Agency hopeful about conversion.
Byline: Matthew Bruun FITCHBURG - The Fitchburg Housing Authority is moving ahead with efforts to convert a downtown 10-story apartment building into an assisted living complex even as litigation surrounding the project moves through court. Housing authority board members met last night to discuss the...

Arbitration revisited.
Recently, I covered arbitration and the myths supporting its alleged superiority over court litigation. With an eye on commercial litigation, I suggested that a single judge sitting without a jury (each party waives a jury trial) was preferred over arbitration. Congress may soon agree with me, at...

Monumental battle: complex Utah case pits Ten Commandments against Seven Aphorisms at the U.S. Supreme Court.
It's rare for a religion to be better known for its legal activism than for its religious beliefs. But the Summum faith, though it has few followers, will land a place in American legal history when the U.S. Supreme Court decides Pleasant Grove City v. Summum. ...

Baptist agency can't evangelize on taxpayer's dime, AU and ACLU tell court.
A Baptist childcare agency in Kentucky that proselytizes youngsters in its care and discriminates in hiring should not get public funding, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union have told a federal appeals court. The groups filed an appeal in...

Risk Management 101: businesses have a legal duty to maintain the privacy of customers' and employees' personal information.
The value of customer data is recognized by all businesses. Each piece of data brings power but also risks. You can use it, sell it, update it, ignore it, even--and here's the catch--lose it. If your business possesses personal, identifiable information such as Social Security numbers or...

On further review ... a growing number of third-party medical bill review companies are being named in patients' and providers' lawsuits.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Insurers have long used third-party bill-review services to uncover medical billing that exceeds usual and customary rates or violates other billing guidelines. Recently, medical providers and insureds have filed lawsuits, alleging that these review services are unfairly biased in order to reduce carriers'...

Guilty plea closes book on abuse murder.
Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard Philip Lee Kephart pleaded guilty Thursday morning to aggravated murder in the 2007 death of his 23-year-old daughter, Stephanie "Amber" Moss, from injuries she suffered when he tortured and beat her as a 6-year-old child in 1991. Before sentencing Kephart,...

A rose is a rose.
Pennsylvania appellate courts recently joined a trend in holding that insurers must provide coverage for intentional acts--despite "intentional acts" exclusions! David Potter, 27, a patron at Fat Daddy's nightclub in York, Pa., became unruly and was asked to leave. He refused, several club bouncers threw him down a flight...

Waive goodbye to reserved rights: a Kansas court finds a blanket statement has some holes.
For insurers, no four-letter word is as bad as the five-letter word "waive," particularly when waive is applied to the insurer's reservation-of-rights letter. Insurers therefore will want to read the August 2008 decision from the District of Kansas, United States Fire Insurance Co. v. Bunge North America...

Oregon benefits from Lilly case.
Byline: From Register-Guard and news service reports Oregon is among 32 states and Washington, D.C., receiving a record $62 million settlement announced Tuesday from drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. over improper marketing of an antipsychotic drug. Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers, with Illinois Attorney...