The Georgia Supreme Court issued a sharply divided ruling on March 26 that some say exposes employers to workers' compensation claims for just about anything their employees might do while traveling. Ray Bell Construction Co. v. King, S06G0891.
Title VII and similar state statutes penalize employees who harass others based on their status in a protected class. But there are currently no federal or state laws outlawing simple 'bullying.' However, the absence of these statutes does not permit employers to ignore with impunity the 'equal opportunity jerk' in their offices simply because the conduct, while obnoxious, is directed at everyone. In EEOC v. National Education Association ' Alaska ('NEA-Alaska'), 422 F. 2d 840 (9th Cir. 2005), the Ninth Circuit extended Title VII's reach to prohibit a supervisor's unquestionably abusive, but non-gender-related conduct, because the behavior impacted female employees more harshly than their male counterparts. Even before this case, there existed a grassroots movement to outlaw workplace bullying.
Recent cases in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.
It should strike no one as a surprise that the fluidity of using trademarks on the Internet expands the incidence of trademark-infringement claims and lawsuits. And along those lines, novel Internet trademark claims spring from the innovative but unlawful use of trademarks in e-commerce. Logically, then, it follows that Internet domain names, hyperlinks, meta tags and framing marks enlarge the number of trademark-infringement opportunities.
Not only do most of us not have a secretary tidying up our e-mail inbox each evening, but we also have many alternative inboxes for our business correspondence. Going through 'the file' has become an exercise not only in finding the appropriate messages and attachments, but in simply identifying all places and accounts where 'the file' might exist. Indeed, multiple accounts often are created by employees to bypass the hassles of security measures and record-retention policies diligently created by IT departments who often diligently enforce these polices and whose employees read and apply the information in publications like this one. Yet the rabbit-like multiplication of e-mail accounts has grave implications, not only for business, but, as we have seen in recent news, for anyone who uses e-mail ' including even our government leaders.
Mobile marketing offers the best in advertising ' a direct, personal, measurable and dynamic means of engaging, informing, and entertaining consumers. But this mobile advertising frontier is hardly the Wild West. Plenty of federal and state laws regulate this direct-marketing vehicle. More than that, various industry groups ' most notably the Mobile Marketing Association ('MMA') ' have developed best practices designed to maximize advertising impact while minimizing potential legal entanglements.
Once in a while, something known as 'new distribution forms' of software catch the attention of people in the tech market in Germany. But standard license agreements and provisions of German copyright law do not always match perfectly, and these discrepancies give rise to gaps and misunderstandings that courts must ultimately settle.
News about the people leading the e-commerce industry.
Highlights of the latest insurance cases from around the country.
In a ruling characterized as 'one of its most important environmental decisions in years' and a 'strong rebuke to the Bush Administration,' the U.S. Supreme Court held recently that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has authority to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases ('GHG') that contribute to climate change. Linda Greenhouse, Justices Say E.P.A. Has Power to Act on Harmful Gases, New York Times, Apr. 3, 2007 (discussing Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 05-1120 (U.S. Apr. 2, 2007)). The Supreme Court's ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA could trigger long-anticipated regulation of GHG emissions in the United States, dramatically changing the regulatory environment in which U.S. businesses operate.
