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Colorado high court considers pot firing case
Court Feed News |
2014/10/03 16:41
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Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using it.
Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient who was fired by the Dish Network after failing a drug test more than four years ago, says he still can't find steady work because employers are wary of his off-duty smoking.
In a case being closely watched around the country, Colorado's Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments in Coats' case, which could have big implications for pot smokers in the first state to legalize recreational sales of the drug. The case highlights the clash between state laws that are increasingly accepting of marijuana use and employers' drug-free policies that won't tolerate it.
"Attitudes are changing toward marijuana. Laws are going to have to change, too," Coats told The Associated Press. "I'd like for this to enable people like me to find employment without being looked down upon."
Coats, 35, was paralyzed in a car crash as a teenager and has been a medical marijuana patient since 2009, when, after a doctor's urging, he discovered that pot helped calm violent muscle spasms that were making it difficult to work.
Coats, who worked for three years as a telephone operator with Dish, was fired in 2010 for failing a random company drug test. He said he told his supervisors in advance that he probably would fail the test.
He said he was never high at work, and Dish did not allege he was ever impaired on the job. But pot's intoxicating chemical, THC, can stay in the system for weeks.
Coats is making his argument under a state law intended to protect cigarette smokers from being fired for legal behavior off the clock.
But the company argues that because pot remains illegal at the federal level, medical marijuana isn't covered by the state law. A trial court judge and Colorado's appeals court agreed.
A patchwork of laws across the country and the conflict between state and federal laws has left the issue unclear. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., allow medical marijuana, but courts have ruled against employees who say their pot use is protected. Colorado and Washington state also now allow recreational sales, though court cases so far have involved medical patients.
Colorado's constitution specifically says that employers don't have to amend their policies to accommodate employees' marijuana use. But Arizona law, for example, says workers can't be punished for lawfully using medical marijuana unless it would jeopardize an employer's federal contract. |
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San Francisco Business Lawyer - The Onu Law Firm
Law Firm News |
2014/09/23 21:33
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The Onu Law Firm provides services to sole proprietors, partnerships, and corporations in the development and implementation of asset protection, growth strategies, and personnel management. The Onu Law firm has the expertise needed to maintain your business and expand revenue possibility and opportunity.
If you’re in need of a business or corporate lawyer in San Francisco, the Onu Law Firm represents national, regional, and local clients on the following business matters:
Mergers and Acquisitions
Business Sale or Purchase
Business Entity Formation and Governance
Riasing Capital
Business Plan Analysis and Review
Development Assistance, review and enforcement of a wide-range of business related contracts: Partnership Agreements, Licensing Agreements, Sale or Purchase of Goods, Vendor Contracts and Employee Contracts
Investor Representation, Venture Financing and Financial Feasibility and Validation
Asset Protection and Investment Law
Business Dissolution
General Counsel Legal Services
Contact the San Francisco Business Lawyers at the Onu Law Firm if you are in need of immediate assistance in the matters listed above.
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Case of American jailed in Cuba back in US court
Headline News |
2014/09/23 21:32
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An attorney for a Maryland man who has spent over four years jailed in Cuba argued before a federal appeals court that his client should be allowed to sue the U.S. government over his imprisonment.
An attorney for Alan Gross, who was a government subcontractor when he was detained in Cuba in 2009, appeared Friday before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
A lower court judge dismissed Gross' lawsuit against the government in 2013, but Gross' lawyers appealed.
Gross was arrested while setting up Internet in Cuba as part of a project for the government's U.S. Agency for International Development. Cuba considers USAID's programs illegal attempts by the U.S. to undermine its government and Gross was given a 15-year prison sentence. |
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Kentucky leader pleads guilty in kickbacks scheme
Court Feed News |
2014/08/28 19:00
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Circular saws squealed and construction workers hammered away on buildings, part of this Appalachian area's painstaking recovery from a deadly 2012 tornado.
About 60 miles away, inside in a federal courtroom Tuesday in Lexington, the elected official who led the reconstruction in Morgan County sobbed as he pleaded guilty to a fraud charge stemming from a kickback scheme.
Judge-Executive Tim Conley, the county's top official, received $120,000 to $200,000 to steer work to a contractor in a scheme that started three years before the tornado and continued while the town struggled to rebuild, prosecutors said. Conley could spend years in prison.
His supporters had a hard time believing the three-term Republican had gone astray.
"Everybody respected Tim Conley," said Morgan County resident Steve Gullett. "I just didn't think that he'd be caught up in something like this. It's heartbreaking."
The recovery has been slow in West Liberty, the county seat ravaged by a tornado on March 2, 2012. The new judicial center has opened, and a few businesses have sprung up downtown. A bank that anchored downtown is being rebuilt, but construction is in its early phases, leaving a massive gap in the tiny downtown. |
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Massachusetts Joint Will Lawyer – Law Office of Alan Segal
Attorney Blogs |
2014/08/28 19:00
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Do you have a will?
Wills and estate planning all deal with your well-being and needs once you’re unable to care for yourself. Wills and estate planning include financial, tax, medical, and business planning.
Your will should control all your property, interest, and assets, like bonds, jewelry, bank accounts, real estate, furniture, and stocks.
Your will also controls what you might hold as an asset in different title forms other than your name. Joint tenancy is a regular form of ownership that takes away assets from control by will or living trust. Beneficiary designations on securities and bank accounts are alternatives that may be considered as well. Last, assets that have beneficiary designations, such as life insurance and IRAS are important parts of your estate which require careful coordination with other assets when writing up a will.
What is a Joint Will?
A joint will is made in combination with another person’s will;
Essentially, a joint will transfers the ownership of property at his/her respective death through one will.
If you are seeking legal assistance with your will, contact our
Needham MA wills Lawyer Attorney Alan Segal today.
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Ala court upholds generic drug decision
Headline News |
2014/08/19 22:03
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The Alabama Supreme Court is standing by a decision that business sees as a defeat.
The court on Friday issued an opinion that mostly parallels its ruling last year in a generic drug case.
A divided court says the original decision isn't as broad as some are claiming. But a majority stuck by a 2013 decision saying a brand-name drugmaker can be held responsible by someone who took a generic medication made by a different company.
The Business Council of Alabama says it's disappointed. So is Wyeth, the drug manufacturer sued by Danny and Vicki Weeks over the man's use of a generic form of the brand-name medicine Reglan.
The Weeks filed suit in federal court, and a judge asked the Supreme Court to clarify state law. |
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