a cause célèbre, for good reason: the case had all the hallmarks of a railroad prosecution, from hysteria over Satanism to a coerced confession by a minor with a well below average I.Q. to the lack of any forensic evidence or eyewitness testimony connecting Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to the brutal murder of three young boys in 1993. NPR's blog sums up much of the story: The original convictions, based on a theory that Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley killed the three children as part of a Satanic ritual, were the ... Continue Reading
Perdue v. Kenny A. Keeps On Punishing Class Action Lawyers
I complained back when the Supreme Court's Perdue v. Kenny A. opinion first came out more than a year ago, knocking down attorney's fees awarded to a set of extraordinary children's rights lawyers: It’s no stretch to say those lawyers single-handedly reformed the foster care system in metropolitan Atlanta. And they did that by spending their own money and putting in their own time, with no guarantee they would recoup any of their out-of-pocket costs, much less get paid a fee for their services. Had they been paid by the hour as they went along, their services would have been ... Continue Reading
Supreme Court Term In Review For Consumers, Employees and Injured Persons
It's that time of year again. The United States Supreme Court, the least productive court in the nation, is back on summer recess until October. Let's review what they imposed upon us over the past nine months. I've written before about the problems with the Supreme Court. They change the rules of their own games to reach preferred results. They brush off facts they don't want to deal with. Even if they get things right, they write opinions of minimal use to lower courts, much less practicing attorneys. To add insult to injury, they give out hypocritical and erroneous advice ... Continue Reading
Coal Cares Hoax: Free Speech & Satire vs. Trademark Liability
It was quite funny, if you're into dark humor. Yesterday a group affiliated with the prankster Yes Men set up a "Coal Cares" website which, while falsely claiming affiliation with the very real coal company Peabody Coal, offered free children’s-themed asthma inhalers to any family living within a 200 mile radius of a coal plant. They then offered up such compelling facts in "favor" of coal as: Wind Kills Wind turbines can kill up to 70,000 birds per year, or 4.27 birds per turbine per year. Coal particulate pollution, on the other hand, kills fewer than 13,000 people per year. ... Continue Reading
