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After a hearing on Thursday, September 10, 2009, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Redfield Baum was unable to decide which of the two bidders would be allowed to purchase the Phoenix/Glendale Coyotes hockey franchise.
Baum held hearings Thursday and Friday in Phoenix on whether the Coyotes, who are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, will be bought by Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie for $213 million and be moved to Hamilton, Ontario, or bought by the National Hockey League which wants to run the team, bring it out of bankruptcy and sell it to a new owner who will keep the organization in Glendale.
Minnesota state prosecutors charged Robin Magee, a professor of tax law at Hamline University with 11 felony counts for failing to file tax returns and filing false returns. Professor Magee also teaches criminal law and tax law. She is going to learn a lot more about both subjects.
Magee reportedly claimed that she failed to file her tax returns because she has extreme attention deficit disorder, though if true that makes her work on the taxes of others a bit difficult
Arizona Republic: August “was the third straight month that Valley bankruptcies set a high mark for the current year as job losses, slumping home values, medical costs and other pressures took a toll. . . . The 2,334 Phoenix-area filings in August represented a 79 percent increase over August 2008 and a small gain compared with July 2009.”
World of Marble is in the way of the light rail extension to Sky Harbor Airport. The city demands that the business move and has offered $1 million to pay for in relocation expenses. The owners have locked themselves in the building and don’t even leave at night. The battle has raged for two years. See the TV 15.com video.
Before May of this year, Christ the King Church in Phoenix, Arizona, rang its church bells every hour on the hour from 8 am to 8 pm seven days a week. Since June, however, the bells have tolled a lot less. The church’s bishop, Rick Painter, was convicted in June on two counts of creating “an unreasonably loud, disturbing and unnecessary noise.” The judge suspended the sentence of ten days in jail and three years’ probation.
The City of Phoenix Prosecutor’s Office charged Rick Painter with 2 counts of a Phoenix City Code Violation of § 23-12 for creating “an unreasonably loud, disturbing and unnecessary noise.” The listed dates of violation are March 16, 2008 and March 26, 2008. The charges were a result of neighborhood complaints of the church bells ringing every half hour on the March 16th date of violation and hourly on the March 26th date of violation.At all times, the neighbors complained the bells were ringing at a high volume. Though the complaints list a single date, we do that for legal reasons, but the neighbors testified the ringing was ongoing and continues to this day.
See TV channel 15.com for more, including a video interview of the bishop.
Christ the King and two other Phoenix churches — have filed suit in federal court against the city for violating its First Amendment right to practice its religion unfettered. They argue that Phoenix’s noise ordinance has an exception for ice-cream trucks. They’re asking for the same treatment.
Channel 15 bought a noise meter from Radio Shack and tested the noise levels at three locations near the church and found
Each time the levels came in lower than the traffic noise in the area. Several times our meter indicated that it was “lo”, too low to even register on our device.
Arizona Republic reporter JJ Hensley’s story says that only 24 percent of people who receive speed-camera (aka photo-radar) tickets from one of the state’s 78 fixed or mobile units pay the fine voluntarily. That number is down from 34 percent last October.
A Wall St. Journal story dated September 7, 2009, is about a subject of which I was completely unaware. It describes the double standard with respect to the enforcement of a federal law called the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The law makes it illegal to kill certain protected birds. Apparently the U.S. government cares more about who is doing the killing rather than if any birds are killed.
On Aug. 13, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that had come into contact with crude oil or other pollutants in uncovered tanks or waste-water facilities on its properties. . . . The company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees.
In July . . . the Oregon-based electric utility PacifiCorp paid $1.4 million in fines and restitution for killing 232 eagles in Wyoming over the past two years. The birds were electrocuted by poorly-designed power lines.
There is one well-known green energy source that gets a free pass even though it kills tens of thousands of protected birds every year. Despite studies and evidence that windmills and birds do not mix, the Department of Justice has not gone after any windmill owners for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont.
Another example of justice being blind, i.e., deaf, dumb and blind.
Hard data are scant on how many homeowners are renting out their homes, but anecdotal evidence suggests numbers are up. In one indication of the trend: More homeowners are converting their homeowners insurance to landlord policies that cover the additional risks of leasing out a home. Allstate Corp., the second largest home insurer in the U.S., reported a 27% increase in conversions in the first quarter from the previous year.
PalmBeachPost.com: On June 5, 2009, Palm Beach County wrote Bernie & Ruth Madoff a $13,800 check to refund real estate taxes they overpaid on their Palm Beach mansion. The Palm Beach County appraiser “agreed to drop his 2008 assessment of the five-bedroom, seven-bathroom house’s worth from $9.4 million to $8.5 million, chopping about 9 percent off her $151,000 tax bill.”
People ask us all the time: What can I do about that nasty photo radar ticket I got in the mail? The answer: Nothing. Literally. Chuck it in the trash. It’s perfectly ethical — just look at the ticket’s fine print. You see, for photo enforcement citations to be valid, the state Supreme Court rules say it has to be properly served to you. And the U.S. Mail won’t cut it. So, the ticket asks you to sign a waiver of your right to proper service and mail it back to the authorities.
There is a federal law called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 that prohibits sending commercial faxes to somebody with whom the sender does not have a relationship with or permission to send the fax. The penalty is $500/fax or $1,500/fax if the fax was sent intentionally. Law.com‘s story entitled “In $2.9 Million ‘Blast Fax’ Settlement, Plaintiffs Get Coupons and Lawyers Get Cash” says
Business service and supply giant Pitney Bowes has agreed to settle a “blast fax” class action by giving $26 coupons to plaintiffs for each week they received an unwanted fax — and $950,000 to the lawyers for the class.
As usual with class action lawsuits, the lawyers get rich and the members of the class get something that isn’t worth the time it takes to fill out the claim form.
A nonprofit graduate loan company called The Access Group sponsored a video contest for law students with a prize of $10,000 for the student who made the best video on the topic “What Inspired Me to Go to Law School.” Celebrity judges viewed 113 entries and picked Branigan Robertson’s (Chapman law school) video as the winner.
The winners of $1,500 law school scholarships were
Arizona Republic: “Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has asked a Superior Court judge to stop county management from forcing his attorneys to sign temporary waivers that would effectively have them report to the county manager instead of to Thomas. The move is the latest salvo in a battle over who handles the county’s legal business.”
Greg Patterson of Expresso Pundit is critical of an article in the Arizona Republic that claimed Arizona bar owners are beating the door down to ban people with concealed carry weapons permits from bringing their guns into bars. Greg says
. . . over 98% of bar owners have elected not to post signs. Wow, considering how much bad play the media gave this bill, it’s amazing that bar owners have embraced it so thoroughly.
The Washington Post reviews an up-coming C-Span tv series about the new U.S. Supreme Court. The headline of the story is “Interviews With C-SPAN Reveal Tight Bonds Despite Deep Divisions.”
To some extent, it’s unsettling,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told C-SPAN as part of a series of broadcasts the network plans about the court. “You quickly get to view the court as . . . composed of these members, and it becomes kind of hard to think of it as involving anyone else. I suspect it’s like people look at their families.
The town of Buckeye agreed to pay $17,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a local mortgage broker who alleged that Buckeye police officers falsely imprisoned, unlawfully arrested and defamed him. No charges were filed after police arrested Stanley Lund in November of 2007 and publicly accused him of sexually assaulting a woman at a Christmas party at his home two years earlier.
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued a Sedona, Arizona Jeep-tour company for firing a 75-year-old woman and replacing her with an 18-year-old. The EEOC alleges that the tour company violate age-discrimination laws.
A federal judge postponed a decision until next month on whether to bar Tempe-based LifeLock Inc. from setting fraud alerts for consumers with three credit bureaus.
This is the first post in the new KEYTLaw blog. I’ve been procrastinating for years about starting a blog. I finally got my act together and our new blog is alive!
Like the KEYTlaw website located at www.keytlaw.com, the purpose of this blog is to give people information about legal issues. The content of this blog will be written by various KEYTLaw personnel. For example, Jeana Morrissey and I will write about Arizona real estate, business and contract related legal issues.
Charles Runyan will blog about patents, trademarks, copyrights, domain name law and cybersquatting. Norman Keyt will write about Arizona landlord tenant issues.
KEYTLaw legal assistants will also provide content to our blog. Our goal is to make our blog a popular source for legal information.
Phoenix New Times: “The Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project, a stoner support group with the goal of legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, is well on its way to getting an initiative on the November, 2010, ballot, the Arizona Guardian reports today.
Marijuana Policy Project’s most recent edition [2008] of its state-by-state report on medical marijuana laws in the U.S. The report contains both a summary and an in-depth review of current medical marijuana laws; an overview of the history of medical marijuana policy; and MPP’s model medical marijuana legislation, which is based on the most effective sections of current medical marijuana laws. It also features frequently asked questions about medical marijuana and the need to protect patients from arrest, as well as a list of dozens of medical, professional, and civic organizations that support medical marijuana
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