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5/19/13 6:09 PM Wrongful Death Lawsuit against Wells Fargo in Wrongful Foreclosure Case
AllGov - ?May 18, 2013?
Disabled veteran Larry Delassus of Hermosa Beach, California, died in court last December while opposing the wrongful foreclosure of his condominium, which he had purchased 17 years earlier, prompting those close to him to sue the bank. The wrongful The wrongful death lawsuit says Wells Fargo was at fault not only for Delassus losing his home, but also for causing the stress that contributed to his death. Wells Fargo placed Delassus into default after the bank incorrectly charged him for back property taxes, which it turned out was really owed by his neighbor, not Delassus. Even after Delassus pointed out the mistake, which Wells Fargo acknowledged, the bank refused to correct the situation or help him bring his account current, resulting in the condo being seized and sold off. Delassus, 62, suffered from a rare liver disorder called Budd-Chiari Syndrome. He appeared in court for a December hearing, during which he collapsed and died from cardiac arrest within minutes... 5/12/13 11:05 PM A couple months ago, we built what has quickly become a wonderful tribute forum to those we have lost on Delphi, Delphi's Memorial Forum.Since
that start, we have posted fitting memorials for 46 Delphi members who
passed away, are looking for a number of missing members, and
successfully looked for and found 4 other MIA members. In those two months, almost 2300 people have visited the forum once or more (usually more). The
most touching part to me is the hundreds of posts where members have
talked about their lost friends, and so many of the posts are deep from
the heart. I've hosted forums since 1994 on Delphi, and host
several of Delphi's busiest forums. But no forum has shown more love,
more of the wonderful Delphi community, than Delphi's Memorial Forum.
For those of you who haven't visited, or haven't visited in a while,
stop by and share memories, tears, and joy with your friends. 4/27/13 10:10 PM
Disability fraud is not a
terribly hard crime to get away with. You claim you’ve been injured, get a shady
doctor to sign off, and then you stick to the fakery. If you say you’ve hurt
your back, remain recumbent! Don’t go climbing trees or fixing your roof in
public. And certainly do not upload to YouTube a video that shows you
half-naked and covered in tinfoil, doing “the robot” to the tune of
Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride.” The poor dope who did that was just one of
the several alleged insurance fraudsters recently caught in the act by the Utah Attorney General’s Office and
inspectors for the Social Security Administration. The department sent hidden
camera teams out to film some people who had made claims, to see whether or not
the claims were legitimate. Many were not. One man, who had claimed crippling
pain, was filmed driving a truck, carrying a baby seat, and then running away
when approached by investigators. (“His truck and t-shirt indicated he had a
business for buying antlers,” the AG’s press release noted.) Another woman, who
claimed that various mental disorders made it very difficult for her to go out
in public, had her benefits cut “after investigators found newspaper articles
about her being ‘constantly involved in music projects,’ YouTube videos of her
performances, Facebook posts about the venues she was playing and investigators
witnessed her perform at a concert for several hundred people.” The department
also discovered that some of the alleged fraudsters had uploaded footage of
themselves to YouTube engaging in activities that they shouldn’t have been able
to perform. The weirdest example: the 40-year-old man who “had been collecting
disability benefits for nearly 18 years because he said he was badly impaired by
depression, anxiety, asthma, obesity and sore muscles that he was unable to
leave his house.” His benefits ended after investigators discovered that, in
addition to “swinging on a swing set and riding a scooter,” he
had posted a YouTube video in which he took off his shirt, fashioned himself a
tinfoil hat and bustier, and did a herky-jerky dance to “Magic Carpet Ride.” In
another video, he played air guitar... http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/04/25/dumb_criminal_of_the_week_the_alleged_disability_insurance_scammers_whose.html 4/3/13 10:43 PM Good riddance of garbage:
HELENA – A Montana federal judge will retire following an investigation into an email he forwarded that included a racist joke involving President Barack Obama. U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull had previously announced he would step down as chief circuit judge and take a reduced caseload, but he informed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he now intends to fully retire May 3. The appellate court posted a statement by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski on its website Tuesday announcing Cebull had submitted the retirement letter. 3/29/13 7:10 AM This is a practice that not only is sleazy and unethical; it should be made criminal by Congress so we can stop the practice: ================
One in 10 Federal Judges Took Trips on Other People's Dime, Study Says
The National Law Journal
A nonprofit group's research has restoked the debate about federal judges who accept all-expenses-paid trips for educational seminars. The Center for Public Integrity dug through disclosure forms judges filed during the past 4 1/2 years and found that 185 federal district and appeals court judges — 11 percent of federal judges — reported attending at least one seminar at which foundations or corporations paid for air fare, hotel stays and meals. The report, published on Thursday, identified George Mason University's School of Law in Virginia as the most frequent host of the judicial seminars, sponsoring 45 during the period in question. Most frequently, it was conservative groups and businesses that covered the cost of judicial seminars, especially those at George Mason. Concern about such trips have swirled in legal circles since for decades. Legislators on Capitol Hill have tried unsuccessfully to stop the expenses-paid judicial seminars. In 2007, the U.S. Judicial Conference began requiring judges and seminar hosts to disclose information about the conferences.
full story: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202594005188 3/27/13 5:20 AM Press release from Florida's bar, which opposes the bill:
Florida Families Lose with Passage of HB231/SB718: Lawmakers side against Florida's women, children and families.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., March 22, 2013 -- This week, women, children and families across the state were dealt a devastating blow from the policy makers who were elected to act in the best interest of Florida's citizens, but instead, chose to collapse to the pressure of a small, vocal group of disgruntled alimony payors.
At the center of this very personal battle is HB231/SB718, the Dissolution of Marriage legislation that attempts to make significant, far reaching and harmful changes to Florida's current alimony statutes. This legislation is an apparent attack on dependent spouses, the majority of whom are women, and its impact will throw many families into despair.
"This proposed legislation is anti-woman and anti-family. It denies one set of people with sufficient funds to meet the basic needs of life, while rewarding another group of people by allowing them to walk away from existing agreements," said Carin M. Porras, Esq. , Chair of the Family Law Section of The Florida Bar. "It is perpetuated by proponents who are refusing to assume responsibility for their obligations. By allowing this radical legislation to move through committee hearings, our state's policy makers have clearly signaled that putting Florida families first is of little priority."
There are several provisions that pose grave concern. First, the proposed legislation eliminates permanent alimony, which under current law can only be awarded after making findings of fact that no other form of alimony is fair and reasonable. Eliminating this option for judicial discretion will devastate the spouse who agreed to be the homemaker, gave up a career to care for children, moved to support a spouse's career ambitions, or for an ill or disabled spouse who is unable to work and will never be able to support themselves.
Second, the proposed legislation limits durational alimony to 50 percent of the length of the marriage and sets arbitrary guidelines to calculate alimony payments. This would prohibit judges from considering the actual financial needs of the parties, leaving no discretion to account for the vast differences in families and the overall income available for a family. Again, this denies alimony recipients with sufficient funds to meet basic needs of life, leaving them with little alternative but to apply to the state for Medicaid, food stamps and other forms of assistance.
Further, this legislation allows former spouses who willfully entered into marital settlement agreements to return to court and modify the provisions of those agreements without showing any substantial change in circumstances. Former spouses who were ordered to pay alimony may also modify their orders. This provision alone will flood Florida's delicate and underfunded court system with repeats of old cases.
Equally alarming is a new provision that drags minor children into the already contentious negotiations of alimony proceedings. This language provides a presumption that an equal timesharing schedule is in the best interest of minor children and removes the court's discretion and ability to consider a child's individual needs such as age, developmental or psychological circumstances, or even proximity to a parent.
Any one of these provisions would have far reaching consequences, but the combined impact of this legislation will force some Floridians, particularly women who sacrificed their own educations and careers for their families, to face a future of poverty and government assistance. Moving this legislation any further sends a loud and clear message that Florida has no regard for the sanctity of a family unit or the decision of a parent to stay home and make their own sacrifices to nurture a family.
The Family Law Section of The Florida Bar opposes HB231 and SB718 and urges Florida's legislators to drown out the noise of the disgruntled minority and focus on the widespread devastation that will come if this legislation is passed.
3/17/13 8:27 PM Serious problems persist in indigent legal defense
WASHINGTON (AP) - It is not the happiest of birthdays for the landmark Supreme Court decision that, a half-century ago, guaranteed a lawyer for criminal defendants who are too poor to afford one. A unanimous high court issued its decision in Gideon v. Wainwright on March 18, 1963, declaring that states have an obligation to provide defendants with "the guiding hand of counsel" to ensure a fair trial for the accused. But in many states today, taxpayer-funded public defenders face crushing caseloads, the quality of legal representation varies from county to county and people stand before judges having seen a lawyer only briefly, if at all...A half-century later, there are parts of the country where "it is better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former prosecutor. Leahy said court-appointed lawyers often are underpaid and can be "inexperienced, inept, uninterested or worse..."
More: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130317/DA52RQA80.html 3/15/13 11:48 PM A great day for freedom, the Constitution and liberty as a piece of the abhorent misnamed "Patriot Act" is rejected:
NPR (blog)
3/10/13 10:20 PM How Bank of America (and the other big banks) con people out of homes - trying to foreclose at the same time as they pretend to do a modification (refusing to put the foreclosure on hold) - when you hear the word FORECLOSURE, assume the bank may be lying and see a lawyer IMMEDIATELY (your home is at stake):
Details: http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/do-i-have-grounds-for-an-illegal-foreclosure-lawsu-1149830.html?answered=true
3/10/13 10:06 PM Two law schools now offer partial refunds if you can’t pass the bar
The Daily Caller
Law schools are struggling these days. Applications are down nearly 50 percent since 2004 and at their lowest ebb lowest since the Reagan administration...Desperate times call for desperate measures. And now lower-tier American law schools are starting to sound less like high-minded academics and a just a bit like Vince Offer — the ShamWow! Guy. Consider Florida Coastal School of Law and Charlotte School of Law...Both are testing out partial refund programs for graduates who meet certain conditions but fail to pass state bar examinations. Florida Coastal and Charlotte are independent of each other, but they are both for-profit outfits affiliated with InfiLaw Inc. Full-time tuition at each school is roughly $37,000 a year. Under the refund plan at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, students who don’t pass the bar after two attempts will get $10,000 as long as they have completed a selection of bar prep courses offered by the school. In addition, anyone who meets a host of studying-related requirements but is nevertheless dismissed for academic reasons after the all-important first year will receive $10,000. (The school’s website helpfully recommends that ousted 1Ls use the money “to defray any student loans incurred.”) In another perk of sorts, students at Florida Coastal who don’t obtain clerkships, externships, clinic spots or some kind of satisfying legal experience while in law school will receive $2,000 in compensation...The program at the Charlotte School of Law in Charlotte, North Carolina is less comprehensive. It offers $10,000 to students who fail on two occasions to pass either the North Carolina or South Carolina bar exams...
http://goo.gl/tWJtI
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