Posts Tagged ‘taxes’

September 30 roundup

  • “Sexting” Wisconsin prosecutor to resign [AP, AtL] Was bar discipline too lax? A contrarian view [Esenberg]
  • Update: jury finds “caffeine killer” guilty in wife’s death [CBS, earlier]
  • Not an Onion story: “New Orwellian Tax Scheme in England Would Require All Paychecks Go Directly to the Tax Authority” [Dan Mitchell, Cato]
  • “The Fight Over Fire Sprinklers in New Homes” [Popular Mechanics via Fountain, earlier]
  • Pre-Miranda interrogation of (no relation) Jimmy Olsen [another legally-themed comic book cover from the series at Abnormal Use]
  • Slow customer service at pizza restaurant deemed “sabotage” in employment suit [Fox, Jottings]
  • Website offers defendants’ perspective on some of the Enron prosecutions [Ungagged.net via Kirkendall]
  • Pedestrian killed by out-of-control driver, and jury awards $37 million against California municipality for not having built sidewalks [six years ago on Overlawyered]

August 26 roundup

August 5 roundup

  • Wouldn’t it be nice if Congress lifted the ban on Internet gambling [Steve Chapman]
  • Design of New Orleans shotgun houses is an adaptation to tax laws [Candy Chang]
  • Lawyer-enriching Costco class action settlement draws an objection from a blogger often linked in this space [Amy Alkon]
  • “Fourth Circuit slaps down N.C. attorney general’s suit against TVA” [Wood/PoL, Jackson]
  • South Carolina jury’s $2.375 million award based on premise that Nissan should have followed European, not U.S. crashworthiness standards [Abnormal Use]
  • City of Cleveland won’t take no for answer in dumb lawsuit against mortgage lenders [Funnell]
  • Charles H. Green at TrustMatters hosts Blawg Review #275;
  • Duke lacrosse fiasco: Nifong’s media and law-school enablers [three years ago at Overlawyered]

July 15 roundup

July 14 roundup

  • “Sources: Trial lawyers expect tax break from Treasury Department” [Legal NewsLine, PoL, earlier; measure would reportedly replicate contents of bill that didn’t pass Congress]
  • No doubt totally unrelated: eight Dem Senate candidates journey to Vancouver for AAJ fundraiser [The Hill, David Freddoso, ShopFloor, more]
  • Report: elderly man jailed after making “bomb” joke about carry-on at airport [NBCNewYork]
  • New York debt collection law firm files 80,000 actions a year, critics say errors and lack of documentation inevitable [NYT]
  • Kimberly-Clark: quit letting asbestos plaintiffs forum-shop against us [SE Texas Record] How a new asbestos defendant can get “passed around” among claimants [Global Tort, scroll] Prosperity of one Cleveland asbestos law firm I’d never heard of [Briefcase]
  • North Carolina court of appeals: employee rushing to bathroom after getting off work not acting within scope of employment [Matthews v. Food Lion, PDF]
  • “Curse of the greedy copyright holders” [Woodlief, WSJ, via de Rugy, NRO; TechDirt]
  • Update: “Ninth Circuit suspends Walter Lack, reprimands Thomas Girardi” [famed California lawyers tripped up in Dole suit; Legal Ethics Forum, PoL, earlier]

July 9 roundup

  • Many interesting reader comments on post about jury award against manufacturer over injury on bicycle motorized post-sale;
  • Reimbursed for money never paid: “Calif. Trial Lawyers Welcome Latest Ruling on Recovery of Medical Expenses” [The Recorder]
  • Update: Defamation suit against travel blogger Chris Elliott resolved successfully [Citizen Media Law, earlier]
  • Podcast: Northwestern lawprof Steven Calabresi on McDonald (Second Amendment incorporation) case [Federalist Society]
  • “Provost Umphrey claims banana picker reps siphoned clients, money” [SE Texas Record]
  • Lawprofs in a NYT flutter about deductibility of punitive damages [Walk, Drug & Device Law] On the merits, Carter at ShopFloor: “Changing Tax Laws to Punish Businesses — Unless They Settle”
  • Troubled Pacific Law Center to close in San Diego [ABA Journal, earlier]
  • New York high court rules Atlanta exec cannot invoke New York’s pro-plaintiff state or city laws to contest firing [NYLJ]

Lucrative world of IRS informant bounties

It’s attractive enough to have lured private equity money:

Three years ago, the I.R.S. began offering bigger rewards — 15 percent to 30 percent of whatever money the government recovered — in a move that has turbocharged the agency’s whistle-blower program. …

Among the lawyers, hedge funds and investors who may provide the financing for class-action lawsuits and whistle-blower cases against government contractors, the reinvigorated I.R.S. program has attracted attention.

[N.Y. Times]