Posts

As they used to sing on Broadway, the Wells Fargo wagon is a-coming, and this time it’s carrying a little something for investors in its auction-rate securities. California Attorney General, Edmund “Jerry” Brown, Jr., announced today that he has secured a settlement in which Wells will pay investors, charities and small businesses $1.4 billion over the purchase of auction rate securities from Wells subsidiaries based on “misleading advice.” Auction rate securities are investments that, under the Agreement between the Attorney General and the Wells Fargo parties, are “long-term bonds issued by municipalities, corporations and student loan companies, or perpetual equity instruments issued by closed end mutual funds, with variable interest rates that reset through a bidding process known as a Dutch auction....

ICM Partners have settled a lawsuit brought by two former interns, putting to rest claims in federal court that the interns performed the jobs of paid employees. The two interns claimed that they were unpaid, but didn’t actually receive any educational instruction while they were with ICM. Their claims are similar to various other unpaid intern suits in the entertainment industry, and Deadline reports that the ex-interns’ attorneys handled claims against Fox Searchlight and NBCUniversal as well....

The insanity defense is a fairly famous piece of law but it’s not always well explained. Even less well-understood is how ‘insanity’ can affect a trial before it’s even begun. The justice system assumes that defendants understand the gravity of their actions and know, at least on some level, that what they did was wrong. Sometimes that assumption doesn’t work out. In those cases, the court has to make a determination on whether to treat that defendant differently....

Actress Halle Berry is divorcing her French husband, actor Olivier Martinez. The two met on a movie set in 2010 and married in 2013 while she was pregnant with their child. “It is with a heavy heart that we have come to the decision to divorce,” the couple said in a joint statement to People. According to the magazine, sources said that the relationship had run its course. The couple, however, appears to harbor no ill will and wishes each other well....

On Monday, the FDA announced it would recommend against the use of the vaccine Rotarix made by GlaxoSmithKline until it can confirm it is completely safe to use. According to the Los Angeles Times, the vaccine was found by researchers to contain a pig virus called porcine circovirus 1, or PCV1. The drug is used to inoculate infants against rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhea and dehydration and is thought to cause more than 500,000 deaths in infants worldwide each year....

An Oregon woman who sued Equifax, the credit bureau, has won an $18.6 million jury award for credit-report errors that went unfixed for years. But the award could be significantly reduced upon appeal. Jurors found that Julie Miller’s credit, reputation, and financial stability were damaged by Equifax’s failure to correct mistakes in her credit report, despite her repeated complaints to the company, The Associated Press reports. The award included punitive damages which accounted for roughly 99 percent of Miller’s multimillion-dollar award....

Turns out the real George Zimmerman had a lot more money than what he revealed at his bail hearing last week, thanks to website donations. Prosecutors want Zimmerman’s bail increased accordingly, Reuters reports. Zimmerman’s website, TheRealGeorgeZimmerman.com, raised more than $200,000 from online donors before it was taken down, his lawyer Mark O’Mara disclosed Thursday. Zimmerman was released on $150,000 bail and remains in hiding; he faces a second-degree murder charge for killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin....

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) is alerting cell phone users about a so-called “One Ring” scam. According to the BBB, scammers are making thousands of automated calls to random cell phone numbers that ring once and disconnect. Some callers are curious enough to call the number back. Big deal, right? Well, as it turns out, you may be incurring huge cell phone charges when you return the “One Ring” call, which is how the fraudsters turn a profit....

“The Good Wife” came marching into its fifth season on Sunday with a fast-paced episode that covered death row appeals, employee privacy, and law firm politics. To kick off this new season, here’s our legal breakdown of “Everything is Ending”: Death row appeals sure are tense. Especially when – as the episode pointed out – Alicia’s firm has had 10 years to properly appeal the case, yet the lion’s share of the work is done in days....

The Wounded Warriors Support Group is a non-profit created to provide emotional support to wounded war veterans in the form of equestrian activities. But a recent lawsuit filed by the California State Attorney General claims that the organization is a fraud. This organization shouldn’t be confused with the Wounded Warriors Project, which is a legitimate charity. In short, a husband and wife, their two adult children, and the family’s two businesses, have all been implicated in a fraudulent charity scheme....

Jurors found eleven former Atlanta public school employees guilty of racketeering and other charges on Wednesday. The educators, and 21 others who took plea bargains before the trial, were accused of altering answers and coaching students to change answers on standardized tests. The cheating scandal encompassed 44 Atlanta public schools, with teachers, principals, and administrators under pressure to meet test score targets to get promotions and cash bonuses. The convicted educators could face up to 20 years in prison....

In the wake of the tragic Short Hills mall shooting that left a 30-year-old man dead in New Jersey, we are reminded that no one is immune to the threat of carjackings. While there is no guaranteed way to avoid being carjacked, you can still take certain precautions to reduce or minimize the potential of the crime happening to you. Here are seven carjacking tips every driver should keep in mind:...

In addition to fines and jail time, a DUI conviction can often result in a defendant being sentenced to probation. Probation is a criminal penalty that permits a person convicted of a crime to be released back into society. However, an individual on probation does not enjoy the same level of freedom as a typical citizen. The conditions of a person’s probation generally depend on the crime for which the conditions are being imposed, but they generally dictate the things a probationer must and must not do....

They say any press is good press. A candid shot of a celebrity may be good press for the star, but it can have some serious penalties for the man behind the lens. Paparazzi beware: California is set to enact a new anti-paparazzi law. Assembly Bill 2479, currently awaiting the John Hancock of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is aimed at curbing the reckless behavior some celebrity photographers engage in when it comes to driving and other traffic laws....

How determined should authorities be to collect evidence from a reluctant suspect? Should they be allowed to strap someone down on a hospital gurney and take urine using a catheter without the person’s permission but with a warrant? What if the warrant doesn’t specify catheterization but simply authorizes police to collect blood or urine generally? These are the questions that one South Dakota defendant, Dirk Landon Sparks, is asking after undergoing a forced catheterization to collect his urine....

Perfectly reasonable laws can sometimes lead to some wacky lawsuits. Usually, it’s due to some lawyer with a novel theory on how to apply the law. Recently, a Pennsylvania judge dismissed one such wacky lawsuit against the Sands Casino. Basically, a Pennsylvania man sued the casino claiming that he suffered damages because he was convicted of battering his fiance there. He claimed that the casino was at fault for serving him too much alcohol....

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: two guys walk onto a plane… Actually, I read that one on Twitter. At least, that’s what one long-time joke writer is saying about a joke Conan O’Brien told on-air, allegedly the same night the writer posted it online. Coincidence? Or yet another incidence of joke theft in the modern world? Boy Are My Arms Tired Robert Kaseberg is suing Conan, TBS, and others for lifting jokes Kaseberg posted on his blog and Twitter....

With a 5-4 vote, the D.C. Court of Appeals has upheld same-sex marriage in D.C. The appeal came after a Superior Court judge sided with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, which had rejected an initiative to have the gay marriage issue decided by popular vote rather than the D.C. Council. The council had voted to allow same-sex marriage last December. Last May, attorneys representing opponents of gay marriage, supported by the group National Organization for Marriage, argued before the D....

Detroit has long been known as The Motor City. But it now has a new auto-related nickname: Carjack City. Carjackings have become so pervasive in Detroit, reports The Associated Press, that residents are in fear of stopping for gas and have started rolling stop signs in bad parts of town to avoid potential armed car thieves. But whether you live in Detroit, Newark, New Jersey (which actually has a higher per capita rate of carjacking than Detroit), or anywhere else, there are some easier ways to avoid getting carjacked than running stop signs....

Scooters and mopeds have long since lost their social stigma. Now they seem to be the vehicle du jour on college campuses nationwide. Also, as cheap and relatively easy-to-ride vehicles, motorized scooters are often the go-to beach vacation rental ride of choice. And if there’s one trait that these two groups share, it is a propensity to imbibe alcoholic beverages. While scooters and mopeds might not seem like “real cars,” you’d better believe that the DUI you can get while riding one is very real....