Category: Legal Update

This post was authored by Matthew Loescher, Esq.

Plaintiffs James Knight and Jason Mayes – individuals who owned residential property in Nashville, Tennessee – brought suit challenging the constitutionality of the Sidewalk Ordinance implemented by the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. Plaintiffs described this Ordinance as “conditioning home building permits on the property owner’s funding of sidewalks.” Both parties moved for summary judgment.

Plaintiffs did not argue that the Sidewalk Ordinance, facially or as applied to them, or that it would fail the Penn Central balancing test; instead, they contended that the appropriate standard was the Nollan/Dolan test and that the Sidewalk Ordinance could not pass that test. While the application of the Sidewalk Ordinance in this case shared some features of the “adjudicative” actions at issue in Nollan and Dolan, as it pertains to individual applicants for building permits and also required the granting of a public right-of-way or easement along with the building of the sidewalk, the court found that the Sidewalk Ordinance was essentially “legislative,” and its application therefore did not require individualized, adjudicatory decision making. Accordingly, the court held that the Sidewalk Ordinance at issue was a generally applicable land use regulation and that

A strong Full Bench of the Federal Court of Australia has ruled that DABUS, an artificial intelligence, is not an inventor for the purposes of patent law. So, Dr Thaler’s application for DABUS’ patent has been rejected. No doubt the robot will be back again and we can expect that an application for special leave will be pending soon.

Dr Thaler had applied for a patent, No. 2019363177 entitled “Food container and devices and methods for attracting enhanced attention”, naming DABUS – an acronym for ‘device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience’ – as the inventor.

The Commissioner had rejected the application under reg. 3.2C for failure to identify the inventor. That rejection was overturned by Beach J on appeal from the Commissioner. And this was the decision on the Commissioner’s appeal.

Essentially, the Full Court ruled that an inventor for the purposes of patent law must be a natural person, not an artificial intelligence.

The Full Court held that identification of the “inventor” was central to the scheme of the Act. This is because, under s 15, only the inventor or someone claiming through the inventor is entitled to a

In this post, Clare Montgomery KC of Matrix Chambers comments on the decision in Craig v Her Majesty’s Advocate (for the Government of the United States of America) and another (Scotland) [2022] UKSC 6. The Government unanimously allowed Craig’s appeal, holding that a new extradition hearing may be held before a different sheriff.

Background

James Craig is charged in the United States with posting false information on Twitter in order to affect the price of shares and to trade in them to his own advantage. In 2017 the United States applied to extradite him. Mr Craig maintains that, since the conduct took place in Scotland, he should be tried in Scotland. He seeks to invoke a ‘forum bar’ defense. This is a protection, recommended by the Committee reviewing US/UK extradition arrangements in 2012, to correct the arbitrary use of US long arm jurisdiction in extradition cases. It was considered to be in the interests of justice for decisions about forum, in cases where there was concurrent jurisdiction between States, to be taken by a judge in open court, where the person whose extradition was requested would have the opportunity to put his case , rather than in private by prosecutors.

By: Prakhar Bajpai

ARE CONSTITUTIONALLY VALID FREEBIES?

According to Article 266(3) of the Indian Constitution, money out of the Consolidated funds can only be appropriated by the law and for the purposes and manner defined by the constitution. Moreover, Article 282 says that governments can make “any” grants for any public purpose. By defining “purpose” as a “public purpose,” the constitution’s drafters were able to more precisely define the broad goals of each of these provisions. From the above concomitant of the scheme, it is clear that the same was designed to promote the “Directive Principles of State Policies” because the general responsibility of the implementation of the same is on the Union and State. It is widely accepted that the state’s function is to provide “social, economic, and political justice” to its citizens. As a result, to achieve economic democracy, the state is well within its rights to provide universal healthcare, access to drinking water, and other basic amenities.

Other nations’ constitutions also contain similar clauses, such as the first one in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, which states that “the Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises

Attorneys for the family of Porter Burks, the Detroit man killed by police Sunday during a mental health crisis, announced Thursday at a press conference they will be filing a lawsuit against the officers who shot 38 rounds.

“We have what I consider to be an intolerable situation that occurred in the city of Detroit, in which a clearly mentally ill young man was executed by a Detroit Police Department firing squad of five officers,” attorney Geoffrey Fieger said. “I hope that Chief White is listening — I have more questions today than answers.”

Porter’s body was handcuffed after being shot multiple times and “dumped” at the hospital, he said. The Free Press has reached out to Detroit police for comment on the handcuffs.

Burks’ family and Fieger’s demand for justice comes after a tense confrontation between the family and Detroit police on Tuesday, when portions of body camera footage of the killing were released to the public.

Police initially told the public that officers deployed a stun gun before shooting and ultimately killing Burks, a 20-year-old who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. But on Tuesday, Detroit Police Chief James White told reporters it’s unclear at this time whether a stun

An influencer has candidly revealed how much money she earns from each social media platform for her content.

Erika Kullberg, a lawyer who uses her TikTok to share investment advice, money-saving hacks and travel tips, has accumulated more than 9m followers on the platform. In addition to her TikTok followers, she has 4.1m followers on Instagram, 3.3m followers on Facebook and 755,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.

In a video posted to her TikTok on Wednesday, the content creator and founder of legal tech startup, Plug and Law, opened up about the income she makes as a result of her followings and content, with Kullberg revealing that she earns a few dollars each day from the video-sharing platform alone.

“In case you’re curious, here is how much every social media platform has paid me with 17m followers,” Kullberg began the video.

According to Kullberg, who noted that she started creating TikTok videos “exactly a year ago,” she has since accumulated a “lifetime total” of 452m views on the platform. “And you can see that I’m making a few dollars each day,” she continued as she showed a screen recording of the daily payments, which ranged from $2.23 to $24.88.

“That

Big law firms didn’t want Donald Trump as a client. Now a boutique Miami-area firm is elevating its profile by representing the former president.

In an announcement hired first shared with NBC News, the president’s newly lawyer, Chris Kise, has joined Continental. The firm has a stable of Trump loyalists with deep Florida GOP ties and attorneys who describe their mission as a legal antidote to “woke cancel culture” that they say has taken over “Big Law.”

Kise, a former solicitor general for Florida who also was attorney for the gubernatorial transition teams of both Govs. Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott, who’s now a US senator, said Continental has “exceptional firepower” to represent Trump and other clients, including conservative figures and causes.

As a South Florida-based firm, Continental is well-positioned for the court fight — and possible criminal charges — related to the trove of highly sensitive records the FBI says it secreted Aug. 8 from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

Trump petitioned the Supreme Court on Tuesday in connection with a special master’s review of the documents. Joining Kise and other Trump lawyers on the filing was one of Continental’s attorneys, Lazaro P. Fields, a former assistant US

This post was authored by Matthew Loescher, Esq.

Plaintiff initiated the process of obtaining Major Site Plan Approval for a proposed project on its property, consisting of a 116-unit affordable housing project, with 6,670 square feet of commercial and retail space on the ground floor of the building and a 2,358 square foot leasing office, both of which would be open to the public. Plainiff’s project required Major Site Plan Approval, which entailed: a Pre-Application meeting with City staff; review by the Development Review Committee (“DRC”); review and approval by the Architectural Appearance Committee (“ACC”); and review and approval by the Planning & Zoning (“P&Z”) Board. Provisions of the City Code also required certain improvements be made by all developers within certain zones. It was undisputed that from the beginning of the project, Plaintiff knew that the Improvements were required. Notwithstanding this, Plaintiff never objected to the Improvements at any point during the Major Site Plan Approval process. Construction of the Improvements led to an increase in the rent paid by the City to FEC under the lease. Following this, Plaintiff served its notice of the prohibit exaction, pursuant to section 70.45, Florida Statutes, on the City and filed this

Big law firms didn’t want Donald Trump as a client. Now a boutique Miami-area firm is elevating its profile by representing the former president.

In an announcement hired first shared with NBC News, the president’s newly lawyer, Chris Kise, has joined Continental. The firm has a stable of Trump loyalists with deep Florida GOP ties and attorneys who describe their mission as a legal antidote to “woke cancel culture” that they say has taken over “Big Law.”

Kise, a former solicitor general for Florida who also was attorney for the gubernatorial transition teams of both Govs. Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott, who’s now a US senator, said Continental has “exceptional firepower” to represent Trump and other clients, including conservative figures and causes.

As a South Florida-based firm, Continental is well-positioned for the court fight — and possible criminal charges — related to the trove of highly sensitive records the FBI says it secreted Aug. 8 from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

Trump petitioned the Supreme Court on Tuesday in connection with a special master’s review of the documents. Joining Kise and other Trump lawyers on the filing was one of Continental’s attorneys, Lazaro P. Fields, a former assistant US