Brian Walters, Tell Us Something Useful About Unemployment Compensation Appeals.

No. 880

When you have an ex-employee who is awarded unemployment compensation, Attorney Brian Walters states, read the notices carefully that your client, the employer receives. In addition to appealing the award of benefits, you may also need to appeal an increase in the premium being charged to the employer. If you don’t appeal the increase, it may take effect even though you win the appeal of employee benefits.

Brian Walters is the principal at Delta Law Group, LLC and practices in the areas of business, bankruptcy, family law DUI and others. He can be reached at 412-349-0938.

This is not an advertisement

Category: Tell Us Something . . .

Pittsburgh Legal Community: NLSA Equal Justice For All

No. 879

Here’s the link to donate.

Scanning With Your iPad — What Will They Think of Next?

No 878

If you are interested in using your iPad as a document scanner (I am) heres a link to a post on the subject from the Time Management Ninja.

CLT

Category: Legal Technology
Tags: iPad > scanning

Supreme Court Accepts Appeal on Wal-Mart Case

No.877

In case you may be interested, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently granted the petition for allocatur in the case of Braun v. Walmart Stores. The initial appeal was decided by the Superior Court last June and is reported at 24 A.3d 875 (2011). This was a class action involving employee wage and hour claims which was tried in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in 2009. Wal-Mart had appealed from a judgment in the amount of $187,648,589.11.

The Superior Court held, inter alia, that monetary payments for contractual rest breaks qualify as wages under the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Act (WPCA). It also held that the trial court had properly awarded Plaintiffs statutory liquidated damages. The Court ruled that there was sufficient evidence in the record to support findings of breach of contract, unjust enrichment , violation of the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act and of the WPCA.

The Superior Court also decided that the trial court had erred in calculating some of the counsel fees by enhancing the lodestar to reflect contingent risk when the lodestar already provided for such risk.

According to Law.com, as quoted in a post in PointofLaw.com, The Court granted allocatur on “whether, in a purported class action tried to verdict, it violates Pennsylvania Law (including Pennsylvania Rules of Procedure) to subject Wal-Mart to a ‘trial by formula that relieves plaintiffs of their burden to produce class wide common evidence on key elements of their claims.”

According to the author of the PointofLaw.com post, Ted Frank, the question of whether there was in fact a trial by formula is in dispute. Some suggest that the Superior Court misunderstood the evidence. This issue has apparently been presenting itself in other recent cases, but the Supreme Court has yet to decide the question.

The issue being considered by the Supreme Court is does not addresses only one of several issues raised on appeal. Frank says: “Although Wal-Mart had a policy of disciplining managers who violated the company’s internal rest-break rules, the jury was asked to find, (and did find) that Wal-Mart’s policy of seeking to reduce labor expenses — i.e., the same policy that every business has — acted to trump this and incentivized managers to shortchange employees. Yhus, this rationalized a finding of “bad faith” that entitled the employees to $62 million in liquidated damages. Its hard to see how this does not transform the “good faith” defense into simple de facto strict liability, if such a flimsy theory can provide a bad faith finding, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is not considering this issue.”

CLT

Category: Case Update, Civil Litigation, Evidence
Tags: Braun v. Walmart Stores > class action > Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Ac > Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Act > statutory liquidated damages

Reassessment Appeal Tip

No. 876

Thank you Parker Brothers!

If the comparable sales listed by Assessment are fairly far away, search for lower comps close at hand. Start by looking at every property on the street where the subject property is located. Then try cross streets. This is tip is especially helpful when the comps are in a better neighborhood than the property under appeal.

The scheduling of the reassessments seems to be following the pattern of the original announcement. For the most part (but not exclusively) the City properties were scheduled first, followed by the Eastern suburbs. Nevertheless, there are plenty of exceptions.

Results have been coming back slowly also.

Several people who have received tax bills recently want to know if they can wait until the reassessment result before paying. That would be nice, but it is not the case. Pay now and after you get a decision, you can apply for a refund. However, if you live in a place where the school district is opposing you at the hearing, you might wish to wait out the thirty day appeal period before asking for a refund. You might remind them to appeal.

CLT

Category: Property Assessments, Real Estate, Reassessment 2012

DNS Changer Malware, Whom Do You Trust?

No. 875

Did the whole Changer Malware story sound a little phishy to you? Our Superheroes at the FBI have been holding the bad guys off from destroying the world, or at least denying it internet access. These malware evildoers, who are reputed to have been arrested recently in Estonia, have been redirecting unsuspecting internet users to a website that injects you with the virus, but it hasn’t been effective because the FBI has been protecting us.

But all good things must end and even the FBI eventually grew tired of bearing the weight of the earth on its shoulders. So, as of yesterday at midnight, they removed their finger from the dike. The world did not end, though. If you are reading this post, I have good news for you. You are connected to the internet.

Notwithstanding, if you are still concerned, there is a place you can go to check to see whether your computer has been visiting any sites where it shouldn’t have been. Here’s a link to dcw.org that I got from the Think Left Blog. You can use it if you wish. It says that if you can see the images on this website, you are not infected. Except . . .

Who the hell is dcw.org anyway? And who deputized them to tell me that I am free of this virus? I guess I’ll have to find another website that I can trust to tell me that dcw.net knows what it is doing.

Category: News Commentary

Breaking News: Cruise-Holmes Divorce Settlement Reached!!!!!!!!

No. 874

Was it a dream or a hallucination or did a certain TV network break into regular programing to announce that Tom Cruise and Katy Holmes had reached a settlement?

CLT

Photo by Komonews.com

Category: News Commentary

The Mark of Zorro –er — I mean Zoltan!

No. 873

Credit: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If you are over fifty and preoccupied with dull things like earning a living, you are probably becoming vaguely aware that the word “Zoltan” is being used by the Pittsburgh Pirates, even though you don’t know exactly why. Don’t despair that Pittgirl knew about it in April — she’s on the cutting edge of coolness.

AS a public service, this blog is going to bring you up to date on this pop-culture phenomenon. And believe me, you haven’t missed a thing.

To learn everything you never wanted to know about the sign of Zoltan, CLICK HERE. That’s right — go back to the prior line and click. No, you won’t get any kind of a computer virus. We’re Mac users.

CLT

Category: Pittsburgh

Four Years, 872 Posts

No. 872

Four years and 872 posts ago, I published the very first post on this blog — July 7, 2008. That’s enough time to graduate from college or serve out a one-term presidency. I have been reprinted, retweeted and quoted all over the world wide web. In the process, I have made friends and, I think, influenced people. And I will carry on.

Sometime this fall, we will hit 1,000 posts. There are a mere 128 more left to reach that magic number. I am looking for ideas for a celebration.

Meanwhile, here’s a reprint of the post first published on June 11, 2009 that explains why I, you or anybody should put in the hours and energy necessary to blog. Why Blog? Here’s 10.5 good reasons:

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Lawyers are often advised by marketing professionals to blog because it is good marketing. The AVVO blog recently announced an inexpensive and easy to use blogging vehicle for lawyers. If you have a modest marketing budget, investing in a blog will buy you more effective advertising than any other vehicle, including Google pay per click ads.

But if a lawyer never lands a single new client from blogging, the exercise is still worthwhile. Here are 10.5 reasons why:

1. Self education. In order to write a blog piece you need to read and find out what’s going on in the law and in the world. Doesn’t continuous self-education make a better lawyer?

2. Reinforcement of learning. The best way to remember newly-acquired information is to use it. The best way to really understand a concept is to explain it. Blogging forces you to do both.

3. Getting away from the old me-me-me. The essence of a law firm website is telling potential clients how great you are. That can get tiresome â€” with legal advertising websites rivaling the leading sleep aids for induced drowsiness. A blog looks outward at the world, not inward at the firm.

4. Practice makes perfect. If you wish to be a persuasive and polished writer, you must practice.

5. Busman’s Holiday. It is surprising how relaxing it can be after a day of toil to write something. You may not think so until you start to really get into writing your blog. Meanwhile, you are thinking and writing about work related matters.

6. Making Friends and Influencing People. Through your blog (assuming you are diligent and have good content) I guarantee that you will make the acquaintance of people worth knowing. They will consider you smart, informed and very persuasive â€” otherwise, they wouldn’t be reading your blog.

7. The Bully Pulpit. When you have a gripe, a beef or a strongly-held opinion, shazam! You have a forum!.

8. Developing New Expertise. All that reading and writing, scrounging for topics and keeping your ear to the ground to identify advancing trends, will cause you to develop and expand expertise on new topics. Moreover, you don’t have to tell anyone you know something about a field of the law, your blog does.

9. Developing a Portfolio. All the posts you ever wrote will be on the internet for a long time. You’ll receive comments popping up on posts written many months or even years ago â€” ones you’ve actually forgotten you wrote. You’ll find yourself saying to people: “Read my blog post(s) on the subject.”

10. Self fulfillment. You will feel a sense of accomplishment when you post something really good.

10.5 Strange as it may seem, you could be a force in someone else’s life. Someday, if you are lucky, someone will write to you or tell in person that you helped changed his or her life. Teachers often hear it years later from students. When you blog, you are the teacher and who knows who the student may be?

CLT

Category: Blawging

Proving You Are Who You Say You Are.

No. 871

Pennsylvania has joined a group of states who are requiring photo ID to vote. A guest post on the Jonathan Turley Blog summarizes the critic’s position.

Proponents say that this measure will prevent voter fraud. This objection has some merit. When voters die their registrations are not generally revoked. Nor are the registrations of those who move away — at least not immediately. It would be quite easy for fraudsters to determine who deceased voters are through public records. However, acting on this information would be dangerous business, since poll workers and watchers often know the originals from living in the neighborhood.

Nevertheless, elections have been stolen by political organizations — notoriously, they say, in Illinois in the 1960 Presidential Election. And according to Robert Caro’s latest installment of his epic biography of LBJ, the vote in Texas was also stolen by the Democratic Party organization in 1960.* But even if this kind of thing doesn’t happen in the current age (presumably because party organizations aren’t what they used to be), its nice to know that there is some kind of protection from mass voter fraud.

On the other hand, critics say that requiring the presentation of photo Identification is an attempt to disenfranchise a large number of people who either don’t want to obtain any formal identification card or are not sufficiently motivated to go to the trouble to get one.

If you read the sci-fi thriller The Traveler by John Twelvehawks, you are familiar with the idea of being “off the grid”. Persons who were off the grid took pains to be certain that their identity did not appear in any database. By definition, these people would not register to vote anyway. Nevertheless, there are people around who don’t want to obtain any photo ID on privacy grounds. They are concerned that in police states, persons who cannot produce prescribed identification are detained for further investigation.

The group that is affected most are those who don’t need an identification card for any other purpose and are not sufficiently motivated to get one just to vote.

In 2008 a large number of new voters were registered in Philadelphia by volunteers who went door to door. A massive organizational effort got them to the poles, producing a landslide in Pennsylvania for Obama.

There is nothing fraudulent in this. However, there are probably as lot of non-drivers in this group, who are often too poor to own a car. If they don’t go out of their way to get the required photo identification, they won’t be permitted to vote this time. Thus, the 2012 Philadelphia vote will be diminished. The remark by Republican State Senate leader Turzai was presumably founded in this strategy.

In addition, the ID must not be expired. Of course, if your ID is expired, it should still be adequate to prove who you are — there is a photo to compare. No one has explained, to my knowledge, why an expired ID cannot be used to prove the identity of the person who carries it. And what is to be done if the person viewing the photo does not think that the person in front of him is the same person who appears in the photo? I have seen many driver’s license photos like this. Changes in hair-do, hair color, eyewear, beards and mustaches, illness, weight loss and gain or aging can all contribute. And some photos just don’t look like the person who posed for them. Even if she does not appear to be the same person, how likely is it that the questioned voter will be sent before a judge? Not very likely.

Courts, especially federal courts, have a long-standing intolerance for legislation that makes it difficult to exercise the Constitutional right of franchise. Do not be surprised if photo ID voting laws in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are enjoined by courts this fall.

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*It is intriguing to speculate on the course of history if Nixon had been awarded the electoral votes of either Illinois or Texas in 1960. Would there have been no Presidential assassination in 1963? Would there have then been no Watergate? No Civil Rights Act of 1964? No Medicare/Medicaid? What would have happened in Vietnam?

Category: 2012

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Welcome

CLIFF TUTTLE has been a Pennsylvania lawyer for over 45 years and (inter alia) is a real estate litigator and legal writer. The posts in this blog are intended to provide general information about legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus. However, this information does not constitute legal advice and there is no lawyer-client relationship created when you read this blog. You are encouraged to leave comments but be aware that posted comments can be read by others. If you wish to contact me in privacy, please use the Contact Form located immediately below this message. I will reply promptly and in strict confidence.

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Legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus.

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