LJN Newsletters

What limitations does a municipality face in excluding religious uses in commercial or industrial districts? That issue has arisen in several cases over the last year and a half, most recently in Western New York District, Inc. v. Village of Lancaster. Although neither New York nor federal courts have definitively answered that question, it appears that municipalities enjoy more latitude to exclude religious uses in commercial and industrial districts than they enjoy with respect to residential districts.

Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.

By reader request: A new column highlighting news in neighboring states.

Who's doing what; who's going where.

A recent case of interest.

Lawyers whose clients refuse to pay their fees routinely file lawsuits and win judgments against them. Attorney Ellen Marshall's disputes with a former divorce client, however, have been anything but routine. Then again, Warren Matthei is no ordinary client. Matthei, a millionaire stockbroker from Summit, NJ, spent nearly a decade in jail ' first for refusing to pay child support to his ex-wife, and later for refusing to pay Marshall's attorney fees.

Husband and wife typically sign joint returns as their aggregate income tax liability will, in most cases, be less on a joint return than it would be if each filed separately. Once a joint return has been signed by the taxpayer, however, he or she cannot avoid the liability for tax with respect to that return. This can lead to serious financial problems long after the year for which the return was signed.So-called 'innocent spouse' relief under ' 6015 may be available, but no one should assume that relief can be readily obtained. Recent developments make this very clear.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has now proposed new guidelines for Child Custody Evaluations to replace those promulgated in 1994, which set 'aspirational goals' for those psychologists engaging in evaluations of children for divorcing families going through custodial litigation. Herein is a critique of the new guidelines from an attorney's point of view.