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"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"If peace is the proverbial path to wisdom, these parties appear to have fallen by the wayside." -U.S. Dist. Ct. Judge Jed S. Rakoff in Khal Charidin v. Village of Kirjas Joel, 95 Civ. 8378 (SDNY 9/9/98).

Federal Rules of Evidence 404, oppose motion and admissibility.

Motion and research on class action application.

New York - Verified Complaint, Order to Show Cause for specific performance, preference.

New York - Memo regarding failure to comply with deposition questions.

New York - Elements of slip-and-fall cause of action.

Liability of funeral director.

Texas and Louisiana - Federal removal matter and prosecution adding party.

Temporary employment agency contract, effect of modifications and acceptance of payment.

MATTERS OF INTEREST

U.S. Supreme Court - General language in a bargaining agreement mandating arbitration of disputes did not preclude a union member from suing the employer for alleged violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Wright v. Universal Maritime Service Corp., 11/16/98.

U.S. Supreme Court - Conspiring to have an at-will employee fired from his job in retaliation for obeying a federal grand jury subpoena and to deter him from testifying at a federal criminal trial may give rise to a claim for damages under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat, section 1980, 42 U.S.C. section 1985(2). Haddle v. Garrison, 12/14/98.

U.S. Supreme Court - Court reversed the Supreme Court of Iowa and unanimously held that police violated Knowles’ Fourth Amendment rights when, after issuing him a citation for speeding, they conducted a full search of Knowles’ vehicle absent probable cause or a custodial arrest. Knowles v. Iowa, No. 97-7597.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts - An attorney who represented the co-executors of an estate and who also acted as broker to sell estate property had a duty to disclose the potential for conflict of interest that her assumption of both roles created. In the Matter of Lake, No. SJC-07639, 12/8/98.

3d U.S.Cir. Court of Appeals - Law enforcement officers do not have the authority to seize property if the alleged property owner has not had prior notice and a hearing, unless precautions have been taken to guarantee against erroneous or arbitrary seizures. Abbott v. Latshaw, No. 97-3460, 12/11/98.

Washington Supreme Court - A trial court does not have to instruct the jury in a murder trial on self-defense if it determined, by a combined subjective and objective analysis, that deadly self-defense was not warranted. State v. Walker, No. 65912-5, 11/12/98.

Criminal Procedure - Knowing, Intelligent, and Voluntary Pleas -- While misinformation regarding the maximum sentence exposure is one factor to consider in determining whether a plea is knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, it is not dispositive. People v. Garcia, New York 7/9/98.

Employees’ Statements Relevant to Bias Motive Held Admissible - New Jersey Supreme Court permitted the admissibility of hearsay evidence from a company official in an employment law case. The court held in Spencer v. Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co. that evidence of a vicarious admission by the company’s personnel director should be admitted in the suit brought by a woman who claims she was passed over for a job because of her race and age. (NJLJ)

A wife’s forgery of her husband’s signature on a consent form for an in vitro fertilization procedure was not a fraud that amounted to cruel and inhuman treatment sufficient to establish fault under New York’s divorce laws, a New York judge ruled. (NYLJ)

In a ruling of apparent first impression in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal judge decided that collateral source deductions should be taken off the top of the gross award before reductions are made pursuant to a jury’s comparative fault determinations. (NYLJ)

PUBLICATIONS OF INTEREST

Woodruff, Brian B., Unprotected Until Forty: The Limited Scope of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. Indiana Law Journal: Fall 1998, Vol. 73, No. 4, pgs. 1295-1312.

Eichner, Paula Siuta, Cooper v. Oklahoma and the Fundamental Right Not to Be Tried While Incompetent. New England Law Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement, Summer 1998, Vol. 24, No. 2, pgs. 511-541.

Williams, Juan, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. Times Books/Random House. For "one of America’s leading radicals," the weapon of choice was the United States Constitution.

Rehnquist, William H., All the Laws But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime. Knopf, 1998.

Miller, Anita, Uncollecting Cheever: The Family of John Cheever vs. Academy Chicago Publishers. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.