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‘Beetlejuice,’ Tim Burton’s 1988 chef d’ouevre, tells the tale of one titular ghost who is called into existence to fright and delight when his name is repeated thrice over. Just say ‘Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,’ and he’s transferred from the netherworld to your dining room. The Freedom of Information Act works in a surprisingly similar way. Under the Act, government agencies that have received three or more requests for public records must make those records available on their websites....

Catherine D. Netter had an unblemished service record for nearly 20 years at the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office. Working as a prison guard, she performed faithfully until one fateful day. She received her first disciplinary sanction, but it disqualified her for a promotion. That’s when everything started going south in Netter v. Barnes. She tried to prove discrimination, and that was the beginning of the end. Confidential Personnel File Netter complained that her employer discriminated against her because of her race, religion, and gender....

Gaudencio Garcia-Celestino did not expect to get a grammar lesson from the federal appeals court. In Garcia-Celestino v. Ruiz Harvesting, Inc., the issue was whether he worked for an “employer” under general common law principles. The U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals said he did not, which meant he lost his case against a company that employed him to pick fruit. Fortunately for Garcia-Celestino and his fellow workers, they settled their claims against another company that paid them to do the work....

In US v. Valencia, No. 08-20546, the court of appeals affirmed defendants’ wire fraud convictions arising from alleged efforts to manipulate natural gas markets, on the grounds that 1) the extensive, incriminating in-court testimony provided by a witness and others, in conjunction with inculpatory, properly admitted exhibits, heavily dampened the magnitude of whatever prejudicial effect an erroneously admitted whistle-blower letter had upon the jury; 2) because a witness’s knowledge and analysis were derived from duties he held at defendants’ employer, his opinions were admissible as testimony based upon personal knowledge and experience gained while employed there; 3) the district court did not err in allowing the government’s expert to testify about the tendency of defendants’ false trade reports to affect the indices published by Inside FERC and NGI....

Shepard Fairey, the artist responsible for the red, white and blue Obama “Hope” poster, is not a very good client. In fact, he’s the kind of client that can get you in trouble and ruin your reputation. The Obama poster artist is facing up to six months in jail after pleading guilty to misdemeanor criminal contempt last week. Not only did he delete key evidence from his computer, he acknowledged that he fabricated evidence and lied to the court and his attorneys for months on end....

The First Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision that favored a health insurance company that denied specialized psychiatric coverage for a child Asperger’s. In many ways the decision was one based less on deep matters of psychiatry and more on the proper application of legal procedure. The case implicated ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. Although, the circuit stopped short and decided the case based mostly on procedure rather than on substantive issues....

Morgan v. Swanson, No. 09-40373, concerned an action alleging that defendant elementary school officials banned the distribution of religious materials. The court of appeals affirmed the denial of defendants’ motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity, holding that the First Amendment protected elementary school students from religious-viewpoint discrimination. As the court wrote: “This appeal arises from the district court’s denial of Lynn Swanson andJackie Bomchill’s (Appellants) Second Motion to Dismiss based on qualified immunity....

Action For Sexual Abuse by Substance Abuse Counselor In Doe v. Fulton-DeKalb Hosp. Auth., No. 08-14304, an action claiming that, while being treated for opiate addiction in defendant’s methadone clinic, plaintiffs were subjected to sexual harassment at the hands of a substance abuse counselor, the court affirmed partial summary judgment for defendant where 1) the complaint’s factual allegations established that the worker acted purely for his own personal gratification and outside the scope of his employment in his mistreating of plaintiffs; 2) the complaint did not allege that any of the individual defendants procured the worker with the intent to injure the plaintiffs, such that any individual defendant would become a joint tortfeasor with the worker; and 3) the district court did not err in rejecting plaintiffs’ claim that the worker’s hiring constituted negligence per se....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Electronic discovery and evidence are becoming the real game in town when it comes to discovery in civil cases. Indeed, according to a recent study, e-discovery law is developing in jurisdictions across the country, and 2009 saw twice as many judicial opinions issued on e-discovery issues than 2008. And of potential concern to counsel and clients, practically half of these e-discovery opinions addressed sanctions, with sanctions being levied in 70% of those cases....

In a class action lawsuit against business entities that make payday loans, decision of the district court to remand the case to state court for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is affirmed as, for the purposes of determining subject matter jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, a limited liability company is an “unincorporated association” as that term is used in 28 U.S.C. section 1332(d)(10) and therefore is a citizen of the state under whose laws it is organized and the state where it has its principal place of business....

Despite the best public relations, Florida has a hard time living downs its reputation. It used to be famous for orange juice and moon shots, but that started to change about the time “hanging chads” became a phrase. Even with a Disney resort, Florida has not been the happiest place on earth for everybody. “Cracking Down on Compassion” It started a few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2014, when Arnold Abbott and ministers Dwayne Black and Mark Sims were arrested on charges they broke a new law against public food-sharing....

Unfortunately, across industries, when a corporation is targeted for a government investigation, you can almost expect that consumer class actions will follow. For in-house and general counsel, it’s basically the epitome of going from bad to worse. After all, often a government investigation will result in the publication of notices or announcements by the government agencies involved, which then results in press, which then results in consumers finding out and filing lawsuits, with ultimately results in potential dips in investor confidence and financial losses (and then actually finally investor lawsuits)....

To think that a good privacy lawyer could possibly have saved the election for Hillary Clinton … The American Bar Association is currently considering a program to certify lawyers as privacy law specialists. The proposed program is expected to go to the ABA House of Delegates in February. The International Association of Privacy Professionals, a networking and educational organization aimed at privacy experts and regulators, seeks to provide competency certification for lawyers as privacy specialists....

If you can’t get a traditional practice off the ground, maybe it’s time to hang your shingle on a kiosk. So what if people think you’re an ambulance chaser. Why not just buy an ambulance and cut to the chase? Maybe some lawyers will laugh at you, but you could be laughing all the way to the bank. The pop-up business is a $50 million industry. Pop-Up Shops We’re just joking about buying an ambulance, but the pop-up business is booming....

Women get a bad rap. Whether it’s “Mean Girls” or catfights, there’s this awful notion floating around that women don’t help women (and we know there’s a special place in hell for those ladies). But what about the women who help each other out? Why don’t we ever hear about them? We’re going to take this time to roar about ways women attorneys can help other women attorneys in the ok, we get it, discriminating legal industry....

Initial reports suggested that the joint U.S.-EU e-book antitrust investigation was close to settlement. But it seems Apple and two of the five publishers accused of conspiring to fix e-book prices are now refusing to sign. The refusal comes just a month after the Justice Department warned that it was prepared to file suit against the six companies. If the government makes good on its threat, it will be the second time in recent months Apple has been sued for this very issue....

When it comes to confirming a person’s identity, biometrics has come quite a long way since the days of Pudd’nhead Wilson. Smartphones now contain biometric scanners that can not only read fingerprints, but also faces. However, with the added security of biometrics to confirm a person’s identity, can the blockchain technology that has been touted as tamper resistant be made even more secure? While both blockchain and biometrics have many uses, and many ways to be used together, one aspect of blockchain and biometrics that may seem out of the question is storing biodata in a blockchain....

It seems innocuous enough of a topic. When discussing the “legal principles enunciated and embodied in judicial decisions that are derived from the application of particular areas of law to the facts of individual cases” is it caselaw or case law? Of course, it depends on who you ask. And whoever you ask, they’ll have very, very strong opinions. Just check out the Twitter war that erupted after the Solicitor General’s style manual called for the “total extirpation” of the “barbarism” of caselaw – and ran afoul of Black’s Law Dictionary in the process....

You remember the circular patch with the star, the canvas, the white rubber, the white stitching? They’re Chuck Taylors, right? Except when they’re not – and that’s the problem. Nike, which owns Converse, is suing companies like Walmart, Kmart, and Sketchers, alleging infringement on the trademarks it claims in Converse’s iconic Chuck Taylor All Star shoes. How bad could it be? The Huffington Post provided screen shots of Walmart and H&M websites selling “sneakers” or “canvas lace” shoes that look eerily (maybe illegally) similar to Chucks....

They say tiny houses are the next big thing, but what about tiny law offices? “How is that going to work?” you may ask. And who are “they” anyway? Build It, but Will They Come? Imagine a client walking into your repurposed storage container, because that’s what $36,00 will buy you. Unless you serve the construction industry, is that really a good look? The tiny law office is a really more of a question than a building plan....