How Will Your House of Worship Utilize the SCOTUS Ministerial Exception?

Who among them can be fired?Earlier this month, SCOTUS issued a unanimous decision in Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Evangelical Church vs EEOC.  The case holds that a church receives freedom of religion protection under the First Amendment when it comes to employment termination decisions.This case came about because the school, located right here in Wayne County, MI, fired one of the school's "called", or vocational teachers.  The church utilized both lay teachers, and vocational teachers; the latter being formally ordained by the church congregation and equipped with a "diploma of vocation".Cheryl Perich started out at the school as a lay teacher, then earned her diploma and was commissioned as a "called" teacher in 1999.  Her problems...

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Posted in: Americans with Disabilities Act,EEOC,First Amendment,SCOTUS

SCOTUS Imposes Warrant Requirement for GPS Vehicle Tracking

Last Monday, the SCOTUS issued a 5-4 decision in what could turn into a seminal 4th Amendment case; United States vs Jones.  The High Court strongly embraced privacy here in the electronic age.In 2004, Antoine Jones owned and operated a hopping night club in downtown Washington D.C.  His joint was so jumpin, it caught the attention of a joint drug task force consisting of the FBI and the Washington PD.The task force staked out the club by filming all the action at the front door.  Also, Jones' cell phones were tapped and data dumped.  With this evidence in hand, the task force applied for and was granted a warrant to place a GPS tracking device on Jones' wife's Jeep Cherokee within 10-days and within...

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Posted in: Chief Justice John Roberts,Fourth Amendment,Justice Sonia Sotomayor,SCOTUS,search and seizure,United States v Jones

200 Posts in Two Years

Thanks to our readers, this blog has over 62,000 page views in the nearly two years of its existence.  Since March 2, 2010, we have posted 200 times on legal topics of interest to readers of the Oakland Press' e-paper.There are literally millions of blogs now on the Internet.  Of these, hundreds of thousands are devoted to legal topics.  The competition for 15-seconds of a reader's attention is keen these days.We will continue to scour the web, fine-tuning our news feeds for interesting and useful legal information for your regular consumption. When walking the halls of the various courts in Southeast Michigan, colleagues and judges occasionally mention one of our posts.  Grateful to claim a professional readership component...

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Posted in: blawg,blogging,circuit court,law blog,Oakland Press,Southeast Michigan

Military Divorces for Returning Soldiers

As our soldiers return from war in the Middle East, many cases of post traumatic stress disorder are becoming manifest.  Often, the PTSD shatters an already fragile marriage, strained to the break point from years long separation.Many soldiers, having survived the war, come home only to be placed in a trick bag: struggling with PTSD while their marriage falls apart.  To complicate things even more, there are special rules that apply to military divorces. The psychology of both partners to the marriage is affected by the homecoming.  The state-side spouse absorbed 100% responsibility for managing household tasks, child rearing, education, and all other domestic issues.  A sense of independence may have seeped into...

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Posted in: ABA,American Bar Association,divorce,Iraq,post traumatic stress disorder,PTSD,SCRA,Servicemembers Civil Relief Act,soldier

Federal Government Calls for Total Ban on Distracted Driving

Unanimously, the 5 members of the National Transportation and Safety Board called for all states to impose a complete ban on texting, emails, and even cell phone use (hand held or hands free) while operating a vehicle.  The NTSB's little-noted but highly significant recommendation came out before the holidays last month in the wake of a series of deadly car crashes involving distracted drivers.In one of the crashes, a Missouri teenager caused a death accident after texting 11 times in as many minutes.  There seems to be a correlation between youth and distracted driving which is compounded by the youth's relative inexperience on the road.Now the question is whether the state legislatures have the political will to outlaw what has...

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Posted in: cell phone,Deborah Hersman,distracted driving,NTSB,texting

Child Obesity as a Custody Factor in Family Court

Yesterday, the NBC Today Show featured a segment on family court cases where a parent was mounting a child custody challenge based on obesity.  This past year, I recall hearing much about the subject of childhood obesity, perhaps due to the First Lady's "Let's Move" campaign.According to a recent report by the Center for Disease Control, childhood obesity affects 17% of our nation's youth; a figure triple what it was just a generation ago.  Now that this is a recognized condition putting on the cloak of yet another national crisis, should family court judges take childhood obesity into account in the custody calculus?The father featured in the Today Show segment was shown cooking a vegetarian meal for his two preteen children.  He...

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Posted in: child custody,Child Custody Act,co-parenting,family court,family law,parenting schedule