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Net News
Recent news of interest to the Internet law community.
Features
Employee Blogging: What Employers Don't Know Could Hurt Them
According to an American Management Association 2005 survey of 536 employers, 84% of companies have established policies relating to personal e-mail use, and 81% have established policies relating to personal Internet use, but only 23% have policies on personal postings on corporate blogs. <br>This article discusses blogging and the potential for employer liability that employee blogging presents. It recommends that employers establish blogging policies so that such liability hopefully may be avoided.
Internet Ticket Sales
e-Businesses, by forming networks of season ticket holders and entering into contracts with entertainment venues, provide Internet customers with entry passes for concerts, sports and other spectator events. <br>Generally, Internet ticket providers are in the business of buying and selling tickets to such events above the face value of the ticket. Some people have equated such Internet ticket providers with ticket scalpers, and claim that they are acting unlawfully. In particular, some state anti-scalping laws have been applied to Internet ticketing transactions, resulting in criminal and civil sanctions. But the application of proper Internet notices and appropriate Web site access limitations may render such state anti-scalping laws moot.
Posthumously Conceived Heirs
The science of cryobiology introduced the world to the previous impossibility of a posthumously conceived child. In the years that have followed, courts have been forced to address myriad unique social and legal issues incident to a child conceived after the death of its father. With little precedent to guide them, judges have been asked to answer the most elementary of probate questions: Is this a child of the decedent? If so, does this child have a right to inherit under the decedent's will or as an intestate beneficiary? From here, courts will continue to face an endless barrage of increasingly more difficult questions of inheritance: How long must a class of beneficiaries remain open? What responsibility does the Personal Representative of the estate have to ensure that the class is closed? Does the mother have an obligation to inform the court or the Personal Representative of her intent to conceive?
Appraisal Economics
The subject of "discounts" is the most contentious issue in business valuation and property valuation today. In marital property division, the relative high or low values of the individual properties balance against each other as the parties settle (and squabble over) the allocation of assets. For example, it is common to see the husband (assumed to be the in-spouse, or business owner) argue for a "low" value for the business, whereas the wife (assumed to be the out-spouse, who will not take the business asset) would argue for a "high" business value. Discounts from a total property value (or, a proportionate ownership per share value) seemingly lower value in an arbitrary manner, usually spurring a nasty and expensive fight with dueling appraisers.
Leading Questions and Child Witnesses
Lawyers involved in product liability cases are occasionally involved with child witnesses, either as plaintiffs or as percipient witnesses to the critical events in the lawsuit. As in other types of litigation, child witnesses present a number of difficult challenges in product liability cases.
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Recent Developments from Around the States
Recent rulings you need to know.
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National Litigation Hotline
National rulings of interest to you and your practice.
Features
Genetic Testing
The rise of genetic testing has touched off a tense legal debate over when and if employers and insurance companies should be allowed access to employees' gen-etic data. At issue is whether current privacy laws related to genetics are strong enough to prevent discrimination, and if there are enough regulations governing what companies can and cannot know.
Labor News: 2005 in Review
More than 500 leaders and officials of the seven Change to Win federation unions met Nov. 17-19 in Las Vegas to strategize how to work together in organizing campaigns. Organizers, researchers, and communicators from each of the seven unions met to discuss campaigns and strategy to grow the labor movement. This marked perhaps the first time since the founding of the CIO in the 1930s that so many union officials met to discuss joint targeting and strategy.
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