Ohio

Cellphone/Texting legislation

Posted on August 26, 2009
It's almost axiomatic ? philosophically, at least ? that mankind's technological advances & evolution will always out-pace his own. Somewhere along the line, the law often comes in. An article in last Thursday's Columbus Dispatch said, "the issue du jour for Ohio legislators appears to be making sure drivers keep their eyes on the road, and not on a cell phone with legislators having introduced

State traffic standards

Posted on August 21, 2009
USAToday.com last Wednesday morning reported that many "states were trying to put the brakes on bad driving by targeting 'super speeders,' lane hogs and those guilty of multiple moving violations." "The moves," the article says, "come as a growing body of evidence suggests that aggressive driving ? including speeding, tailgating, changing lanes without signaling, ignoring traffic signals and

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency

Posted on August 21, 2009
Healthcare reform has been getting most of the attention on Capitol Hill and in the national press lately, but for home buyers, sellers, and mortgage applicants, the legislative ballgame will really get underway later in September, when Congress begins work on the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency...

Federal court records:PACER/"RECAP"

Posted on August 18, 2009
Carolyn Elefant, a practicing solo attorney in Washington, D.C., yesterday posted that "PACER, the federal government's system for Public Access to Court Electronic Records, was originally intended to make court filings more accessible to litigants and the public at large...

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Revising Federal "cookie" policy

Posted on August 12, 2009
The Office of Management & Budget (OMB) is in the process of "considering options for revising the federal government's prohibition on web-tracking technology such as 'cookies,'" with a goal of protecting the privacy of persons visiting federal government web sites while simultaneously making those sites more user-friendly & allow enhanced analytics...

Are Briefs Copyrightable?

Posted on August 11, 2009
Our thanks to the Cleveland Law Library, the Law Librarian Blog, and the Volokh Conspiracy for this one. "Briefs filed in court are part of the proceeding's official record, but distribution of them by Lexis, Westlaw and other commercial online service providers may infringe on the copyright of their authors," the Law Librarian Blog reported back on July 24th...

Quick Clear Law

Posted on August 11, 2009
Removal of highway obstruction: "Ohio Quick Clear Law"ORC 4513.66Effective Date: 2008 SB129 12-30-2008Ohio Department of Transportation on QuickClearBest Practices

Copyright, Trademarks & 'Fair Use' Eastern Pa. case

Posted on August 10, 2009
A U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania decision last week made some "important new law and set a few significant precedents in the area of copyrights and trademarks that will help to define the doctrine of 'fair use' for years to come," a Law...

Ohio casino update

Posted on August 07, 2009
A week after the Ohio Supreme Court rejected election issue claims of track owner Scioto Downs' to have the Ohio?s "casino issue" taken off the ballots in November, the Associated Press reported this morning that a bipartisan political committee has now launched its own campaign, claiming "economic development claims made by the Ohio Jobs and Growth Committee to push the casino proposal are

Ohio casino legislation/litigation update - 2

Posted on August 03, 2009
An attempt by Franklin County horse racing track owner Scioto Downs to have the proposed casino constitutional amendment taken off the ballots in Ohio this November was rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court last Friday. The Court unanimously held the petition both failed to raise a legitimate constitutional argument and went as far as to acknowledge the efforts made to address areas where there

FTC "Red Flag Rule" enforcement delayed

Posted on August 03, 2009
The Federal Trade Commission is delaying enforcement of "identity rules affecting lawyers" until Nov. 1st., according to a Law.com article last week. Enforcement, which has already been put off twice before, was to begin Saturday. "Lawyers, doctors and other professionals have protested the FTC's broad interpretation of 'creditors' to include businesses that bill clients some time after

Ohio Supreme Court civil considerations

Posted on July 31, 2009
In the first of two civil considerations this week, the Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday found that a law firm, being an entity as opposed to an individual, does not engage in the practice of law, and therefore cannot directly commit legal malpractice; also holding that law firms can't be held liable for legal malpractice unless one of its principals or associates is found liable...

Pleading Standard in Federal Civil Procedure

Posted on July 30, 2009
"Congress is preparing to wade into the growing debate over the pleading standard for civil lawsuits after two recent Supreme Court decisions effectively upended long-standing precedent," a National Law Journal article said last week. The article continued by saying that, "United States Senator Arlen Specter, had introduced a bill designed to return that standard to what it was prior to 2007,

Ohio Personal Injury Median Awards

Posted on July 29, 2009
The August 2009 installment of LRP?s Personal Injury Verdict Review relates one of their recent studies, based on award data from 2002 thru 2008, shows that the compensation median for personal injury trials in Ohio is $13,000, with plaintiffs receiving damages in 49% of cases going to trial...

Ohio Supreme Court expands parameters for legal intern representation

Posted on July 28, 2009
The Ohio Supreme Court announced yesterday adoption of amendments to Rule II of the Rules of Government of the Bar of Ohio, permitting "legal interns to represent individuals in fourth-degree and fifth-degree felonies, and juveniles if the crime would be a fourth- or fifth-degree felony if committed by an adult, as long as a supervising attorney accompanies that intern in all proceedings...

Ohio unauthorized practice "right of action" prior to Sept. 2004

Posted on July 27, 2009
The Ohio Supreme Court last Thursday held that "there was no legal basis for a private lawsuit based on a claim of unauthorized law practice in Ohio prior to September 2004, when the General Assembly amended R.C. 4705.07 to expressly recognize such a cause of action...

Senate "conceal-carry" amendment defeated

Posted on July 24, 2009
The Washington Post yesterday carried an article about an amendment to a bill currently in the Senate that would have allowed gun owners to carry their weapons across state lines, which fell just short of passage, revealing deep divisions among Democrats there...

ABA "Red Flags Rule" Litigation

Posted on July 24, 2009
There've been a couple Law.com articles this week about the American Bar Association's considering a suit against the Federal Trade Commission to prevent that agency from enforcing new identity-theft regulations scheduled to go into effect on August 1st...

Ohio casino legislation/litigation update

Posted on July 23, 2009
Updating Ohio's gambling picture a bit, the Cincinnati Enquirer Tuesday morning reported that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner had ruled last Monday that proponents wanting to build four casinos in Ohio, including one here in Cincinnati, had more than enough signatures on petitions to have the issue put on the ballot this November...

Dept. of Labor reorganizations

Posted on July 21, 2009
There apparently hasn't been an official announcement as of yet, but there's been confirmed mention that the Department of Labor is going to be abolishing its Employment Standards Administration as of November 8, 2009 in an internal reorganization which will result in the Wage & Hours, Workers? Compensation, Office of Federal Contract Compliance, and Labor Management Standards all now reporting

Grant of new Ohio Parole Board hearings

Posted on July 16, 2009
220-some Ohio inmates are getting new parole board hearings according to a USAToday.com article yesterday, following a Franklin County court ruling earlier this year. Cynthia Mausser, chairwoman of the Ohio Parole Board, said the new hearings are being held to apply parole board guidelines the way the judge, in Franklin County, determined they should be in an inmates' class-action lawsuit,

Judicial Conference testimony to House Judiciary Committee

Posted on July 15, 2009
Chief Judge Julie Carnes, chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Criminal Law, yesterday told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism & Homeland Security that "as well-intended as the proponents of mandatory minimum legislation may have been, these kinds of sentencing statutes have created what the late Chief Justice Rehnquist aptly identified as 'unintended consequences...

Washington Federal Appeals Court expands lawmaker protection

Posted on July 13, 2009
In an opinion unsealed last Thursday, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington ruled that statements made by politicians during congressional ethics committee investigations can't be used against them in further criminal actions. The case involved former Representative Tom Feeney and a golfing trip he made to Scotland, paid for by Jack Abramoff...

Tri-State weekend update

Posted on July 13, 2009
A quick sweep of the weekend to get us ?up & running,? as it were, with Tri-State events reveals that Ohio has finally a budget for the year after Ohio House Speaker Armond Budish, along with Gov. Ted Strickland and Senate President Bill Harris reached a compromise agreement Friday afternoon that includes the authorization to put video lottery machines at seven horse racing tracks, including

Personal Injury Jury Verdicts

Posted on July 10, 2009
"According to a recent Jury Verdict Research study based on verdicts rendered from March 1998 thru March 2009, median wards for paralysis were higher for younger plaintiffs than older. Plaintiffs age 17 and under received a median award of $15, 500, 000, while those age 50 and older only received $3, 358, 428...

Ohio Supreme Court on "allied offenses"/"lesser included offenses"

Posted on July 09, 2009
The Ohio Supreme Court released two decisions Tuesday, between the two of which reasoned that while a defendant cannot be convicted with two "allied offenses of similar import," he could be charged with a "lesser included offense" for which he had not been indicted...

Ohio bedbug legislation

Posted on July 08, 2009
An article in July 4th.?s Cincinnati Enquirer relates to a bill State Representative Dale Mallory introduced the first part of last month, "to put bedbugs on par with roaches, rats and other vermin so health departments can take more decisive action against property owners...

Ohio bills introduced

Posted on July 07, 2009
Five bills were introduced in the Ohio General Assembly last week that might be of some interest to local practitioners: SB 150 IMMIGRATION LAW - To provide that a board of county commissioners may direct a sheriff to take custody of persons who are being detained for deportation or who are charged with civil

Ohio Supreme Court Public Access Rules

Posted on July 06, 2009
A quick reminder from the Ohio Supreme Court that new rules for public access to court records (Sup. R. 44-47) took effect last Wednesday. ( July 2nd. Announcement ) Administrative Counsel Allan Asbury said, "These rules are designed to ensure that Ohioans continue to have open and ready access to court records, and were carefully crafted for more than two years in a process that involved

Ohio Supreme Court abortion cases

Posted on July 02, 2009
The Ohio Supreme Court decided two abortion cases yesterday. In the first, Roe v. Planned Parenthood Southwest Region, it was held that the parents of a teenager who had had an abortion at a clinic were not entitled to abuse reports or medical records kept by the clinic of other minors treated there...

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