Thursday before Super Bowl XLIX in Phoenix Ima Goen Nomattawatta, a huge Patriots fan, found an online broker Izzure Scalp with Super Bowl tickets for $2,500 apiece. Not believing that he could get 4 tickets at only $750 above face value, Nomattawatta quickly called three buddies, found flights and non-refundable hotel rooms, and all four
When Should You Turn Down a Billion Dollars?
Oil tycoon Harold Hamm and his now ex-wife, Sue Ann Arnall – whose divorce we have written about before – were involved in one of the largest and nastiest divorces in US history. Just last week, Mr. Hamm sent Ms. Arnall a personal check for $975 million in full payment of the cash award she
Divorce – Four Business Reasons for a Prenuptial Agreement
With an ongoing Oklahoma divorce case in mind last month Tilting wrote about Tigh A. Knott, his wife Lucy Knott and how a business owner’s divorce can impact his business and affect his partners. The real players were Harold Hamm and his wife Sue Ann.
Last week the court granted Oklahoma oil tycoon Harold
Divorce – Impacting Your Meddlin Hands Partners!
To the other four minority owners who enjoyed the meteoric rise of Meddlin Hands Cleaning Products, when Lucy Knott sued their majority partner Tigh A. Knott for divorce, the divorce was anything but routine. Lucy wants half of the business and day to day participation. With no company agreement, the other shareholders face the
Affluenza – Is It Contagious?
Taking advantage of his car dealership owning parents being on vacation in the Bahamas, Cache Bar, a minor, invites his high school buddies over to liberate his parents’ locked libation cabinet. Well lubricated, Cache builds quite the bonfire in the backyard knowing that no one in their hometown of Daughtry, Texas, can water their lawns because of the severe drought. The bonfire consumes Cache’s backyard grass, and then spreads and destroys three million-dollar mansions on Cache’s street. When Cache is charged with intentionally starting a fire that recklessly damaged his neighbors’ homes, his parents scramble for a defense to help him avoid arson charges – a state jail felony. Cache’s parents read a news article about another Texas teenager who avoided jail by asserting an “affluenza” defense – that the teenager was the product of wealthy, privileged parents who never set limits for their son. Will “affluenza” keep Cache out of jail? If so, does that affect his parents?
Whistleblowers, Do Tell?
Whizzle Blour, a professor of surgery at University Medical School, complained to his supervisor that trauma residents at University Hospital were treating and operating on patients without an attending physician’s supervision in violation of Medicare and Medicaid law. After agreeing to settle those federal claims, University Hospital stripped Whizzle of his faculty chair position claiming he was a poor administrator. Later he was fired. He filed a whistleblower suit alleging his demotion was in retaliation for reporting the federal law violations. Will Whizzle Blour prevail?
No. Whizzle Blour failed to prove all the required elements for retaliation under the Texas Whistleblower Act (TWA). Reporting the Medicare and Medicaid violations to his supervisor did not satisfy the TWA because the supervisor was not qualified as “an appropriate law enforcement entity.”
There’s a Printer for That!
Fresh off his last Tonight Show monologue, Jay Lento is scouring the vintage car dealers’ websites to find replacement wheel hubs for his antique BMW. Searching worldwide, he finds none. When his friend N. Gennyus mentions that he can make exact computer replicas with a 3D printer to create a cast to manufacture the vintage wheel hub, Jay wonders if it’s legal?
Domain Names – Possession is 9/10ths of the Law
As 2013 was winding down, the law firm of Dewey, Cheatum & Howe also known as www.BestLawfirmEver.com was calculating its partners’ year end distributions. Before the ink was dry, Dewey announced he was leaving, taking an associate AND the law firm website www.BestLawfirmEver.com. Cheatum and Howe were convinced that the domain name and the website stayed with them and the other lawyers at the firm because their client was the web designer Dee Sine. Who wins?
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Lost or Stolen: Liability for Unauthorized Credit Card Charges
On a brisk January day, Mary A. Richman opened her mailbox and was confronted with the sobering sight of thick envelopes from Visa, American Express and MasterCard each containing a month’s worth of extravagant Christmas purchases. Although she expected the bills to be large, she didn’t expect them to be this large. When she carefully reviewed the charges, the weather wasn’t the only thing giving Richman the chills. She quickly noticed entries for businesses with which she was unfamiliar, including a $1,200 Visa charge on December 25th for a bar in Chihuahua, Mexico called Tequila Mockingbird. Richman lost her Visa card on December 21st, but never reported it. Is Richman liable for the unauthorized charges?
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Where There’s a Will, Is There Always a Way?
After their respective divorces Anita Will married Shelby A. Reck in Oklahoma. At the time each had a child and an Oklahoma home from their former marriages. Following the blissful event each adopted the other’s child, they moved to Texas, bought a house in Shelby’s name and had a baby. Before he died last year