Socialist Seattle councilor “allegedly structured her employees …to avoid payroll taxes, overtime, and insurance.” [Jason Rantz, MyNorthwest]
Posts Tagged ‘do as we say’
Morgan & Morgan: For The Overtime
The website of Morgan & Morgan, the large personal injury firm headed by politically active Orlando attorney John Morgan (“For the People”), announces the firm’s interest in handling cases alleging overtime infractions and other wage and hour violations under the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and boasts that its client recoveries in employment cases have exceeded $50 million. Not mentioned is a recent case in which Morgan & Morgan is reported to have “reached a settlement meant to resolve a former field investigator’s allegations that he was not properly paid overtime, according to [an October] filing in Florida federal court.” [Scott Flaherty, Law360] According to an article last year on the dispute, Christopher Hranek “was a field investigator for Morgan & Morgan from June 2008 until he was ‘terminated’ by mail in August 2012 while on Family Medical Leave Act leave, according to the lawsuit. He alleged that he routinely worked more than 40 hours a week and sometimes up to 70 hours weekly, using his 1999 Ford to drive to various locations in the state as the firm’s preliminary contact with injured people or potential clients, but did not receive overtime compensation.” The firm denied the allegations and said it had paid Hranek appropriately. [Jane Meinhardt, Tampa Bay Business Journal; earlier]
“Brady Campaign To Honor Yee For Violence Prevention”
That was in happier days, when California State Sen. Leland Yee was winning national applause for his gun-control efforts. Yesterday the San Jose Mercury-News reported:
In a stunning criminal complaint, State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms and public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area. … Yee asked whether he wanted automatic weapons, and the agent confirmed he did — about $500,000 to $2.5 million worth.”
Is it time to retire our “Do as we say” tag yet? Eliot Spitzer got exposed after crusading for longer sentences for “johns.” Czars of alcohol-abuse programs keep getting nabbed on the road after having a half dozen too many. Rep. Bob Filner groped his way to the podium to chair hearings on women’s issues.
Now there’s this. Maybe Sen. Yee came down so hard on private gun dealers because he wanted to muscle into the business himself.
The entire criminal information, which beggars belief in its colorful detail (Chinese gangs, Russian arms runners, Muslim insurgents in the Philippines) is here, with highlights summarized by Scott Lucas of San Francisco magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle editorialized: “Few observers of San Francisco politics are surprised by [Yee’s] arrest on corruption charges.” Then there’s this sidelight: “Keith Jackson, accused by the FBI on Wednesday of being involved in a murder-for-hire scheme and a gun- and drug-trafficking conspiracy, was San Francisco’s top elected educator during the late 1990s.” [San Francisco Chronicle]
Wage-and-hour law firm sued in wage-and-hour case
“In a federal lawsuit filed Aug. 29, Christopher Hranek contends Morgan & Morgan – one of the most active Florida law firms in filing wage and hour cases – misclassified him as a salaried employee when he was instead working as an hourly employee.” Morgan & Morgan, whose advertising slogan is “For the People,” said it does not owe Hranek overtime and expects to show documentation that it was in compliance with labor law. [Jane Meinhardt, Tampa Bay Business Journal]
September 3 roundup
- The bureaucracy in India brings Gilbert & Sullivan to life: “He has been corresponding with himself for the last 26 days as an officer wearing different hats.” [Deccan Chronicle via @tylercowen]
- “Certificate of Need” laws: “You Shouldn’t Have to Ask Your Competitors for Permission to Start a Business” [Ilya Shapiro]
- No massive shift to arbitration clauses in franchise world since SCOTUS rulings [Peter Rutledge and Christopher Drahozal via Alison Frankel; Andrew Trask]
- Evergreen headline in slightly varying forms: “Anti-abuse group’s director quits after arrest in assault” [Sacramento Bee; related here, here, etc.]
- Economic liberalization increases growth [Alex Tabarrok]
- “With Auto Amber Alerts, We’re Opted In By Default To A ‘Little Brother’ Surveillance Society” [Kashmir Hill]
- How Florida trial lawyers plan to crack the tobacco-verdict vault [Daniel Fisher]
The perfect arrangement
It seems Colorado lawmakers are given special license plates that don’t get speed-camera tickets or parking ticket collections. [CBS Denver] Five years ago the Orange County Register reported that hundreds of thousands of state and local employees, spouses and children in California were covered by programs allowing them to exclude their addresses from the system, supposedly to safeguard them against criminal threat — though a great many of the jobs were exceedingly low-risk — with the incidental benefit that toll and red-light-ticket collectors could not reach them, and many parking tickets were left unenforced as well. “This has happened despite warnings from state officials that the safeguard is no longer needed because updated laws have made all DMV information confidential to the public.”
“Sadly, the Internet is the predator’s venue of choice today.”
No real prizes for guessing who wrote that.
“Poster for Anti-Infringement Campaign Was Copied, Designer Admits”
Looks like the winner of a Taiwanese competition for a poster on the theme “Protect Copyright” will have to give back the medal and prize money [Lowering the Bar]
Do as we say dept.
“Delaware Alcohol Enforcement Chief Resigns After DUI Arrest” [CBS Philly]
UK: Not with my daughter you don’t!
British attorney Nick Freeman “is notorious for using legal loopholes to successfully defend celebrity clients accused of motoring offenses. But Mr. Loophole, as he is nicknamed, last week refused to use his expertise to get his daughter off a speeding charge…. ‘Sophie had to understand the consequences of breaking the law,’ [he said].” [Patrick Kingsley, Guardian]