LAW OFFICES OF GEOFFREY D. MUELLER, LLC

From The Associated Press, through The New York Times:

"Settlement deals reached between federal prosecutors and three Internet poker companies call for more than a half billion dollars to be paid to the government, enabling U.S. poker players to recover more than $160 million lost when the companies shut down U.S. operations last year, authorities said Tuesday.

"U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand approved settlement agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. A separate agreement between the government and a third company, Absolute Poker, had not yet been approved by the court."

More after the jump...

As reported by The New Jersey Law Journal:

"Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor called the heated criticism of the Court over the recent decisions involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 'unfortunate,' telling a Senate committee today that it shows a need for more civics education.

"O'Connor testified that comments labeling Chief Justice John Roberts a 'traitor' or that he betrayed former president George W. Bush 'demonstrate only too well the lack of understanding some of our citizens have about the role of the judicial branch.'"

***

"And this isn't the first time O'Connor has talked about what she calls the need for iCivics. In early 2011, she said during an appearance at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University in Phoenix that, 'People simply don't know today how their government works. They don't know the difference between federal and state courts. We live in a very uneducated age.'"


Complete NJLJ Article after the jump...

Per the New Jersey Star Ledger:

"Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday night said all of New Jersey’s red-light cameras have been certified, so towns may soon be able to resume issuing tickets for the devices that have quickly multiplied across the state.

***

"The DOT 'will be giving guidance to the municipalities shortly on how to proceed,' Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said Tuesday night.
The length of an amber light generally is set at one second for every 10 mph of the posted speed limit — 5 seconds in an intersection with a speed limit of 50 mph.  But New Jersey’s red-light camera pilot program required a stricter standard."

More after the jump...

Per The New Jersey Law Journal:

"A unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court on Wednesday turned back a health insurance carrier's quest for information about medical providers' ownership structures and business practices, finding no basis in statute or contract.

"'We may not, under the guise of statutory construction, expand its scope in the boundless fashion plaintiff seeks merely because plaintiff has formed the belief that the defendants may not have complied with the requirements of other statutes or regulations,' the court said in Selective Ins. Co. of America v. Hudson East Pain Management, A-105-10."

From the syllabus, with Judge Wefing writing for the Court:

"This appeal presents a discrete, narrow legal question:  is a health care provider who has received an assignment of personal injury protection (PIP) benefits from an insured obligated upon request to furnish to the insurer broad information with respect to the provider’s ownership structure, billing practices, and regulatory compliance?

***

"HELD:  An insured had no duty to provide information to plaintiff with respect to the ownership structure, billing practices, or referral methods of the medical providers from whom he or she sought treatment for his or her injuries.  Because an insured had no obligation to supply that information to plaintiff, the assignment of benefits executed by an insured could not serve to impose that duty on the providers."

More after the jump...

A 5-0 Court (with Presiding Appellate Division Judge Wefing, temporarily assigned and not participating, presmably because she wrote the Appellate Division decision which was reversed) finds that, "Although N.J.S.A. 26:2K-29 provides immunity to 'officers and members' of a rescue squad for civil damages in rendering 'intermediate life support services in good faith,' the plain language of the statute does not provide immunity to a rescue squad as an entity."  Murray v. Plainfield Rescue Squad, A-28-10, --- N.J. --- (2012).

In so holding, the unanimous Court's (with Justice Albin authoring the decision) syllabus appears as:

An excellent resource for lawyers and clients alike, outlining the mechanics (and potential pitfalls) of specific gifting strategies.  The article includes an excellent primer of the Reciprocal Trust Doctrine as well as straightforward (and creative) attempts of avoiding same.

More after the jump...

Per The New Jersey Law Journal:

"Camden is trying to get back police internal affairs records that landed in the lap of a lawyer representing one of the scores of plaintiffs suing the city over alleged planting of drug evidence.

"The city has asked a federal judge for a protective order to forbid Alexander Shalom, of the American Civil Liberties Union-New Jersey, from using or possessing information from a computer disk mailed to him anonymously.

"Shalom's client, Joel Barnes, is one of 63 federal plaintiffs who allege they were wrongly charged or convicted due to police misconduct. The cases are consolidated on a master docket as In re Camden Police Cases, 11-cv-1315, and more cases are pending in state court.

"Shalom is opposing the motion, which has a July 16 return date before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Schneider."

***
"Shalom says the unlabeled disk arrived by mail on May 8, 2012, in an envelope that bore his own name as both addressee and sender. "After a click or two, it became clear that it was related to the Camden police" and after a few more clicks, he was "looking at things I hadn't seen before, things I wanted to have seen," Shalom says.

"At that point, he stopped reading and wrote a letter to Camden's lawyer, John Eastlack Jr. of Weir and Partners in Cherry Hill, enclosing a copy of the disk. He told Eastlack that based on a cursory review, some of the documents were relevant to the civil rights suits and responsive to plaintiffs' discovery requests but had not been produced."

More after the jump (Registration Required)...

As initially reported by FindLaw (link below), "When the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals starts a decision with the admonition, 'You don't let a pistol-packing mother catch you naked in her daughter's closet,' you keep reading."  As the faithful reader quickly discerns, "mom" is employed (at least as of even date) as "a corrections officer at the Eagle Academy, which is a 'bootcamp facility for minors' run by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office."

Directly excerpted from Judge Carnes' decision:

"Nineteen-year-old Uzuri Collier called Larry Butler, who was of a similar age, and invited him to her house. Butler responded to the invitation the way most young men over the age of consent would have -- he went. Once Butler was at Uzuri's house, he and she consented to watch television for a while. Then they consented to do what young couples alone in a house have been consenting to do since the memory of man (and woman) runneth not to the contrary. The record does not disclose how long these two young people had known each other in the dictionary sense, but that afternoon in Uzuri's bedroom they also knew each other in the biblical sense."

In affirming the dismissal of the 1983 claims, the 11th Circuit penned the following gems:

"The record does not tell us how the timing worked out as unfortunately as it did.  It may be that the two young people simply lost track of time, which would be understandable given the circumstances.  Or it may be that Uzuri’s mother, Dorethea Collier, left work early that day.  However it happened, Collier came close to catching the couple coupling.  So close that when they heard her, Butler had only enough time to dash into the bedroom closet wearing nothing but a look of surprise."

***

"Collier continued to hold Butler at gunpoint, threatening to kill him if he did not follow orders.  After Collier’s husband 'inquired further' about the naked man’s identity and determined who he was, Butler was allowed to get dressed and leave, although Collier kept the gun pointed at him while he was dressing.  One can assume that it did not take Butler long to get dressed and get out[.]"

***

"The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, concluding, 'If the allegations are true, Collier's treatment of Butler was badder than old King Kong and meaner than a junkyard dog. She might even have acted like the meanest hunk of woman anybody had ever seen. Still, the fact that the mistreatment was mean does not mean that the mistreatment was under color of law.'"


FindLaw article and complete decision after the jump...

In a 2-1 decision, the New Jersey Appellate Division holds that an unexecuted will may be probated under certain circumstances.

In, In re Estate of Ehrlich, A-5439-10, Judges Parrillo and Alvarez upheld probate of the unsigned will (authored by an trust and estates drafting attorney, no less) based on N.J.S.A. 3B:3-3 which permits a will to probate even if that will does not satisfy the formal statutory criteria. To be admitted to probate, the proponent of the will must establish by clear and convincing evidence that the deceased intended it as his or her will.

In so holding, the Court relied on, In re Probate of Will and Codicil of Macool, 416 N.J. Super. 298 (App. Div. 2010). There, the Court interpreted N.J.S.A. 3B:3-3 as codifying a "harmless error" doctrine for wills, although notably, the Court did not permit probate of what it termed a "draft" as the putative testator passed before she was able to review the document.

Interestingly, Judge Skillman, dissenting in Ehrlich, agreed with the Macool decision.  Nonetheless, Judge Skillman's dissent indicates that Macool was "too expansive"  in that N.J.S.A. 3B:3-3 "only allows the admission to probate of a defectively executed will, not an unexecuted will."

Due to the split, the opponents to probate have an appeal as of right.

The full decision after the jump...

Per The New Jersey Law Journal:

"Ten days after New Jersey suspended most operations of cameras that catch red-light runners, a putative class action has been filed against a municipality that uses them, seeking refunds of $1.48 million in fines.

"The June 29 suit, in Camden County Superior Court, claims that Cherry Hill's failure to follow state regulations led to yellow lights that were too short in duration, causing inaccurate data.

"The named plaintiffs in Spector v. Cherry Hill Township, are David Specter of Voorhees and Henry Anderson of Marlton, each of whom paid $85 fines after being issued summonses. They allege unjust enrichment and violations of 42 U.S.C. 1983 and the New Jersey Civil Rights Act."

More after the jump...
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