Jul 27, 2017
“Recently my advertising agency ended a long relationship with Lucky Strike cigarettes, and I’m relieved.” – Don Draper, “Mad Men”.
Like Don Draper “quitting” cigarettes, more lawmakers and health researchers are ready to fight the makers of OxyContin and other opioid painkillers.
In January 2017, the City of Everett, Washington filed a lawsuit against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma. Purdue Pharma filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and the court’s decision might come … Read more
Jul 25, 2017
A recent story in the Oregonian tells how the state of Oregon has taken a married couple’s children because the state claims the couple isn’t smart enough to be parents. In fact, the state took their younger child from the hospital before his mother was even able to see him.
As the story points out, both parents have held jobs and they maintain a household. While neither parent looks like another Einstein, when has anyone … Read more
Jul 18, 2017
In a recent blog, we discussed the advantages of incorporating your retirement plan (i.e., pension plans, 401(k) plans, employer established IRA plans, etc.) into your overall estate plan. As we discussed, this can be a complex matter because the tax advantages which are accorded to retirement accounts are generally not extended to heirs or designated beneficiaries once the retirement account owner has died.
By way of summary, we have identified three goals you may … Read more
Jul 13, 2017
The Oregon legislature passed the Fair Work Week Act (SB 828) on June 29, 2017 and the potential new law awaits Governor Brown’s signature before implementation. If implemented, the new law would be the first of its kind adopted by a U.S. State.
Supporters claim passage of the Fair Work Week Act as a win for workers in the retail, hospitality and food service industries. Opponents of the Fair Work Week Act criticize … Read more
Jul 5, 2017
In a recent bizarre trip down the rabbit hole, in Twist Architecture v. Board of Architect Examiners, 361 Or. 507 (2017), the Oregon Supreme Court upheld a fine against architects, duly licensed in Washington, for daring to call themselves “architects” on their correspondence and website read by Oregon clients who hired them to prepare master plans for possible commercial development in the state of Oregon.
Even though the drawings the architects here were hired to … Read more
Jun 26, 2017
In a win for statutory plain meaning, the Oregon Court of Appeals on May 24, 2017 reversed a defendant’s conviction for telephonic harassment because “the plain and unambiguous text of ORS 166.090(1)(b) requires the other person’s telephone ‘to ring,’ which we interpret to mean that the telephone must emit an audible sound.”
Like Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, it seems that the Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ) attempted … Read more
Jun 20, 2017
From time to time we get calls asking us to help remove items posted to the internet that the caller finds embarrassing, unfair or just plain wrong. Sometimes we can help but often we can’t. Recently Walter Olson at the Overlawyered web site of the Cato Institute collected a number of recent posts by law professor Eugene Volokh here, here and here as well as this story in Tech Dirt.
A few simple … Read more
Jun 13, 2017
We jubilantly welcome Michael Litvin to our firm. Michael graduated from Southridge High School in Beaverton, Oregon before graduating from University of California, Berkeley with a double major in Rhetoric and Political Science in 2-1/2 years with Highest Distinction in General Scholarship. Michael earned his Juris Doctorate from Cornell Law School in 2009 where he served as an Associate Editor and Fellow with the Legal Information Institute (LII), Managing Editor of the Cornell International Law … Read more
Jun 12, 2017
Retirement plans (i.e., pension plans, 401(k) plans, employer established IRA plans, etc.) account for the majority of assets held by most Americans. Plans which meet certain legal requirements set forth under the federal ERISA law enjoy favorable tax treatment in order to promote growth and provide a comfortable retirement for the account holder. For example, the account holder is permitted to defer taking any distributions from his/her retirement account until the calendar year in which … Read more
May 16, 2017
Some states apparently insist that even if your criminal conviction is overturned on appeal and the charges against you are dismissed, the state should still keep any fines you’ve paid unless and until you can prove that you were actually innocent of the crime you were charged with in the first place. In other words, they actually have a presumption of guilt that you have to overcome before the state will return the fines you … Read more
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