Since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to highlight the importance of dealing with loss and grief—issues that affect many plaintiffs and their loved ones throughout the course of litigation.
Since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to highlight the importance of dealing with loss and grief—issues that affect many plaintiffs and their loved ones throughout the course of litigation.
Earlier this month a groundbreaking settlement on behalf of South African gold miners in a historic class action as a result of occupational lung disease was finalized. We are overjoyed and extremely proud that we were able to be part of the team working to get them the reparations they so greatly deserve.
"May 3, 2018 (Washington D.C.) - Hausfeld is proud to announce a groundbreaking settlement on behalf of Southern African gold miners suffering from occupational lung disease that was finalized today in Johannesburg, South Africa. This historic class action settlement, the first ever of its kind in South Africa, reflects more than a decade of preparation and litigation aimed at providing compensation to the goldminers who suffered from silicosis and tuberculosis over the last 50 years.
Direct parallels can be drawn between how the NRA and other industries influence public health. Monsanto is a behemoth in the agricultural and chemical industry. It has invested extensive sums of money into genetically modified crops. It manufactures and sells Roundup© a glyphosate-based pesticide that its genetically modified crops are designed to work in conjunction with. A scientific body of the United Nations devoted to cancer research and the classification of carcinogens, known as the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), studied glyphosate and identified the chemical to be a “Probable Human Carcinogen” based on evidence linking the chemical to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Industry funded consulting firms have for years been paid tens of millions of dollars publishing articles that seek to call into doubt well established risks of products and chemical agents to workers and consumers.
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be stopped at a traffic light, look over to your side, and see a car with no driver, you may not have to wait much longer to find out. Although we will initially see these self-driving vehicles with a human driver behind the wheel as a “failsafe,” self-driving cars are going to be the new norm, and there will be many safety and legal questions involved that will still have to be answered.
May is Bike to Work month, and with the Spring weather finally (hopefully) upon us, those of us in the cycling community expect to see a large uptick in the number of riders on the road. With the increase in riders comes the unfortunate, but inevitable increase in bicycling crashes and injuries. My blog this month will be devoted to bicycling safety.
My son has been trying to get me to watch the series Suits for quite some time. I keep telling him that I don’t want to watch at night what I live every day. Over time, however, he wore me down and one night I found myself with nothing to binge watch, so I decided to give it a try. I hate to admit it, but I’m hooked now. I love the fierce Jessica Pearson and it’s so nice to see a strong woman at the helm of a big law firm. And you cannot help but love Harvey Specter. He’s good looking with a quick wit and a sharp tongue. He swoops in on trials and depositions in his $5000 suits and he always wins. Always. The reason that I love Suits is because it is so far from the reality of being an attorney that it’s entertaining. Suits and Boston Legal and L.A. Law are all fantasy. But as I started the third season the other night it occurred to me that these legal shows are what many people watch and think is a true representation of the practice of law. I pondered whether clients who walk into my office think that even some of what they see on TV is real.
On October 24, 2017 the U.S. Senate voted 51-50 with Vice President Pence casting the tie-breaking vote to disapprove and nullify the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s arbitration rule, which would have allowed consumers their day in court by banning pre-dispute arbitration clauses in certain consumer contracts involving many consumer financial products and services, and by allowing consumers to participate in class action lawsuits against banks and other financial institutions when these kinds of institutions commit fraud on a massive scale. Republican Senators Lindsay Graham (SC) and John N. Kennedy (LA) voted against the measure and created a 50-50 tie, which was broken by the Vice President to pass the resolution.
On April 2, 2018, the operator of 17 Houlihan's restaurants in New Jersey and New York agreed to pay $5 million to settle the government's claims that it violated the minimum wage, overtime, and record-keeping requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Locks Law Tip Talk - 2018 Taxes
Tip 1: This year the deadline is Tuesday, April 17th, 2018, rather than the traditional April 15th date.
Tip 2: Have you moved since last tax season? Be sure to fill out Form 8822 for change of address! http://ow.ly/lZYM30jcIbo
As the weather gets warmer and we see Spring Break and the summer on our horizon, people are starting to plan their vacations to foreign countries. But as you go ahead and plan for your good time, it's important to know what to do if you happen to get hurt on one of those vacations.
No one expects to get hurt while having fun. But if you do, it's important to take the steps necessary to be made whole for your injury. So below are some steps for various situations that you can use to protect yourself in a time of distress.
If you are hurt in a foreign country, it can be difficult to locate a healthcare professional abroad. If you need a doctor and do not know local contacts, then you should call the US embassy for whatever country you are in. If you do not know the number for the local US embassy, you can dial 1-202-501-4444 for a directory of all US embassies and consulates.
If you're in a car accident abroad, the first thing you should do is contact the local authorities so that you can have an official report of what occurred. You should document everything for insurance purposes, including taking pictures and video with your phone. Finally, you should check with your insurance policy to see if you're covered while driving your own car in a foreign country (if you have driven to Mexico or Canada, for instance). If you rented a car in another country and purchased insurance for the rental, you should contact the rental company and/or the insurance carrier immediately after the accident.
Whether you can sue another driver for damage may depend on the law in the country where the accident occurred, so it's important to contact a personal injury attorney as soon as you are able, who will be able to tell you your options depending on the law. Certain countries have very limited time frames in which to file suit, so more urgency is required than would be for a purely American claim.
An attorney can also be helpful if you received any medical care in that foreign country, as malpractice laws function differently in different countries. Also, in certain situations, foreign parties may have sufficient ties to the United States that they can be sued in American courts. Therefore, if you are hurt in a foreign country, it is vital that you, as soon as possible, contact an experienced lawyer who can guide you through the complicated steps of maintaining and asserting your rights.
Locks Law Firm only provides legal advice after having entered into an attorney client relationship, which our website specifically does not create. Conversations that originate from website messaging, chat or other two way web based engagement do not create an attorney client relationship. It is imperative that any action taken be done on the advice of counsel. Because every case is different, the description of awards and cases previously handled do not guarantee a similar outcome in current or future cases. The firm practices law in Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York as Locks Law Firm. Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America and other organizations that rate attorneys are not designations that have been approved by the State Supreme Courts or the American Bar Association.