Monica Nicklin

Atty. Monica Risam Nicklin

Since the Alimony Reform Act went into effect on March 1 of this year, there have been two schools of thought on the matter: The first one holds that the law is essentially bad, and since the vast majority of people on alimony are women, the law is bad mainly for women, and the other holds that the problems with alimony, including the possibility of lifetime payment obligations, are eliminated, as they should be. Those for the law are pushing for it to cover the entire US, with the other side seeking to block this. It seems to be another one of those sensitive issues on which the arguments will never end.

The basis for granting alimony changes with the new act. Some say its major disadvantage is that instead of being based on the value of what the spouse on alimony contributed to the marriage, it is based merely on how many years he or she was married. This means, for those on the giving end, that the days of being tied to lifetime payments are over. Payers rejoice, and payees, probably not. But the amount to be paid cannot be determined simply by mechanically arriving at a spouse’s value through how long the marriage lasted, and must include lost potential income, the dissenters feel. For example, if a woman who had previously been an astronaut sacrificed her career to be a full-time mother and wife, then she should be awarded a much larger amount than a clerk who made the same sacrifice. Instead, she would end up being valued by how many years she helped her husband earn while she stayed home.

On the other hand, those who had felt burdened for years by such payments that, prior to the law, were to last a lifetime, feel immense relief because rescue has finally arrived. Many of them say they had been unfairly forced into such a commitment, and one they often could not afford if their incomes were diminished by various circumstances. This plunged them into debt from which there was no escape.

The dissenters feel that the new act is unfair because it punishes spouses who sacrifice their futures for their families. Supporters of the new law feel that finally, sensible guidelines have been established based on one spouse’s need and the other spouse’s ability to pay. And such payments have a definite end.

With some exceptions, one needs a license to hunt. Sometimes, there are other licenses required in addition to a hunting license for particular kinds of game. But even for hunting mistletoe?

66-year-old E. Roberts (not his real name) of Georgia had to spend one night of the holiday season in unfamiliar accommodations after firing his 12-gauge shotgun at a tree outside the North DeKalb Mall. He had nothing against the tree, but was actually after a sprig of mistletoe, which he intended to use for decorating his house. He told the media he was merely following an annual tradition. “Every year I go somewhere to get some mistletoe to decorate the house,” he explained. “I get some for my friends who can’t get mistletoe. The best way to get it is with a shotgun.”

While the more common method of acquiring the item is through retail outlets, it has long been a tradition in the south to get it straight off trees, usually with shotguns. In South Jersey forests, this practice endures, as the plant grows high in the branches, some 50 or 60 feet up, and the only alternatives are to cut the tree down, which is unacceptable of course, or have utility workers cut the branches. As no better method has yet been developed, the shooting continues.

Roberts says he had originally intended to hunt down mistletoe on his friend’s property, but discovered his friend was not at home. He also claims the targeted tree is on the “fence line” of the mall. He might have accomplished his mission undisturbed, if not for a passing motorist who called authorities after witnessing the shooting. Roberts says the driver blew his horn at him, and claims he even waved at the driver. Unfortunately, the friendliness was not reciprocated, and the motorist followed Roberts to a gas station, where officers accosted him. The officers say the mistletoe hunter was shocked that others seemed to be unaware of this tradition and that they were bringing him in. The police added that Roberts said he does this yearly, but that this was his first hunt in the mall parking lot.

He was booked for reckless conduct and discharging a firearm on private property, but Roberts posted bond and was released on December 5, in plenty of time before Christmas Day for bagging that hard-to-get mistletoe.

It should be Roberts last parking lot hunt, because he says that next year, while his annual mistletoe-hunting tradition will continue, he will make sure it does so way out in the country, where presumably there are no passing motorists.

Nicklin, Monica Risam

The Civil Partnership Act of 2004 grants gay and lesbian couples the right to enter civil partnerships, with entitlements similar to civil marriage. Now Government is taking it a step further by proposing to legalize marriage equality by 2015.

Parliamentary discussions are programmed to begin in March 2012. The aim is to change the law to open civil marriages for same-sex couples in England and Wales. Although the Conservative Party is expected to resist, major coalition parties have already expressed their support for the policy change.

Because the proposed law would not coerce any faith organizations to perform gay or lesbian weddings, activists say it ought to end the legal prohibition on religious marriages of same-sex couples, as well. Rights advocates say this would send a clear message that while the law respects religious freedoms, it does not have to discriminate against gays and lesbians because of it.

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone reminded government officials that they must not become complacent. She said: “We are a world leader for gay rights, but there is still more we must do.”

Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly announced the government would ban the referral fees paid by lawyers and claim management companies to insurers in personal injury claims. This practice has been identified as the reason for the rise in insurance premiums, skyrocketing by as much as 40 percent a single year.

The so-called “No Win, No Fee” compensation claims were introduced in the UK in 1995. Under this system, the insurer sells on the details of its customer’s car accident to a personal injury lawyer who in turn pays the insurer a referral fee for doing so. The lawyer then contacts the motorist to encourage him to sue for compensation.

This has led to an increasing number of personal injury claims being made, which insurers blame for the rise in insurance premiums as they look to pass the legal costs onto the motorists. Many of the claims, however, are fraudulent or frivolous, and only happen because the current system allows too many people to profit from minor accidents and incidents. The motorist who made the false claim sues at no risk and usually ends up being compensated in full, the solicitor’s costs are paid by the other side, while the insurer pockets the referral fees that led to that claim being made in the first place.

Meanwhile, honest motorists see their premiums rise because it is they who shoulder the increasing costs of more and more compensation claims. Minister Djanogly said: “The ‘no-win, no-fee’ system is pushing us into a compensation culture in which middle men make a tidy profit which the rest of us end up paying for through higher insurance premiums and higher prices.”

50,000 BitTorrent users were slapped with a lawsuit accusing them of illegal movie downloads.

Voltage Studios, the company which made the award-winning bomb-disposal movie, The Hurt Locker, has sued almost 25,000 BitTorrent users for illegal download of the same movie. This was after 23,000 were sued for allegedly downloading The Expendables (Nu Image). The lawsuits were filed by the US Copyright Group (USCG) of the law firm Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver in a federal court. The subpoenas were sent to Internet service providers which included ComCast, Earthlink, Time Warner, and Verizon. The ISPs complied by divulging IP and other information.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), through intellectual property director, Corynne McSherry, said the lawsuits were a dragnet approach to litigation. Voltage Pictures defended the cases, saying they were intended to take back what the studio owned from the start. BitTorrent CEO, Eric Klinker, said the company doesn’t control its users who can upload and download what they want using the software that the company merely provides.

McSherry thought the prosecution of thousands of anonymous people who are only associated with the IP address of the computers they supposedly used to make downloads was preposterous. Questions needed to be answered. What if it was a child who downloaded the movie using the family computer, or the computer was merely rented out by the owner? Using the IP address as the sole “proof” of download is not enough to accuse people of downloading copyrighted material illegally, according to critics.

Consequently, blanket lawsuits, such as the one previously pressed by a Utah company against 5,865 BitTorrent users who downloaded the movie Nude Nuns with Big Guns between January and March of 2011, have been dropped. Details as to why the lawsuits were dropped weren’t provided, but it came after a federal judge ordered the complainant to explain why they were suing so many people all at the same time. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was assigned to defend the legal rights of the five thousand plus IP addresses.

US Seizes Movie Piracy Websites

Monica Risam Nicklin law news

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