| Volume 143 Number 58 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
Dealing with the death of a loved one is hard and dealing with a debt collector calling about their debts can make it even harder. If you’re in this situation and a debt collector calls, it’s important to know who is responsible for those debts, and what a debt collector can — and cannot — do to collect payment. Click here for more.
United Airlines puts new pre-boarding health checklist in place
Partnering with the Cleveland Clinic, United's "Ready-to-Fly" checklist asks travelers to verify that they have not experienced COVID-19-related symptoms in the 14 days before boarding their outbound flight. The checklist is an add-on to the airline’s previously announced Clean Plus initiative.
Following guidelines set forth by the Cleveland Clinic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the World Health Organization (WHO), United's Ready-to-Fly checklist requires each passenger to electronically or verbally commit to several details before receiving a boarding pass. Those include: Click here for more.
Your Money
Health Savings Accounts have always offered a valuable triple tax break: Your contributions are tax-deductible (or pretax if through your employer), the money grows tax-deferred and you can withdraw it tax-free for eligible medical expenses at any time. And recent changes to the rules and timely strategies make HSAs an even more important financial-planning tool. You can now withdraw money tax-free from the HSA for additional expenses, have more time to contribute for 2019 and you may be able to tap the account tax-free to pay health insurance premiums if you lose your job. Plus, a special strategy can help expand the HSA's tax benefits even further – helping it serve as an emergency fund or source of tax-free money in the future. Here are the new rules and strategies to make the most of these accounts. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Written arbitration agreement is enforceable even if not signed. A Texas district court compel arbitration, notwithstanding that the agreement was not signed. The FAA requires an agreement to arbitrate be in writing, but it contains no requirement the writing be signed by the parties. The court also consider whether the agreement bound non-parties. Applying “Erie guess” that the Texas Supreme Court would adopt intertwined claims estoppel, non-signatories were also compelled to arbitrate. Castaneda v. Volt Mgmt. Corp., EP-19-CV-00338-FM, 2020 WL 2308699 (W.D. Tex. May 8, 2020) Click here for more.