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euphronius posted:Biological parents are responsible for child support. There are very complex determinations that have to be made to determine who owes what and it is frequently contested. You are being technically correct while still very unhelpful. He wants to know if in PA the spousal (or 'household') income of a non-custodial parent is taken into account when calculating support.
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Dec 28, 2012 15:49
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Alchenar posted:You are being technically correct while still very unhelpful. He wants to know if in PA the spousal (or 'household') income of a non-custodial parent is taken into account when calculating support. Sorry his question was confusing. Reading it again, what would most likely happen in that situation is the father would have a support order entered against him based on his earning capacity only. In most cases, people who are unemployed still have to pay child support based on what they would earn with a job. This can all be argued and litigated however on a variety of factors, so there are no hard and fast rules, other than that parents have a duty to support their children. euphronius fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Dec 28, 2012 |
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Dec 28, 2012 16:18
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Liebfraumilch fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Jan 14, 2013 |
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Dec 28, 2012 17:39
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Liebfraumilch posted:Thank you--both those who cleared up and those who answered my question. I meant the woman on the side is pregnant, yes, and wondered if the man's wife would be hit for child support payments just because they're a PA household, live on only her income, and he's unemployed. Seeing as the hypothetical payments can be based on what he hypothetically should be earning if he were employed (and he's not), it seems like it would come out of the household coffers regardless--or speed up a divorce. Yes. The advice to our hypothetical wife is that regardless of whether this situation will end up in a hypothetical divorce, she should make sure that her income is now going into an account that only she has access to in order to provide a minimum level of protection to it.
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Dec 28, 2012 18:02
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I need some advice on this situation I have for an agreement with a gym. LA Fitness recently opened a new location down the street from me. The equipment and weights weren't up to the high quality the way the salesman described to me. Hex plates are the biggest reason why I want to leave and I'm also concerned about getting my initiation fee and dues back. Back when I signed up, I was under the impression that I was just signing to pay my fees on a digital reader, exactly as how you'd pay at any other retail store. However, the salesman failed to mention that my digital signature was put on an agreement, and more importantly, didn't say anything about the clause on the document that said I only have 3 days to cancel. I never even saw this document until I told the front desk about ending my membership. If I'd known about such an agreement and that clause, there's no way I'd have signed anything! In retrospect, I know shouldn't have even given them any of my money before seeing the gym. The salesman's push included him saying they were going to open the day after I signed up earlier in December, but that ended up being delayed until earlier this week. On the plus side, this is a month to month plan, so I guess the worst case scenario is I lose all the money I'd given them. I truly feel like I was deceived by the salesman. What can I do? Are there any consumer protections for this kind of thing? The gym is located in Dallas, so if there's anything I need to know about dealing with this situation specifically within Texas, I'd appreciate any input.
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Dec 28, 2012 19:28
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There's probably not much in the way of practical legal protections for you. But I had a gym payment issue, and when it wasn't resolved I made a Better Business Bureau complaint. The regional manager was calling me the same afternoon, doing whatever it took for me to rescind the complaint. Problem was 100% solved. From 10 seconds of google-fu, it looks like LA Fitness is with the BBB and you might have some luck going that route. First you must attempt to solve the problem on your own, because you need that as part of your BBB complaint. The business must have an opportunity to correct. So ask for a refund based on the false advertising. Who knows, they may grant you a refund based on the difference in equipment. If that fails, make a reasonably stated BBB complaint.
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Dec 28, 2012 21:24
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woozle wuzzle posted:There's probably not much in the way of practical legal protections for you. But I had a gym payment issue, and when it wasn't resolved I made a Better Business Bureau complaint. The regional manager was calling me the same afternoon, doing whatever it took for me to rescind the complaint. Problem was 100% solved. Thanks, will take that approach. I was mostly unsure if I had any options because of the "agreement". He didn't say that my signature was going any documents and I thought I was just authorizing to charge my card for my fees. It's perfectly ok for them to just take my signature and slap it on a contract without saying anything to me, showing me, or asking for my confirmation?
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Dec 28, 2012 21:34
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air- posted:Thanks, will take that approach. I was mostly unsure if I had any options because of the "agreement". He didn't say that my signature was going any documents and I thought I was just authorizing to charge my card for my fees. It's perfectly ok for them to just take my signature and slap it on a contract without saying anything to me, showing me, or asking for my confirmation? No, but you'd have a hell of a time proving it. Your best bet as as consumer is invariably to go/threaten to go to the regulators and make it cost more for the gym to deal with them than it will just to cancel your contract and be rid of you.
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Dec 28, 2012 21:50
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Even if you have legal recourse, your legal fees would cost more than what you're trying to recoup. So for all practical purposes, you have no legal recourse. You live in the U.S., so there are no gov't consumer protection options. Another avenue to pursue: you could go in and take a dump in the showers or something.
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Dec 28, 2012 22:06
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Oh yeah, I wasn't planning a lawsuit or anything (the amount in question is $180ish), I just didn't know if I had any available options to take. I'm walking in there to talk to someone after work today. Thanks again.
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Dec 28, 2012 23:23
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Liebfraumilch posted:Thank you--both those who cleared up and those who answered my question. I meant the woman on the side is pregnant, yes, and wondered if the man's wife would be hit for child support payments just because they're a PA household, live on only her income, and he's unemployed. Seeing as the hypothetical payments can be based on what he hypothetically should be earning if he were employed (and he's not), it seems like it would come out of the household coffers regardless--or speed up a divorce. For a Canadian perspective, support is based on the parent's income alone. But we have a grid that fixes monthly payment against income, which can only be varied in the case of hardship to the parent paying support. When determining hardship, it's household income that is considered, not just the parent. In the case of support payments based on imputed income, it's a debt of the parent alone, but practically speaking if that parent actually makes the payment it will come out of the household income. If the parent doesn't pay it, there's no liability to the spouse for the debt, although joint assets will be at risk.
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Dec 29, 2012 02:53
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Alright so I just got an EP signed to a label. The label in question is digital only, meaning there will be no physical release of this EP. Now we wanted the "cover art" for the EP to be this picture:  The legal problem is, we kinda just painted over this picture:  It's supposed to be an homage to the British TV series "Sherlock". Since there's no physical copies of the CD being made, we technically aren't "selling" the image. Is there any way we can get away with this?
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Dec 29, 2012 03:38
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What are the restrictions on getting someone declared legally incompetent in Idaho? I'm home for Christmas and my Grandma's in a lot worse shape mentally than I'd believed. She's suing my 85 yr-old grandfather for divorce on the grounds of adultery (she thinks he had an affair the neighbor's underage daughter) and has gone so far as to get retain an attorney and have Grandpa served with papers (but they're still living together). She's also locked everyone out of receiving medical information and bank accounts. It's clear she's no longer all there mentally--she talks about things that never happened and is convinced that just about everyone is against her. Her health is generally poor and she relies on my grandfather and aunt to take care of her. I think we should have her declared incompetent so they can at least have access to her medical and financial records and be able to make decisions on her behalf, to say nothing of the whole divorce nonsense.
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Dec 29, 2012 04:05
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Hyperbolic fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jan 14, 2013 |
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Dec 29, 2012 04:22
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Liebfraumilch fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Jan 14, 2013 |
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Dec 29, 2012 05:20
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d0grent posted:Alright so I just got an EP signed to a label. The label in question is digital only, meaning there will be no physical release of this EP. The law doesnt care about if youre selling the image. You're selling a digital EP, which presumably contains a copy of this image. Therefore you are reproducing a derivative work of the original, which is a copyright violation. (If you were giving the EP away, the analysis doesn't change - it's still reproduction in violation.) So, short answer: no, you can't get away with it if the copyright holder wants to call you on it.
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Dec 29, 2012 08:50
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Kalman posted:The law doesnt care about if youre selling the image. You're selling a digital EP, which presumably contains a copy of this image. Therefore you are reproducing a derivative work of the original, which is a copyright violation. (If you were giving the EP away, the analysis doesn't change - it's still reproduction in violation.) Could he use a photo of Ronald Reagan (who I thought that was at first)?
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Dec 29, 2012 21:19
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BigHead posted:Could he use a photo of Ronald Reagan (who I thought that was at first)? Does he have: a) Permission from the photographer (who holds the copyright by default, absent some kind of assignment or other transfer)? b) (in any locality where personality rights survive death) Permission from the estate or other holder of the right of publicity? If so, yes. Otherwise, no. You could argue it's a fair use. Four factor test, you're going to lose: commercial use, essentially non-transformative. You lose on that, the others are irrelevant.
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Dec 30, 2012 00:26
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I'm pretty sure that the official photograph of Ronald Reagan is public domain. If you redid the paint splotch thing on that photo, it'd be okay, I think.
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Dec 30, 2012 00:41
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BigHead posted:Could he use a photo of Ronald Reagan (who I thought that was at first)? It's the Gipper. Here's his official (and public domain) portrait 
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Dec 30, 2012 00:48
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Thanks a bunch for the advisement. I've decided to have my artist completely repaint Ronald Reagan from scratch.
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Dec 30, 2012 07:11
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I recently graduated college and have been applying to jobs around town when I came across a business that prohibits tobacco users from being employed at all. Does this run against this particular state statute? http://tinyurl.com/atzey3o
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Dec 31, 2012 23:57
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Borscht posted:I recently graduated college and have been applying to jobs around town when I came across a business that prohibits tobacco users from being employed at all. Does this run against this particular state statute? Was the job working with volatile of flammable substances.
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Jan 1, 2013 01:27
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A question about referrals. I am part of small group of people who want to start their own consulting company. I've started businesses in the past but given that almost the entire company has dual citizenship there is interest and intent to work both in the US and Canada I'm not sure about incorporating in both, or running as a foreign company. That said I recognize the need for a lawyer but I'm not sure which type of lawyer to look into for this. While all but one of the members are located in Oregon we are not sure that is the best place to incorporate so again, I'm not entirely sure where to start my search. Is there anyone that could make a suggestion to me either where to start my search or point me towards a lawyer or firm where we could get some help?
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Jan 1, 2013 01:31
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xxEightxx posted:Was the job working with volatile of flammable substances. Nope, here is the text of the question: [a company] and all of our affiliated facilities and grounds are tobacco free. We no longer hire candidates who use tobacco products of any kind. Have you been tobacco free for the past 90 days?
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Jan 1, 2013 02:05
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Borscht posted:Nope, here is the text of the question: The statute you linked reads "It shall be a discriminatory or unfair employment practice for an employer to terminate the employment of any employee due to that employee's engaging in any lawful activity off the premises of the employer during nonworking hours..." It says nothing about hiring, only termination, so I wouldn't think that refusing to hire tobacco users would be a violation of that particular statute. Firing an existing employee for smoking tobacco outside of work might be, though. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.
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Jan 1, 2013 02:52
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Borscht posted:I recently graduated college and have been applying to jobs around town when I came across a business that prohibits tobacco users from being employed at all. Does this run against this particular state statute? Is this a workplace where lingering traces of cigarette smoke, perfume or cologne may interfere with the work being done or constitute a health hazard to your co-workers or customers?
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Jan 1, 2013 03:20
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Borscht posted:Nope, here is the text of the question: Is the company at all related to fitness or healthcare? If so, perhaps they are relying on the conflict of interest defense by claiming that tobacco use conflicts with their duty to promote health.
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Jan 1, 2013 03:27
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Is this a workplace where lingering traces of cigarette smoke, perfume or cologne may interfere with the work being done or constitute a health hazard to your co-workers or customers? No, it's not a clean room or anything. It's for a lab tech position at a non-profit hospital. To be honest the entire application has all sorts of hostile overtones. JohnnyHildo posted:Is the company at all related to fitness or healthcare? If so, perhaps they are relying on the conflict of interest defense by claiming that tobacco use conflicts with their duty to promote health.
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Jan 1, 2013 04:01
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Borscht posted:at a non-profit hospital That's probably all they need. They can say this one time in the 80's a guy on smoke break killed an old lady due to smoke, and there you go. They can always wheel out some guy that would die if you breathed smoke on him. That's probably enough of a stretch to make it work, even though you'd be on different floors and have no contact.
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Jan 1, 2013 07:16
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Smokers also statistically end up incurring more health-care costs which drive up insurance rates and have more and longer sick days which hurts overall productivity (I'm unable to find my source on this data at the moment, sorry.) But your hospital is not the only one going ahead with policies like this - a big one in my area is introducing it in a year or two and another has had one in place for some time already.
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Jan 1, 2013 09:20
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woozle wuzzle posted:They can say this one time in the 80's a guy on smoke break killed an old lady due to smoke...That's probably enough of a stretch to make it work, even though you'd be on different floors and have no contact. It's not really that much of a stretch. There is a large hospital complex near me that completely bans smoking on all property. The main logic being that A) Smokers tend to congregate right outside of the doors when they smoke and patients aren't very happy about having to walk through a cloud of smoke to enter the hospital B) If your doctor tells you that smoking is bad for you and then you see him outside having a smoke break following your appointment, it looks hypocritical C) Having cigarette butts littering hospital grounds looks bad. It doesn't have to be as severe as some guy in the 80s killing somebody. If the patients/customers are having an unpleasant experience due to the actions of the employees, the hospital is going put rules in place to correct that.
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Jan 2, 2013 09:54
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Borscht posted:No, it's not a clean room or anything. It's for a lab tech position at a non-profit hospital. In my experience the sense of smell can be quite important in the lab. Having the guy sitting next to you smell like an ashtray can really impact your work.
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Jan 2, 2013 17:14
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My wife and I rent an apartment in New Jersey. I came home today to a letter from my landlord, informing me that they never received my rent for November, I'm being charged $200 in late fees ($50/week x 4 weeks, until they got the December rent), and that they want the back rent + fees tomorrow by noon or they'll turn the account over for eviction. I paid my rent for November, of course, but since we have to pay by money order I can't just pull up the cancelled check. I'm pretty sure I no longer have the money order receipt either, since I'm a dumbass and probably threw it away last time I cleaned out my car ("November rent receipt? That was months ago, they would have told me if there was a problem!  ") Western Union has a form you can submit to track down a money order without the receipt, but all that's going to do is tell me I bought it and they never cashed it, which I already know. It'll get the money back if it was never cashed, but that'll take 6 to 8 weeks. The office is closed until tomorrow morning, so there's not much I can do until then. I guess my question is, given that I don't have much to stand on, what are my options for dealing with them? I guess I'll end up having to pay the extra rent and late fees, and hope Western Union can track down the money order. It seems shady that they can just let the late fees pile up, then threaten me with eviction two months down the road. I even handed my December rent to them in person, and they didn't mention anything about this.
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Jan 3, 2013 01:05
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I think there is some confusion as to what they are banning. They are requiring that no new employees use tobacco of any kind (on or off company grounds). I can understand the reasons for prohibiting smoking on a hospital campus, but if I want to enjoy a cigar every now and then, or go to a hookah bar with friends, that's really my business. I can also understand why a company would want to limit their insurance liability by only employing non-smokers. There is also an economic argument for not employing disabled people or fats or young women who might become pregnant in the new future. Thankfully, there are laws to protect these groups from discrimination (I don't know if obese people are included in this). I just want to know if that statute I posted protected smokers from similar discrimination.  My torches of freedom
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Jan 3, 2013 01:08
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Borscht posted:I think there is some confusion as to what they are banning. They are requiring that no new employees use tobacco of any kind (on or off company grounds). By the wording of that statute, it seems like it would probably protect current employees from being fired for smoking outside of work hours and company property, but wouldn't prevent a company from refusing to hire new employees because they smoke. If their new hire paperwork only asks if you've been tobacco-free for the past 90 days, then I suppose you could not smoke for a few months, get hired, and then you might have a case against them if they later found out you were smoking outside of work and fired you for it. It would still mean a legal battle for you, most likely, which you could still lose if it was determined that there was a bona-fide reason to prohibit hospital lab techs from using tobacco. And that's assuming the hospital actually cited your smoking as a reason for termination rather than just laying you off for unspecified reasons, since Colorado is an at-will state. Realistically, though, if you really do just smoke a cigar every now and then or hit the hookah bar every so often and you aren't a pack-a-day guy who's disappearing from work for fifteen minutes at a time several times a day, they'd probably never find out (unless you do something dumb like post pictures of yourself on Facebook or some poo poo), or really care even if they did. Even my company defines tobacco-free as "not using tobacco more that twice a month" (for the purposes of determining your health insurance premium; they don't care if you smoke as long as you pay for your own lung cancer). Side note: buttertrolls are not, in fact, a protected class. 
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Jan 3, 2013 06:11
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Alaska Airlines has a no smoking policy and gets a hair sample from prospective new-hires for analysis. I'd have to get a crew cut (and shave my pubes) and stay off the stogies for a couple of weeks if I wanted to work there. https://careers.alaskaair.com/Alaska-FAQ.asp For the record, I think this sucks.
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Jan 3, 2013 16:20
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Are there any legal issues associated with writing fiction based on a newspaper article? I feel like there can't be, or Law & Order and every other crime procedural wouldn't do it, but I just want to cover my bases. To clarify: I'm going to do a fictionalized version of the story, changing the characters substantially, so it's not like anyone involved could claim libel or life story rights or anything - I don't think. I just want to copy the circumstances that happened in real life. Online research hasn't helped, perhaps because I can't figure out what search terms to use. I did find one instance of someone successfully suing one of those "ripped from the headlines" shows. However, that was a pretty clear-cut case of the writers creating a character who was a very thinly veiled version of a public figure and making him a murderer. I'm not going to do anything like that; the characters don't even do anything illegal. Am I in the clear? Should I substantially change the details or circumstances of the story in order to cover my rear end, or is it cool to basically use the basic bones of the story as-is and just add/change details? Do I need to state that it's based on true events, or is that a bad idea?
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Jan 4, 2013 04:24
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Consider this:quote:The "small penis rule" is an informal strategy used by authors to evade libel lawsuits. It was described in a New York Times article in 1998:
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Jan 4, 2013 04:41
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EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:Consider this: That is actually really funny for this particular instance, because I'm writing erotica. The interesting thing about all the stuff I can find - including that - is that it focuses on the portrayal of the characters, not the story itself, which is the part I'm concerned about. The characters won't be recognizable because their personalities and identities are not that relevant or important. They'll have the same jobs as the people in real life, but I won't be giving the similar names or personalities or anything because it doesn't matter at all. My concern, primarily, is - do the news agencies who reported the story own rights to the actual concept of the story, or just their actual writeup of it? How about the people who were involved in the real-life incident? I tried looking into the idea of "life story rights" but they seemed very complicated and the rules surrounding them were very vague, so I couldn't figure out how to apply it to a situation where they had already told their story to a newspaper and therefore made it public. E: I should clarify, the characters won't be recognizable as the real-life people except based on the circumstances of the story. It's unique enough that anyone who read the real-life story would probably recognize it right away. But I don't know where that puts me, legally. Jessi Bond fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 04:52
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