| Volume 143 Number 19 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
You may be skeptical when someone you don’t know sends you a text message you didn’t expect and it tells you to click on a link. Scammers come up with new stories all the time, like a package tracking scam the FTC is hearing about. Here's how it works. Click here for more.
IIHS singles out 64 cars and SUVs as the safest of 2020
Cars on U.S. highways are getting safer, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is singling out 64 models for its 2020 top safety honors. This year, vehicles must meet new criteria to qualify for TOP SAFETY PICK or TOP SAFETY PICK+ awards. They must have a “good” rating in each of IHSS’ six crashworthiness evaluations, and there’s also a new emphasis on protecting pedestrians in addition to vehicle occupants. Click here for more.
Your Money
According to the latest Giving USA Annual Report of Philanthropy, charitable giving by American individuals in 2018 totaled about $292 billion. If you showed your generosity and donated in 2019, you not only enriched someone’s life, but you may be able to save on your taxes, thanks to your philanthropic spirit. From donating clothes to traveling to volunteering for a charitable organization, here's a guide to understanding the variety of ways your charitable giving can be tax-deductible: Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Privacy dispute subject to arbitration. The Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday handed Direct TV a win in a privacy dispute, finding that a customer’s contract requires arbitrating his claim because the claim only arises out of his relationship with DirecTV. In an unpublished opinion that it characterized as “narrow” and tailored only to the facts of the current disagreement over an arbitration clause, a three-judge panel said a Georgia federal judge erred in denying DirecTV’s move to push René Romero’s complaint into arbitration. The court found the agreement to arbitrate — worded as applying to “claims arising out of or relating to any aspect of the relationship between us” — covers Romero’s action under the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, because the underlying claim would never have cropped up if he were not a DirecTV customer. Sebastian Cordoba v. DirecTV LLC et al., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Click here for more.