Articles Posted in December, 2011

Now that November is in the rear-view mirror, it is time to start planning for the upcoming holiday season. If you are having problems coming up with the perfect gift for your family members or friends, consider the plight of those who have to buy gifts for the man who has everything.

For gifts that are worthy of the Most Powerful Man on Earth, you can browse the lists of gifts received by the President (as well as other federal employees) from foreign government sources for yuletide inspiration: 1993, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.

However, the U.S. Constitution prohibits the President and other persons in office from accepting presents from any King, Prince or foreign State without the consent of Congress. Article I, Section 9, Clause 8. Accordingly, these gifts are disposed of pursuant to the regulations concerning the utilization, donation and disposal of foreign gifts and decorations. 41 C.F.R. § 105-42.5. Most gifts are sent to the Archives, transfered to the General Servies Administration or retained for display or official use.

Going to the dentist can be an unnerving experience. It can also feel like you’re getting more than a tooth pulled if you’re asked to give up any rights to critique the dental work you’ve had done, and assign all copyrights to any comments you make about it to…the dentist.

Ouch! That hurts!

That’s what prompted patient Robert Allen Lee to sue his dentist, Dr. Stacy Makhnevich and the North Carolina company, Medical Justice, that created and sold Makhnevich patient consent forms with the restrictive language (Read the lawsuit below)

Writ columnists Vik Amar and Alan Brownstein recently wrote an interesting article on the latest ruling in the litigation regarding Proposition 8, California’s anti-gay-marriage initiative. Using the process known as certification, the Ninth Circuit, in trying to figure out if the the proponents of Prop. 8 had standing to defend the case in federal court, asked the California Supreme Court for their input on “whether, at least as a matter of California law, initiative proponents enjoy some special capacity to represent the state’s electorate when public officials decline to defend a law adopted through direct democracy.”

This wasn’t the only case where the Ninth Circuit requested certification from the California Supreme Court. In fact, the Stanford Law School SCOCAL site has a whole chart about certification issues. This chart was created by attorneys at Hughes Hubbard and Reed (the family firm) and it tracks the questions of certification from the 9th Circuit to the California Supreme Court, with coverage from 1998 to the present, providing the text of the actual question or questions along with the associated 9th Circuit and California Supreme Court decisions. (Links to the full text of the decisions are also provided.)  To learn more about the resource, check out Erika Wayne’s post from Legal Research Plus and also check out the chart, here.