We all know about the constitutional right to privacy, don’t we? Would it be a surprise to you that the U.S. Constitution nowhere mentions the word PRIVACY? In fact, the concept arose from the Supreme Court during the Warren years when Justice Douglas inferred such a right from the first 10 amendments, called the Bill of Rights. Of course those …
Magruder Report
Drivers Beware of Conflicting Parking Lot Laws
What happens if you violate a sign in a parking lot which imposes a maximum speed limit or suggests that you must stop? The answer is very clear. It depends. The law on this topic is about as clear as some of the faded parking spot lines. If you violate a state criminal statute like driving under the influence or leaving the scene of an accident, …
Magruder Report: Hospitality Trends Say ‘Tipping Not Necessary’
There has been a great amount of discussion in the past year regarding minimum wages and whether someone who is paid the minimum wage can actually live on this wage. In the hospitality field, the wages received by wait staff can be even lower than the state or federal minimum wage due to the employer receiving a tip credit for the amount of tips …
Magruder Report: Prairie Village Restrictions Limit Freedoms on Personal Property
Recently, a resident of Prairie Village sent an anonymous letter to a neighbor complaining about a recreational vehicle parked in the neighbor’s driveway. The recipients of the letter did not in fact have a recreational vehicle in their driveway and reported the incident to local media outlets. Photo credit: mazaletel / Foter / CC BY Interestingly, …
Estate Planning For Social Media
In this Brave New Digital World full of tweets, emails and status updates, and other undiscovered communication phenomena, different people embrace the new technologies to different degrees. We still have to face the fact that, aside from some troglodyte Baby Boomers, we live in a digital world. Photo credit: Jason A. Howie / Foter / CC BY Written …
Should Charities Accept Bitcoins?
Bitcoins are in the news. The magic of non-government currency, the risks of the new, the evolving and the unregulated. How exactly are Bitcoins, or any other virtual currency, created, validated, valued, stored and exchanged? What happens if an owner, exchange or storage system is hacked? Or if a Bitcoin creator (“miner” in Bitcoin parlance) or …
