Most people hate the feeling that they are getting ripped off - and that doesn’t just stop at your average everyday person.  Celebrities don’t like it either, but they have a much larger pay scale to worry about.

Former wrestler Hulk Hogan, also known as Terry Bollea, filed a lawsuit in Pinellas County, Fla. against his lawyers, according to Tampa Bay Online.

The lawsuit states that the lawyers overcharged him $1 million for his son Nick’s car crash back in 2007. Nick had crashed his vehicle into a palm tree after his car jumped over a median.  He and his passenger, John Graziano, were severely injured and taken to the hospital.

In the lawsuit, Hogan is claiming he paid more than $1 million to his lawyers to defend his son for a civil case filed by Graziano from the accident.

According to the Tampa Bay papers, Hogan states that his insurance company, Progressive Select Insurance Co., could and should have supplied him an attorney at no cost to him under his insurance policy.

At the time of the accident, the vehicle Nick was driving, a Toyota Supra, was insured by Progressive. The policy covered bodily injury limits of $250,000 per person and has a total limit of $500,000 per accident. Progressive would defend the policy holder if any civil suit arose from the accident.

Hogan states that no one at the insurance company had contacted him with this information until much later after he decided to hire out different attorneys, Tampa Bay Online reported.

About two weeks after the accident Hogan decided to consult with Morris Weinberg Jr. and Lee Fugate from the Zuckerman Spaeder law firm. He hired them to defend his son Nick against criminal charges and to protect him against civil lawsuits.

Hogan later found out the insurance company had sent letters to everyone except for him - including his business managers and his financial managers stating the company had appointed him an attorney.  Word of this, according to Hogan, also reached his newly hired attorneys, but they never told him they received the letter.

He also alleges that the attorneys told Progressive Hogan wanted only this law firm to represent him and they came to an agreement with the insurance company that they would only charge Hogan $145/per hour.

According to Tampa Bay news reports, Hogan claims the law firm charged him much higher rates from $475 and up. Hogan could no longer retain the law firm for the case.

Progressive had already paid the firm $350,000 from the $444,000 they were seeking in reimbursement.  The insurance company then decided they were no longer going to represent Hogan due to his bills being “grossly inflated and unnecessary.”

The firm states that Hogan’s claims are “baseless” and they will fight in court.

In America, a fashion crime won’t get anyone forty lashes, but unfortunately it can in Sudan.

Northern Sudan is predominantly Islamic, and the Islamic law has restrictions on public indecency, mainly for women, according to CNN.com.

Lubna Al-Hussein was threatened with forty lashes for wearing pants that were allegedly “too tight” with a sheer blouse. According to Al-Hussein, she was wearing pants, a blouse and a hijab (a head scarf worn by Muslim women).

Lashing – a common punishment in Sudan for both men and women - can be held in public.  The public lashings are reserved mainly for men, and for women the lashings are handled in private and occur shortly after the trial.

At the time of her arrest, Al-Hussein was attending a restaurant party in Khartoum when Sudan police barged in and began inspecting woman at the party to make sure their clothes were decent for public appearance.

Al-Hussein was not the only one arrested at the party - 18 other women were arrested with her. Her lawyer, Nabil Adib, does not think she was targeted specifically. According to Adib, it’s a common occurrence for police to enter public and private parties to hold these inspections.

Courts found her guilty of the crimes, but decided not to give her the lashes. They instead ordered that she pay a fine of 500 Sudanese pounds, which is equal to 209 American dollars. If she did not pay the fee, then she would be thrown in prison for one month. Her trial lasted a day and she was not allowed any witnesses or to present a defense case, according to her Adib.

Al-Hussein chose jail time and refused to pay the fine based on principal. Now, she’s looking to appeal the court’s decision in hopes to make the effort to declare the Muslims’ decency law unconstitutional.

Al-Hussein worked as a journalist for the media department of the United Nations and resigned from her position to waive her immunity as an international worker and face trial.

This action brought attention across the world and many protestors showed up at the court hearing to protest this offense. Police had to throw tear gas into the crowds to break up the protesting.

According to CNN they detained 47 supporters, apparently injuring some of these women. From Amnesty International to United Nations, this is one trial that has everyone around the world was watching, and waiting to see the results.

Nebraska lawmakers voted today to restrict the age of a child that can be dropped off at a hospital without the parents facing prosecution. According to CNN, the state Senate- the only chamber in Nebraska’s Legislature- approved final passage of the revision. This change will totally dismantle the current version of the law, which has no age limitation. The new version of the law will state that no child older than 30 days old can be dropped off at a Nebraska hospital.

To date, 35 children have been dropped off at Nebraska hospitals since the law took effect in September. All but six of the children were older than 10. Officials also stated that no infants were among those left at area hospitals. One commentator described this phenomenon as exposing America’s “dirty little secret” - that parents are having a tough time with parenting skills and issues. While the amendment to the Nebraska law solves one state issue as to the true intent of the statute, a greater problem looms. This issue being the availability of help for parents feeling overwhelmed by the pressures of raising a non-infant.

As one director of family services observed, parents should not wait until they are in the moment of crisis, they should reach out for help from family and friends as soon as possible. Hopefully, this piece of advice will aid those who are currently feeling the stress of parenting.

President-elect Barack Obama’s advisers are creating a proposal to ship dozens (maybe hundreds) of Guantanamo-Bay prisoners to the United States to face criminal trials.

Obama has opposed the imprisonment of the terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, calling it a “sad chapter in American history”. He made a campaign promise to close the prison and said that the United States is generally equipped to handle the legal proceedings; however, he has offered few details on what he planned to do.

Under the proposed plans, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted through the U.S. criminal court system.

The detainees who have cases that are entangled in classified information may see their cases before a new court designed to handle sensitive cases involving national security.

These plans were disclosed to the Associated Press in anonymity because the plans aren’t final. Stay tuned to Total Lawyers for information as it develops.

Related Article: The Election and the Supreme Court

On election day in California, voters were asked to decided whether same-sex marriages should remain legit. The results are in and 52 percent of them voted that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Opponents filed a legal challenge today with California’s Supreme Court to keep the ban from taking effect. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Equality California and consisted of six same-sex couples who didn’t marry before the election but want to marry.

Lawyers for same sex-couples said they’ll argue that the anti-gay-marriage law was an illegal revision to the constitution, saying that it doesn’t provide for equal protection guarantee.

Elizabeth Gill, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, told reporters that “A major purpose of the Constitution is to protect minorities from majorities. Because changing that principle is a fundamental change to the organizing principles of the Constitution itself, only the Legislature can initiate such revisions to the Constitution.”

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Do you believe you’ve been wronged? If you’re thinking about filing a lawsuit, consider talking to a lawyer today. Total Lawyers has a wide network of lawyers ready to listen to you.

The people have spoken. Here’s some of the latest state law updates:

• California voters have decided to ban same-sex marriage with 52 percent voting to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. The CA State Attorney said those who have already been married in the state will retain their validity; however, legal challenges are possible. They join 27 other states that have already banned same-sex marriage.

• Florida and Arizona voters also voted to ban same-sex marriage, with 62 percent and 56 percent voting to limit marriage to heterosexuals.

• Washington voted to allow doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

• South Dakota and Colorado voters rejected curtailing abortion rights.

• Michigan constituents voted to allow the use of medical marijuana.

• Nebraska voted to end race and gender-based affirmative action.

Total Lawyers stays ontop of the law. If you have questions regarding the law, or if you are considering filing a lawsuit, talk to one of our sponsored lawyers today. Check out TotalLawyers.com for more information.

On Friday, a Philadelphia federal judge threw out a complaint that was filed by a lawyer claiming that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) wasn’t a legal U.S. citizen. the lawyer was aiming to get Obama taken off the Nov. 4 ballot.

Phillip J. Berg alleged that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya and was actually a citizen of Indonesia and was therefore ineligible to be the president of the United States.

On Sept. 24, Obama and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) asked the judge to dismiss his complaint, calling his allegations “ridiculous” and “patently false”. They further said the Berg had “no standing” to challenge the qualifications of any presidential candidate because he didn’t show the requisit harm to himself.

Berg had earlier requested a temporary restraining order on Aug. 22, which was denied by the same judge; however, the judge didn’t rule on the merits of this lawsuit until last week.

On Friday the judge agreed with Obama and the DNC. In a 34-page document, the judge wrote that Berg’s accusations of harm were “too vague and too attenuated” to award standing to any voter.

The judge further said the Berg’s claim and tactics were “frivolous and not worthy of discussion”.

Berg had argued that Obama’s Democratic nomination kept people from voting for Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-NY), for whom Berg had backed in the primary elections.

The judge said Berg’s arguments “ventured into the unreasonable”.

The FACTS

Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961. He is a U.S. citizen.

In an effort to squash the rumors, the campaign posted a documents issued by the state of Hawaii on its Web site to confirm his birth on American soil.

Berg alleged that the document was a forgery.

The nonpartisan Web site, FactCheck.org examined the original documents and ruled it legitimate.

In addition, a Aug. 13, 1961 birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser listed Obama’s birth there on Aug. 4.

Additional Resources:

–The Presidential Candidates on the Economy

–Obama Talks about Credit Card Debt and Bankruptcy

–Presidential Candidates on the Housing Crisis

–2008 Presidential Election: A Look at the Foreclosure Crisis, Taxes & Retirement

Last week President Bush signed into law a bill that allows new offices in the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI to investigate unsolved racially motivated killings, such as the unsolved case of Emmett Till, for which the act was named.

The Emmett Till Act will target cases related to murders that occurred before 1970 and has suspects that are still alive. So far, there are already 26 cases “in various stages of investigation” according to Alvin Sykes, a self-educated victims’ rights advocate who helped push the bill with U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Atlanta).

Other Total Lawyers Articles:

• Lack of Privacy Could Hurt An Inmate’s Case

• Appeals Panel Saves American Girl From Deportation

A divided Washington State Supreme Court ruled that victims of domestic violence will have certain job protections if they’re forced to take time off work to look after themselves or their families.

The case at hand involved a federal lawsuit filed by a woman against her employer. She alleged that in 2003, her company demoted her after she returned from taking two weeks off to deal with issues relating to domestic violence.

She said she was forced to take the time off because her then-husband beat her and her child so badly that the child had to be hospitalized and she had to attend court proceedings and move her family into a protective shelter.

Her personal injury lawyer said she was later fired because she protested her demotion. The company said they fired her for falsifying her timecard.

The Supreme Court justices ruled that “the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government have repeatedly declared that it is the public policy of this state to prevent domestic violence by encouraging … victims to escape violent situations, protect children from abuse, report domestic violence to law enforcement, and assist efforts to hold their abusers accountable.”

Last year when the case was pending, the state passed a law that provides “reasonable leave” for domestic violence victims (and victims of sexual assault and stalking) so they can seek medical treatment, social services, shelter and help from the police.

Baltimore defendants and criminal defense lawyers are opting for their day in court—even in minor cases, according to a recent Baltimore Sun article.

As a result of swamped courts, prosecutors are often left to offer more lenient plea deals or dismiss the case altogether.

Criminal defense lawyers are also requesting jury trials because they know that the idea of repeated court appearances sometimes deter witnesses from showing up and, as a result, their defendant’s case gets dismissed.

For a related article, check out Old Law Prevents Rapists from Prosecution.