Cultivated Compendium is my personal website with the occasional link to my reporting and to important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news.
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September 13th, 2013
A Connecticut judge has ordered that the school records of Adam Lanza, the deceased Sandy Hook school shooter, be turned over to a state panel that reviews the fatalities of children.
September 13th, 2013
Bloomberg has an interesting piece on how the IRS decision to require same-sex spouses to file joint returns will play out. Prior to the feds' decision, same-sex couples would have to file jointly in the states that recognized their marriages but fill out 'fake' individual returns to file their federal taxes. Now same-sex spouses who live in states that don't recognize their legal relationships after getting married... Continue Reading
September 12th, 2013
Electronic health records are being incentivized in health law, regulations and funding on the rationale they'll improve patient care and other goals. But a recent Pennsylvania study showed that default values within such systems can lead to mistakes in caring for patients:
"Using default values in electronic health records can boost efficiencies and standardization, but can cause adverse patient safety events when used... Continue Reading
September 12th, 2013
The Montgomery County, PA, Register of Wills who kickstarted the conversation in PA about same-sex marriage by starting to issue licenses to LGBT couples was told to stop by a Commonwealth Court judge today. The judge did not address the constitutionality of the ban on same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania, only ruling that the judiciary, not an elected row officer who administers marriage licenses and court filings, could decide if the law should... Continue Reading
September 12th, 2013
After a four-year process, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill today that would establish a federal shield law for reporters so that they would have a legal privilege to not have to reveal their confidential sources in most circumstances. The bill passed out of committee after months of uproar that the Justice Department monitored journalists at the Associated Press and Fox News and after another huge national-security leak was... Continue Reading
September 12th, 2013
On the agenda this morning for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is the federal shield law, otherwise known as the Free Flow of Information Act of 2013. There will be a live webcast of the meeting at 10 a.m.: http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=6225bf1b82d2592b...
Some in the media community say that the bill needs to be amended drastically because it would only shield journalists working for institutional players for... Continue Reading
September 12th, 2013
As Cory Booker looks poised to move from Newark's mayor's office to the U.S. Senate, the conservative publication National Review has said it is going to sue Booker to obtain records related to a 2004 homicide of a teenager who the mayor said he held in his arms until the adolescent's death from a gunshot. A mayoral spokesman said the records would be provided today, The Washington Post reported.
Continue Reading
September 12th, 2013
Tech firms, including Yahoo and Facebook, want to be able to disclose more on the requests they receive from the government for Internet surveillance of Americans. The reason for not doing more earlier, the Yahoo CEO said, was the risk of committing treason and being imprisoned for it. In court, Yahoo is arguing that not being allowed to engage in the dialogue on surveillance or respond on the specifics of what it has been asked to... Continue Reading
September 12th, 2013
The Connecticut Post found that the gun shop where the mother of the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, had purchased the firearms used by Lanza in the Newtown, CT, elementary-school murders had a history of deficient compliance with gun-shop rules and regulations. FOIA records showed that the deficiencies mainly related to poor record-keeping. The newspaper cited one instance in which the gun shop was unaware that a gun had been stolen... Continue Reading
September 11th, 2013
After a backlog in elder abuse cases grew too staggering, the California Department of Health managed the backlog by dismissing complaints, not seeking increased resources. Now almost all complaints are investigated over the phone, and prosecutors report a dramatic decline in the cases referred to them for investigation.
September 11th, 2013
A judge today rejected a putative class action in which readers of Lance Armstrong's books alleged they were subjected to fraud and false advertising in "inspirational true accounts" that "should have been labeled fiction" due to Armstrong's use of performance-enhancing drugs. Instead, the books were protected as free speech. Continue Reading
September 11th, 2013
With 70 percent of American Indians living in urban areas, the nation's first legal clinic for city-dwelling American Indians and their unique legal problems is still going strong after seven years. Continue Reading
September 11th, 2013
When we think of disasters, we don't automatically think of legal services. But this interview with a legal aid attorney shows that legal advocacy is a huge part of recovering from disasters like Superstorm Sandy. "If in the future legal services are understood to be an essential part of disaster relief, that would be a big improvement. Now that we have experience, future disaster responses will be much more coordinated. We know what... Continue Reading
September 11th, 2013
In the wake of a ticket-fixing scandal and ensuing federal prosecution, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on whether the justices, along with the court that hears judicial discipline cases, can suspend judges that get into trouble, @zneedlestli reported for The Legal Intelligencer.
September 11th, 2013
(The Legal Intelligencer- second of two-part series on The Future of Long-Term Care Litigation)
While health care headlines focus on the implementation of Obamacare's individual mandate and establishment of insurance exchanges, the landmark legislation also is going to affect long-term care for older Americans.
Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing facilities must have had compliance and ethics programs in place by March, but... Continue Reading
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