A ‘no-fault’ divorce basically means that if one side of a marriage wants out, it’s going to happen - and many states have divorce laws that allow it to happen this way.

According to the executive director of Community Marriage Builders, these laws only encourage couples to ‘take the easy way out.’

The law, originally enacted to help avoid bitter custody battles, has now gotten to a point of misuse, and according to one expert, divorce rates have increased more than 350 percent since the law was first put in place in 1969, only in Calif. Other states have since followed suit.

Some people now believe that the no-fault divorce law is unfair to a spouse who does not wish to divorce, because it could force the divorce upon them either way, taking away part of their rights as a spouse in the first place.

As a result of the no-fault divorce laws in several states, many experts believe divorce rates have skyrocketed - and may have even increased profits for divorce lawyers.

Some lobbying has been done to reverse these no-fault divorce laws, but as of yet no changes have been made.

In Texas they now are able to - and without a judge’s consent.

According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, Sept. 1 marks the first day that Texas police officers will be able to use their own discretion in certain circumstances and order blood tests from people accused of driving under the influence - without judicial review.

The law is written only to include certain circumstances - such as repeat offenders or an accident resulting in death - but the Chronicle says defense attorneys are riled up about the legislation.

Some authorities think the new law will cause blood-work labs to become overloaded with work - but the state has bulked up on staff, so hopefully that won’t happen.

One Texas prosecutor believes the law will be a ‘huge deterrant’ against drinking and driving because people will believe they are more likely to get busted. Drivers can still refuse a breathalyzer test, but if the police can get a search warrant and order a blood test on the spot, there’s a much higher chance of convicting offenders.

Texas defense attorneys think the legislation is a violation of American constitutional rights, according to the Chronicle article - but the start date is set and it’s going to happen, so the state and defense attorneys alike will just have to see how it goes.

According to a Boston Globe article, current legislation governing criminals in Massachusetts makes it difficult for former prisoners to find work.

As a result, these former offenders are more likely to become repeat offenders. Currently there is a bill in the Massachusetts legislature that will completely change the state’s criminal record system.

Summer interns at Boston’s TenPoint Coalition organized a three-mile march from Roxbury to the State House to show support for the legislation currently under review.

For the full story about these criminal rights and the Massachusetts legislation, visit the Boston Globe.

Paul Kelleher took the time and trouble to clean up his mother’s affairs after she died of cancer at the age of 52.  She left behind no estate to speak of, so the task was more one of notification and clean-up than actual administration.  But according to TPM Muckraker, Kelleher got a bit of a surprise when he called Bank of America–the bank representative breezily asked him how he planned to take care of his mother’s balance.

Of course, Kelleher wasn’t obligated to pay his mother’s outstanding balance; her estate would have been liable, if she’d had one, but heirs are generally not liable for outstanding debts of the deceased.  And, of course, Bank of America knows that…but how many people on the street are sure enough of it to respond, as Kelleher reportedly did, “…you should feel free to just go through the standard probate procedure. I’m certainly not legally obligated to pay for her.”?

Kelleher, fortunately, had enough understanding of the law to make that statement–and to stand strong in the face of the representative’s apparent dismay that he wasn’t going to “help out” his mother.

This is just one of many examples that demonstrate the willingness of collection representatives–both from primary creditors and from collection agencies or debt purchasers–to say whatever seems likely to be most effective in separating you from your money…whether or not you’re legally obligated to pay a debt.  Make sure that you understand your rights and obligations before entering into an agreement with a creditor or collection agency.

A surprising study by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute has revealed that while the number of new mortgages originated has declined significantly over the past couple of years, the incidence of fraud by loan officers is still on the rise.  The general consensus has been that the majority of the dishonest lenders and brokers and washed out of the industry in the recent decline, either taking their money and getting out as the tide started to turn or getting caught up in the wave of layoffs and corporate bankruptcies among exotic mortgage lenders.

Now, the New York Times is reporting that there appear to be more bad apples left than previously suspected.  In fact, in the second quarter of 2008, fraud by loan officers was up 45% over the previous year.  While one analyst has suggested that some of these fraudulent activities might actually have occurred earlier, but not come to light until regulation began to tighten up, Jennifer Butts of the Research Institute offers another explanation: those who didn’t get weeded out have fewer transactions on which to make a profit these days, and so they’re just a little bit more desperate.

The bottom line, for consumer purposes, is clear:  Don’t assume that the mortgage industry is clean now, or that regulation has made it safe to take the lender’s or broker’s word on faith.

The Food & Drug Administration has a spotty record from a personal injury standpoint–numerous approved drugs and medical devices have later been recalled or have given rise to mass tort litigation.  Worse, with last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Riegel v. Medtronic, state courts were pre-empted from granting relief to consumers injured by faulty medical devices if those devices had received pre-market approval from the FDA.

In the food arena, however, the outcomes are sometimes even more bizarre.  Food inspection duties are split between the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, and those divisions occur along very ragged lines.  Because food issues often get short shrift from the FDA, where limited resources are heavily weighted toward drug and medical device issues, it has long been argued that a unified agency was required.  In fact, in 1999 the Government Accountability Office issued a report calling for just such action.

Now, the New York Times is reporting that a different solution appears to be in the works, with a movement to split the FDA.   Connecticut Representative Rose DeLauro is proposing a Food Safety Administration and a Federal Drug and Device Administration.

In my days as a divorce lawyer, I thought I’d seen it all. Greed, anger, bad judgment, creative revenge…but I was wrong. A New York doctor is taking the concept of property division in divorce to a whole new level, demanding that his soon-to-be ex-wife either return the kidney he donated to her in 2001 or pay him $1.5 million.

The claim is wholly outrageous from both the legal and medical perspectives, but it’s nonetheless before a court in Mineola, New York. Legally, Dr. Richard Batista will be hard put to establish that $1.5 million dollar value, Since U.S. federal law prohibits the purchase or sale of human organs, there is no “fair market” value—a person buying or selling a human organ for transplant purposes could face five years in prison.

Batista’s argument is bit more creative, though. His assertion is that while you can’t put a price on an organ, it does have value—including his wife’s earning capacity during the years she was enabled to work because of the transplant. No worries about the lack of a clear fair market value; Batista’s attorney has an expert on call to establish the kidney’s worth.

Organ donation is, by definition, a gift, and even under less absurd circumstances, gifts are generally treated as the separate property of the recipient in a divorce. That means no monetary compensation and no repossession by the spouse who gave the gift.

Clear-cut legal issues aside, there’s another stopper in this case, and one that Batista—as a surgeon—surely anticipated. In the extremely unlikely event that Batista should obtain a court order for the return of the organ or his wife should agree to return it, medical ethics would almost certainly preclude any physician from conducting the procedure. Without the kidney, which she’s relied on since 2001, Mrs. Batista would at best require dialysis for the rest of her life and at worst, could die.

But these issues probably don’t trouble Batista too much, because he doesn’t really want what he’s asking for.

Of course, it’s not unusual for a party in a divorce case to let his decisions be dictated by emotion. Batista says that he saved his wife’s life only to discover that she was having an affair and wanted a divorce, so perhaps it’s understandable that he should lash out at her. But that kind of emotional decision is one of the reasons there are clear laws dictating the divorce process. Batista’s attorney has publicly stated that although they’ve asked for the organ in the divorce proceedings, they don’t really want it. And Newsday is reporting that Batista himself has said that he asked for the kidney in an effort to draw attention to a dispute over visitation.

That, of course, is not the way the legal system is designed to work. Sometimes daring new claims and press conferences end in new law…and other times they end in sanctions, with one party paying the other’s attorney fees. Anyone want to bet on which way this will end?

Harrowing stories of neglect are becoming commonplace–last year, a 7-year-old Ohio girl was repeatedly raped on her special needs bus, and the news has recently been full of stories about the criminal charges associated with the death of Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy whose  mother left her to starve and dehydrate to death in her bed.  But even with stories like these popping up in the news on a regular basis, it’s almost impossible to believe the story of Ed Rivera and Linda Hockaday.

Rivera is a 22-year-old mentally and physically disabled man who attends a special  needs program in New York City.  Hockaday is the 51-year-old matron charged with transporting Rivera and others like him.

While most of us were celebrating the new year on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, Rivera–who has cerebral palsy–was sitting strapped into a seat in a locked bus.  Rivera sat in that seat for 19 hours in bitter cold.

Lest you think that perhaps Hockaday simply made a terrible mistake, think again:  Rivera is 6′2″ tall and was strapped into the seat directly behind the driver’s seat.  And, Hockaday has reportedly admitted that she knew Rivera was there.  Her explanation, according to CBS news, was that she didn’t want to be late for church.

Hockaday is now facing criminal charges and Rivera is in the hospital.  It appears that Hockaday isn’t alone in her responsibility for this near-tragic event, either.  News reports suggest that when police first went to the Outstanding Transport facility to search for Rivera, employees there didn’t bother to tell officers that there was a second bus lot.  It was in that second lot that Rivera was finally located, when police returned to the facility hours later with Rivera’s entire family to continue the search.

Apparently, Charles Barkley wasn’t kidding when he told us, 15 years ago, that he wasn’t a “role model”. Of course, at that point Barkley had already been arrested on a physical violence charge, so we might have known–but the retired Hall-of-Famer has been pretty quiet in recent years.

The retired basketball star reportedly ran a stop sign in Scottsdale, Arizona early this morning and was escorted by police to a DUI checkpoint. The Associated Press is reporting that Barkley declined a breath test and was subjected to a blood test, then placed under arrest.

Compulsory blood tests following breathalyzer test refusal have become a hot issue recently–although some states have been obtaining blood test warrants on breath test refusals for several years, the specifics remain controversial.

We’ve long known that people convicted of drug and alcohol related crimes and blue collar economic crimes such as theft were more likely to commit new crimes if they didn’t have access to things like a place to live, clean clothing, a telephone number to use on job applications, and all of the basics that make running a productive everyday life possible.

We have to believe, though, that legislators sincerely thought they were reducing the risk that sex offenders would repeat their crimes when an increasining number of jurisdictions enacted laws regulating where a convicted sex offender might live.  For instance, there are restrictions on how near to a school a sex offender may live-and in some states, those restrictions extend to parks, bus stops, and a number of other locales presumed to be frequented by potential victims.

While that makes a lot  of sense in theory, California officials are reporting that it’s not working out exactly as planned.  The restrictions are making it difficult–sometimes impossible–for convicted sex offenders to find housing.  And it turns out that just like other classes of criminal, sex offenders are more likely to commit new crimes when they lack a stable environment and a known location.  The California Sex Offender Management Board says that forcing sex offenders into a transient lifestyle actually increases the threat.