When was the last time you had to create a new password and faced criteria such as, “Your password must be eight characters or longer and must contain characters from three of these four categories: a) uppercase (A-Z); b) lowercase (a-z); c) numeric (0-9); and d) nonalphabetic (e.g., !, $, #, %)? After you have digested the rule and created your brilliant password, how many times do you still get an error that your password does not meet the criteria and you have to start all over? It conjures up scenes from Office Space.
I think that we have all come to understand how passwords play a role in ...
In 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“USEPA”) adopted the Lead-Based Paint Renovation, Repair and Painting (“RRP”) Rule under its TSCA authority. See 40 CFR §745.80 et seq. Congress’ purpose for implementing this rule was to protect occupants in homes and buildings built before 1978 from lead-based paint hazards during renovation. The RRP Rule requires anyone receiving compensation to perform work that disturbs paint in houses, apartments and child-occupied facilities built before 1978 to prevent or minimize exposure to lead hazards. The RRP Rule ...
On March 25, 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published a final rule that increased the protections in place for employees exposed to silica in the workplace and imposed new obligations on employers. The final rule created two separate standards addressing occupational exposure to silica – one for general industry and maritime and another for the construction industry. Most of the provisions of the standard for general industry and maritime became enforceable on June 23, 2018.
The new standard establishes a permissible exposure limit ...
Every day, at sites across the United States, federal agents search container ships, trucks, cars, and aircraft entering the country. Now, increasingly, federal agents are also searching the electronic devices of the individuals entering the country – from citizens to permanent residents to tourists. See United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952, 956 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc) (“Every day more than a million people cross American borders [and] . . . they carry with them laptop computers, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Kindles, Nooks, Surfaces, tablets, Blackberries, cell ...
Nationwide reimbursement litigation by private Medicare Advantage Plans (MAPs) providing health coverage to some Medicare enrollees has grown significantly over the past few years. Any number of entities are sued for failing to reimburse MAPs for injury-related treatment costs when a beneficiary is paid to resolve a claim. These include alleged tortfeasors, their insurers, tort plaintiffs, and their attorneys. Determining if a claimant receives health coverage under Medicare that paid a claimant’s medical expenses related to an injury is critical to complete claim ...
In Campbell v. General Electric, 2018 IL App (1st) 173051, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, recently reversed the Cook County Circuit Court’s finding of personal jurisdiction over General Electric (“GE”) in an asbestos case. In directing that GE be dismissed from the case due to a lack of personal jurisdiction, the court struck down the plaintiff’s claims of general jurisdiction, specific jurisdiction, consent jurisdiction and jurisdiction by necessity. And in so doing, the Court followed the principles set forth by the United States Supreme Court ...
The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) means business. And in the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, No. 16-285 (May 21, 2018), the FAA means continued support for businesses. Interpreting the FAA, the Supreme Court held that employers and employees could agree to resolve disputes between them through one-on-one private arbitration and that arbitration agreements that disclaimed class actions or collective actions were enforceable.
Congress adopted the FAA in 1925, in “response to a perception that courts were unduly hostile to ...
Are you considering retaining an expert, in a medical malpractice case, who has a history of medical malpractice suits being filed against him or her? Have you just deposed an expert in a medical malpractice case and learned that they have been previously sued for medical malpractice? In either situation, you will likely have to determine whether the expert’s prior lawsuits will be admissible at trial. A recent Illinois appellate court ruling, Swift v. Schleicher, suggests that circuit courts should bar any evidence of medical malpractice lawsuits filed against the expert.
The ...
Illinois hospitals and the lawyers that represent them breathed a collective sigh of relief recently after the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the First District’s decision in Yarbrough v. Northwestern Memorial Hospital. 2017 IL 121367. Under traditional laws of agency, a principal can be held liable for the negligent acts of its agent under the doctrine of respondeat superior. This is most commonly seen in the employer/employee context, in which the employer controls and supervises the work of its employees and can therefore be held liable for such work. However, in certain ...
Recently, after extensive oral arguments, HeplerBroom Partner Josh Schumacher convinced the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to bar several Plaintiffs’ experts from offering specific causation or industrial hygiene opinions pursuant to Daubert v. Merrel. Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993) and its progeny. The Daubert hearing was conducted by United States District Court Judge Pamela Pepper.
In Ahnert v. CBS Corporation, et al., Plaintiff alleged that toxic exposure to asbestos at numerous locations and to a multitude of products ...
