Hunt & Associates P.C.

Jul 25, 2017

Oregon Will Decide If You’re Smart Enough to Keep Your Kids

PhrenologyA 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 5, 2017

When You’re Not Who You Are; When an Architect is Not an Architect

Architect drawingsIn 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 20, 2017

Scrubbing the Internet of What You Don’t Like – What Works and What Doesn’t

GoogleFrom 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

May 16, 2017

Now That We’ve Taken Your Money, Prove Why We Shouldn’t Keep It; Or, The Advantages of a Presumption of Guilt

Prison cellsSome 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

May 9, 2017

The Donut Disability and Other Ailments of Public Employment

DonutsPerhaps it’s not surprising but public employees take significantly more time off from work than workers in the private sector.  As pointed out in Steven Malanga’s City Journal article, there are various causes promoting this difference between employees in the private and public sectors.  Among other things, public sector employees can often retire on full disability while continuing to work full time in other jobs.  Many jurisdictions such as New York City apparently offer … Read more

May 3, 2017

Yellow Traffic Lights are Too Brief but Don’t Try to Tell the State of Oregon’s Board of Engineering Examiners – It Will Certainly Ignore Your Message and Fine You for Speaking

Yellow traffic lightIn an email to the Oregon State Board of Engineering an electronics engineer argued that yellow traffic lights in the state were too brief and thus put the public at risk.  He supported his arguments with calculations and graphs which he prepared at his own cost in his free time.

The Oregon State Board of Engineering disregarded the substance of his email but attacked the author, Mats Jarlstrom, for referring to himself as an “electronics … Read more

Mar 7, 2017

Who Runs the Shop – Things Public Officials Can’t Say About Public Employees

Speak No Evil Monkey - 030717 croppedThe Oregon Supreme Court has just ruled that a City Council or other government body can be punished for committing an unfair labor practice if one of its members criticizes the public employee unions to which the city’s employees belong.

In AFSCME Council 75 v. City of Lebanon, 360 Or 809 (2017) the Court held that the City could be sanctioned for an unfair labor practice if one member of the Council, in a letter … Read more

Jan 10, 2017

Criminal Law and Wheelchairs: Be Careful Where You Roll

Motorized wheelchairMost of us wouldn’t think that hang gliders require the same regulation through rules and laws as airplanes and helicopters.  Most of us probably wouldn’t think that wheelchairs, even if motorized, should logically be governed by the plethora of traffic laws and rules applied to cars, buses and trucks driving down our streets and highways. After all, a wheelchair enables someone who can’t walk to achieve a personal mobility equivalent to walking.  A wheelchair does … Read more