PROUD LAWYER/SLOW CAREER ???
A defendant was set to go to trial in Maine and his attorney was now over a barrel: his client was not in court. Nonetheless, the brave barrister moved forward, advising the judge that the client couldn’t be there. Obviously surprised that the court was sympathetic and granted the continuance, the lawyer called the ruling “…basically the highlight of my career!” His client? A moose had attacked him and he was badly injured.
THE HIGH COST OF LIVING
We recently learned the hard way. Stats show that in a hospital in modern Australia on average costs $766. To be hospitalized in Spain will run you $424 a day. After American physicist Leon Lederman recently died, we checked on it and learned that after he ended in a US hospital in 2015, he was forced to sell his Nobel Prize medal to pay his medical costs! The average cost per day?? $5,220!!
D.U.I. CHANGES?
The Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to hear a law that forces drivers involved in accidents that cause serious injuries to take chemical tests, a case in which the Appellate Court found it unconstitutional. While the driver refused tests at the police station, he was physically restrained by security at the hospital and threatened with catheterization. He argues that he never consented to tests and that police should have sought a search warrant to take his bodily fluids, as per the US Supreme Court decision in Missouri v McNeely, relied on by the reviewing court. The Legal Beagle will certainly keep you up-to-date on the high court’s review!
“Pawternity Leave”??
Some employers are already recognizing this as something akin to the responsibilities of adoption leave, sick leave, and pregnancy leave as an employee benefit. As an incentive to retain employees, consider these facts: millennials happen to make up 35% of our pet owners and coincidentally make up 35% of our labor force, and many consider their pets as their children or even a “test-run” for having kids. And a recent survey found that fully 83% of employees had more loyalty to companies with pet-friendly policies and a certain boost to morale. And it’s growing, allowing for time for the critter’s medical issues, new pet’s care, and even bereavement. From a legal standpoint, we can’t find any recent cases but did find that at least one city has passed a “pet sick-leave” law and some major companies have taken it further: up to 2 weeks for those getting a new pet. Pawternity appears to have legs!
YIKES!!!
The United Nations has issued a report about the dire consequences of the rise of sea levels, diseases, heat waves, and other dangerous maladies that “climate change” is bringing; water and food shortages. And according to the University of California Irvine, it’s upsetting other aspects of our daily lives, to wit: beer! Yep, even tho only 20% of the world’s barley production goes into beer (most feeds livestock), it means our beer prices could soon double. Consider even Ireland where prices, already expensive, could triple! In fact, the author of the report puts it all in context: “This is a paper born of love and fear.”
ONLY IN OHIO
You know there are cameras everywhere nowadays, right? Well, an Ohio man was videotaped on a state highway with a cow in the back. Not in the flatbed—in the back seat! Turns out the man adopted Annie when she was born; she’s now 18 months and 800 pounds! ( She loves trips to McDonald’s for ice cream.) When police asked the man why he had a cow in the back seat, he simply said: “where else would I put her?
THEY SAID IT
“If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell!”
-Carl Sandburg.