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Creditor’s Rights

The Firm’s creditors’ rights expertise also includes such areas as foreclosures and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure; appointment of receivers; replevin, garnishment and attachment proceedings, pre-judgment and post-judgment; suits on guaranties, Uniform Commercial Code issues, and other commercial litigation matters.

Debt Relief

Our attorneys help individuals, consumers, business investors and small businesses file for bankruptcy protection under the United States Bankruptcy Code, whether it be a liquidation under Chapter 7 or a reorganization under Chapters 11 or 13. We strive to provide a high degree of service and personal care to each of our clients. Our philosophy is simple: provide competent and high quality bankruptcy services for a reasonable fee.

Riley Bennett & Egloff Law is an Indianapolis based law firm. Their attorneys have substantial experience collecting monies owed to their business clients in Indiana state courts and in federal bankruptcy courts. The firm continues to focus on maximizing their client's recovery in an fast and cost-effective manner. Their goal is to provide high quality services and they have a lengthy record of success to show for it. Visit www.rbelaw.com to see more.


Rigrodsky & Long, P.A. announces that it has filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired the common stock of IntraLinks Holdings, Inc. between February 17, 2011 and November 10, 2011, inclusive, alleging violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The case is entitled Thaler v. IntraLinks Holdings, Inc., C.A. No. 11-CV-9528 (S.D.N.Y.). The Complaint names IntraLinks and certain of its officers and directors as defendants.

If you wish to view a copy of the Complaint, discuss this action, or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, please contact Timothy J. MacFall, Esquire or Noah R. Wortman, Case Development Director of Rigrodsky & Long, P.A., 919 North Market Street, Suite 980 Wilmington, Delaware, 19801 at (888) 969-4242, by e-mail to info@rigrodskylong.com, or at: http://www.rigrodskylong.com/news/intralinks-il.

IntraLinks, together with its subsidiaries, provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for securely managing content, exchanging critical business information, and collaborating within and among organizations worldwide.

The Complaint asserts that during the Class Period, defendants knew, or recklessly disregarded, that the positive statements concerning the Company’s business prospects, as well as the full year guidance provided by Defendants on February 17, 2011, were materially false and misleading because by end of the first quarter of 2011 a large Enterprise customer informed the Company that it was dramatically reducing its use of IntraLinks’ products going forward and that the Company would have to reducing its earnings expectations as a result. Despite their knowledge of the foregoing, however, defendants failed to disclose that their positive statements about the Company’s business prospects, or the financial guidance issued in February 2011, were no longer accurate in light of the reduced use of the Company’s products by the large Enterprise customer.

If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than February 4, 2012. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class member’s claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Your ability to share in any recovery is not, however, affected by the decision whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff. Any member of the proposed class may move the court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member.

Rigrodsky & Long, P.A., with offices in Wilmington, Delaware and Garden City, New York, regularly litigates securities class, derivative and direct actions, shareholder rights litigation and corporate governance litigation, including claims for breach of fiduciary duty and proxy violations in the Delaware Court of Chancery and in state and federal courts throughout the United States.


A spat involving Safeway and Hawaii coffee growers is still brewing, even after the supermarket giant agreed to change labeling on its Kona blend coffee.

A $5 million class-action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Northern California claiming Safeway profited off the reputation of Kona coffee while selling an inferior product with very little Hawaii-grown coffee.

The lawsuit was filed Aug. 30, a day before Safeway's letter informing the Kona Coffee Farmers Association the company would change its packaging to reflect the percentage of Kona it contains. The farmers had called for a boycott of Safeway's 1,700 stores nationwide after a farmer saw the Kona blend for sale in a California store.

In an effort to protect a world-famous Hawaii product, the state's Board of Agriculture Chairman Russell Kokubun sent a letter to Safeway officials asking them to comply with a law here requiring labels to specify the percentage of Hawaii-grown coffee included in the blend. The law requires those blends have at least 10 percent Hawaii-grown coffee. But because Safeway's Kona blend isn't sold in any of the 19 Hawaii locations, Kokubun could only ask for voluntary compliance.





When is a Person an Employee of Another?

•  Practice Focuses     updated  2011/07/20 09:38

On July 19, 2011, the Indiana Court of Appeals issued a decision which I found surprising in McCann v. City of Anderson, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. 2011), Cause No. 48A02-1009-PL-1060. At issue was whether a trial court had properly granted summary judgment on the question of whether a warrant officer was an employee of the Anderson City Court. Despite the procedural posture of the case and factors that weighed in favor of finding an employer-employee relationship, the Court affirmed a decision granting summary judgment to the defendants.

In this case, McCann was a police officer, who eventually became warrant officer for the Anderson City Court in 1998. He held that post until 2005, when the judge asked that McCann be reassigned. As a result of this dismissal, McCann filed suit based on the Indiana Wage Statute, arguing that he had been an employee of the Court and was entitled to funds that had been allocated to the position of warrant officer by that court. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment and the trial court granted the defendants' motion.

On appeal, the Court quoted GKN Co. v. Magness, 744 N.E.2d 397, 402 (Ind. 2001), for the seven factors that a court should consider when determining whether an employer-employee relationship exists. The Court then analyzed each of these factors and determined that three weighed in favor of the existence an employer-employee relationship and four against, with the "most important" factor weighing against.

Thus, over all, four of the seven factors, including the most important, "Control over the Means Used," indicate McCann was not an employee of the City Court. Because the City Court was not McCann's employer, he cannot be due any "unpaid wages" from the City Court. Therefore, he cannot assert a claim against the City Court under the Indiana Wage Statute.

The aspect of this decision that is most surprising is that the Court reached this conclusion despite the procedural posture of the case. It could have easily held that, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to McCann, the seven factors weighed both for and against a finding of an employer-employee relationship between McCann and the City Court created a genuine issue of material fact. This indicates that the factor the Court identified as being "most important", whether the purported employer exercised control over the means used by the purported employee to perform work, is very important indeed.

Lesson:

1.It will be exceedingly difficult to prove the existence of an employer-employee relationship if the purported employer did not exercise control over the means that the purported employee used to perform his work.

Brad A. Catlin
Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC

http://www.indianalawupdate.com/entry/When-is-a-Person-an-Employee-of-Another

Are Your Children Getting Ready for College?

•  Practice Focuses     updated  2011/04/10 12:09

Do you love your children but hate your spouse? Have a lot of debt?  Make a lot of money?  You may want to “Get divorced now!” says bankruptcy attorney Marty K. Courson of San Francisco.

For consumer debtors, the mean test (I mean “means” test), requires consideration of a variety of factors including family income, secured debt, taxes, and a cavalcade o f other factors.  Depending on the amount of “disposable income” that remains after deducting means-test authorized expenses, you could find that you are simply not qualified for a Chapter 7 or that you have to invest an inordinate amount of money in a Chapter 13 or Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

But what about the children? Surely college expenses for my children are deductible from my income?  Nope. Not according to Congress when it devised the means test.

Here are some of the items that are deductible when it comes to determining disposable income:  1) Contributions to the support of an elderly, chronically ill or disabled member of your family, 2) Continued contributions to a charitable organization, 3) Your Mercedes payment, 4) The debt you pay on your vacation home, and 5) the debt you pay on your ridiculously over-encumbered house.  You could spend all day listing other bona-fide deductions.  But deductions for your college-age children?  Nada.

That is, unless you have a court order to pay such expenses.  The means test specifically permits a deduction for payments required pursuant to court order, such as spousal or child support payments.  A Massachusetts bankruptcy court addressed this very issue in In re Maiorino, (Bankr. D. Mass. 9/1/10).   In the Maiorino case, the debtor had a state court order that incorporated an agreement with his former spouse and that “requires the Debtor to be solely responsible for the reasonable college expenses and college-related expenses of his two children. These expenses include tuition, room and board, and other ancillary expenses.”  Because these expenses are clearly within the Bankruptcy Code’s definition of a domestic support obligation, the court found these court-ordered expenses to be appropriate deductions when computing the means test.

So what is the moral of this story? If you love your children, but loathe your spouse, getting divorced now may help in the long run!  Your family, broken as it may be, will quite possibly benefit considerably.

Call attorney Marty K. Courson at 415-433-3100 to schedule a free consultation for bankruptcy (Sorry though, you will have to find a divorce lawyer on your own!)


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