Posts

Ever since the ‘Welfare Queen’ craze in the early ’80s, the specter of fraud has hung over any public assistance program, from Medicaid to food stamps. And, to be sure, that fraud exists, from a recently dubbed “Food Stamp Millionaire” to single cases of misreporting income and insurance payouts to sweeping dragnets uncovering over 70 food stamp fraudsters. In fact, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, assistance program fraud cost federal and state governments around $136....

Nearly a year ago, Airbnb filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco, challenging a law the city passed attempting to regulate their disruption of the hotel industry. The legislation not only required Airbnb host-users to register with the city and adhere to strict limits, the city made it illegal for the company to collect fees from the host-users that were not registered with the city as short-term rental providers....

For some reason, the media appears to be surprised that ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil has been left out of Amy Winehouse’s will, which is set to disseminate a fortune estimated to be between $15 and $30 million. The pair was divorced in 2009 after a two-year marriage that was often riddled with violence, drugs, co-dependence, and criminal charges. In fact, Fielder-Civil is currently serving a 32 month sentence for burglary and possession of an imitation firearm....

Baxter Healthcare Corporation, manufacturer of the injectable blood-thinning drug heparin, has temporarily stopped producing multiple-dose vials of the drug, after receiving reports of serious allergic reactions and low blood pressure in patients, according to a Press Release from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA reports that four people have died after receiving heparin (although the relationship to the drug is unclear), and 350 other adverse reactions so far this year have included difficulty breathing, nausea, and rapidly falling blood pressure that can lead to life-threatening shock....

Joe Francis has even more to add to his gambling tab after the jury’s ruling in his current lawsuit. The ‘Girls Gone Wild’ founder was sued by Steve Wynn back in 2008 but the issues, and the debt, keep mounting. The most recent court ruling is in and the jury again sided with Wynn and awarded him several million more than his attorneys’ request for $12 million. If you haven’t been following the case or heard Francis’s statements about Wynn, here’s a quick primer on the Casino mogul’s complaints up to this point....

The parents of the married couple who died in a Lexus ES350 loaner vehicle given to them by a southern California Lexus dealer filed a products liability and negligence lawsuit (see below) in a California state court Tuesday afternoon seeking unspecified damages from Toyota and car dealer Bob Baker Lexus. The lawsuit was filed by the parents of California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor, the parents of the CHP officer’s wife Cleofe Lastrella Saylor, grandparents of the couple’s 13-year-old daughter Mahala Saylor, and Christopher....

A number of grocery store chains have pulled jalapeno peppers from their produce aisles, after federal health officials announced that a strain of salmonella bacteria linked to a nationwide outbreak was detected on a jalapeno pepper. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s warning on jalapenos came Monday, after Salmonella Saintpaul bacteria was detected on a raw jalapeno pepper imported from Mexico and found at Agricola Zaragoza, a produce distributor in McAllen, Texas....

Federal trade regulators are cracking down on shady companies that promise foreclosure rescue services to homeowners struggling to make mortgage payments and stay in their homes. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed two key lawsuits in the last month, action meant to help protect thousands of consumers from falling victim to foreclosure rescue scams. In a press release issued Wednesday, the FTC announced that it has filed a lawsuit against National Foreclosure Relief, Inc....

A GM SUV recall and a Honda minivan recall are in full swing, adding to the staggering number of vehicles being recalled as of late. General Motors has had a tough time with recalls lately. The U.S. Department of Justice recently launched a formal investigation into GM for allegedly failing to address dangerous safety problems for years before issuing a separate recall affecting compact cars. What are the GM and Honda recalls about this time around?...

The Motion Picture Association of America’s massive copyright infringement lawsuit against Hotfile has been settled outside of court, with the MPAA winning big. But what does the high-profile Hollywood settlement entail, and how will it affect the future of cyberlockers like Hotfile? The MPAA, which represents America’s major movie studios, sued Hotfile over copyright violations in 2011, reports CNET. Two years later, the MPAA will collect an $80 million settlement from Hotfile....

Maybe you’re not tired, so you can stay up and drink more. Or it could be that you feel clear-headed, and don’t think you’re drunk. Or perhaps with more energy comes more risk-taking behavior. Either way, scientists have linked the consumption of highly caffeinated energy drinks (EDs) with higher incidents of drunk driving. So at this point, the why of the matter might not be as important as how to avoid a DUI associated with energy drinks....

This Wednesday (April 15th) is the deadline for filing your federal income tax return with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). That means many in our nation of procrastinators are still getting their tax returns together so they can file just in time. With that in mind, the IRS is offering some helpful last-minute advice for taxpayers: File and Pay On Time. The IRS says: “Taxpayers who owe taxes and don’t file their tax return by the deadline may face interest on the unpaid taxes and a failure-to-file penalty....

Some would argue that pepper spray has replaced the Taser as law enforcement’s crowd control weapon of choice. After all, it’s played a prominent role in Occupy Wall Street protests across the country. But it seems that pepper spray has also caught on amongst the masses. A Black Friday shopper in Southern California sprayed fellow Walmart deal hunters. On Tuesday, a 14-year-old high school student in Harlem sprayed her classmates, sending 9 of them to the hospital....

Katie Holmes’ car crash with a garbage truck left the divorcing actress and daughter Suri a bit shaken but unhurt. The parties involved are now likely trying to figure out who will pay for damages. Holmes, 33, and Suri, 6, had hopped into a black Mercedes Benz sedan about 9:30 p.m. Monday, after the girl’s gymnastics class in Manhattan, the New York Daily News reports. A driver, not Holmes, was behind the wheel....

Is corporate America is urging the Supreme Court of the United States to support same-sex marriage? More than 200 companies signed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting gay marriage. The brief urges the Supreme Court to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that limits marriage to heterosexual couples, reports Reuters. Some of the companies that signed the brief include Microsoft, Google, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs. Generally, the argument is that DOMA forces employers to treat employees with same-sex spouses differently than those with opposite-sex partners, writes Reuters....

Proposed class action settlements are often rejected by judges. But one particular class action settlement was so bad, a federal appellate judge threw both the lead plaintiff and his counsel out of the case. The case before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a class action settlement over allegedly leaky windows manufactured by the Pella company, reports Forbes. What irked Judge Richard Posner was that Paul Weiss, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, inserted his father-in-law as a named plaintiff and negotiated himself a $2 million advance on his fees....

Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the reputed head of the Masjid al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, Michigan, was killed in a firefight with FBI agents yesterday after federal law enforcement officials converged upon a warehouse to arrest Abdullah and his followers on criminal conspiracy charges following a two-year long investigation According to the criminal complaint in the case (see below), Abdullah and his “group of mostly African-American converts to Islam [sought] to establish a separate Sharia-law governed state within the United States....

Police are preparing to arrest Cinco de Mayo lawbreakers, and many are planning patrols and checkpoints to nab felonious fiesta-goers. Luckily (or shall we say, afortunademente), there are many ways to avoid a Cinco de Mayo-related arrest. Here are siete (seven) legal tips you’ll want to keep in mind: Yes, DUI checkpoints are generally legal. And while you are going through one, you should really mind your p’s and q’s. Keep in mind, however, that most police departments will advertise where and when these checkpoints will occur, in an attempt to dissuade Cinco de Mayo partiers from drinking and driving....

Let’s be honest, we’ve all probably driven a rental car that we weren’t allowed to. Maybe a friend rented the car for a road trip and didn’t feel like putting four people on the rental agreement. Or your parents rented a car to visit you, and you decided to run a quick errand in it. Either way, you violated the terms of the car rental agreement. But does that violation mean you don’t have the same expectation of privacy as the registered driver?...

The Supreme Court had a busy day today, one which was reportedly punctuated with an exclamation point. At least, that is, as far as Chrysler and various pension funds were concerned. Late today, the Supreme Court issued an order putting a screeching halt to the sale of Chrysler to Italian car maker Fiat. No reason was reportedly given for the order, and it is unclear when the Court will resolve the issue....