| Volume 90 Number 1 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
Do you haggle?
The price of almost everything you buy, including medical services, is usually negotiable. When it comes to any larger purchase, don't be afraid to ask - "is this price the best you can do?"
For more general information about the law, check out my website.
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Texting Liability in Car Accident Cases
Could you be liable if you text someone who is driving and he reads your text and gets into an accident? According to a New Jersey appellate court the answer is yes. Per the Justices in this case, the person texting should be treated as if he is in the car, likening the text to an in-car distraction.
How can you know if someone will read a text while driving? Some analysts believe the ruling will have noteworthy impact for special relationships, like an employer texting an employee, or a father texting his son. However, the person texting must know that the recipient is driving.
Is the ruling fair?
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Time Warner & CBS End Blackout
On Monday, CBS and Time Warner ended a month-long dispute over fees, paving the way for the network's properties to return to Time Warner airwaves. The agreement comes just days before the start of the football season, which likely encouraged a prompt resolution.
Consumers can now return to watching Dexter and other CBS / Showtime programming. But, are Time Warner customers owed something more for programming they paid for and didn't receive?
If you have Time Warner and were affected by the outage, kindly let the company know with a phone call or letter. You may be entitled to a discount.
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Apple Introduces iPhone Trade-In Program
Do you want to get a new iPhone, but don't want to waste your old one?
This week Apple announced the introduction of a new trade-in service for consumers who use iPhone products. If you want to upgrade to a new phone, you could receive up to $280 for your old phone. The phone must be in good condition and cannot be water-damaged. If you're uncertain if your phone is water damaged, Apple has a device that it can plug in to identify water damage.
Find out how you can take advantage of the trade-in program,
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Your Money
Are you prepared for a "rainy day"? Check out this emergency savings calculator!
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For the Lawyers
Seventh Circuit allows class action with individual damages, rejecting strict reading of Comcast Corp. v. Behrend.
The Seventh Circuit rejected the notion that a class action cannot proceed if there might be individualized damages. The court stated:
It would drive a stake through the heart of the class action device, in cases in which damages were sought rather than an injunction or a declaratory judgment, to require that every member of the class have identical damages. If the issues of liability are genuinely common issues, and the damages of individual class members can be readily determined in individual hearings, in settlement negotiations, or by creation of subclasses, the fact that damages are not identical across all class members should not preclude class certification. Otherwise defendants would be able to escape liability for tortious harms of enormous aggregate magnitude but so widely distributed as not to be remediable in individual suits.
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