San Diego Estate Planning Lawyer Blog

San Diego has many banks and credit unions. These include Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual, Bank of America, Union Bank, San Diego County Credit Union and others which have both office locations in San Diego as well as on line banking. In addition, there are many on line banks which do not have branches in San Diego, California. Our firm of Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation does not endorse or represent any of these institutions and the links are provided for reference purposes only. If you have any questions, please feel free to e mail us. There are advantages and disadvantages of using on line banking.

Banks that rely on the Internet and other low-cost ways to provide service, as opposed to “bricks and mortar” branch offices, can save on expenses and pass the savings along to customers in higher returns on deposits and lower interest rates on loans. Online banking also gives customers the convenience of being able to monitor their accounts and complete transactions around the clock, without waiting for mailed statements or being limited by office hours.

The flip side of online banking is that, if a problem arises, you cannot sit down face-to-face with someone from the bank to resolve it. There is also a premium on doing research to check out the legitimacy of an unfamiliar and remote institution before you entrust it with your money and private information. A good place to start is the “About Us” section of a bank’s website, which should at least give basic contact information. If it does not, that in itself should raise suspicions. Other warning signs include names or websites that are only slightly different from those of well-known institutions and rates of return that are far out of line with what other banks are offering. It is a good idea to confirm that an institution is federally insured by contacting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or searching its “Institution Directory” at www3.fdic.gov/idasp.

In San Diego, many residents have had their identity stolen creating negative information on their credit bureau reports. Some San Diego residents have incorrect information on their credit reports due to circumstances described below which is not a San Diego case. The three major reporting credit agencies are TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. If you have any legal questions, please feel free to contact our firm of Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation by e mail or phone.

Judy discovered that her credit report from a large credit reporting agency erroneously included about a dozen accounts for a different person, also named Judith. The report identified Judy as using that person’s name as an alias. Unfortunately, the “other” Judith, who did exist, had a checkered debt-paying history that was erroneously presented as Judy’s in the credit report.

Judy’s own spadework revealed that the credit reporting agency had merged her information with that of the second Judith because they had similar first names, were born in the same year, were from the same part of the country, and, most importantly, their Social Security numbers differed by only one digit. This initial computer mistake was bad enough, but what ultimately led to a very large damages verdict for Judy was the inadequate response of the reporting agency once Judy had brought the errors to its attention.

In San Diego, there are many employers with 15 or more employees. It is crucial to follow all State and Federal laws relating to all facets of employment. Our law firm of Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation can assist with many legal problems. Please e mail us directly with any questions.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits disability discrimination in employment for employers with 15 or more employees. The prohibition is far-reaching and covers hiring, firing, and everything in between, such as promotions, benefits, and harassment in the workplace. The smallest of businesses are not affected by the ADA because of the 15-employee threshold for coverage. The ADA does apply, however, to many of the roughly 25 million small businesses in the nation.

Who Is Protected?

In San Diego, there are many different security firms. These include K Tech Security, Brinks, Pinkerton, and many others. Our law firm of Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation does not endorse any agency however the partner at our law firm is a distant relative of the original Pinkerton who founded the detective agency. If you or a loved one has been injured or killed by a security guard, please feel free to e mail us.

n a case, a manufacturing company contracted with a security firm to provide a security guard. The guard shot and killed an individual who was trespassing, but not for criminal purposes, on company property, after the person had obeyed the guard’s order to lie on the ground. The company argued that it could not be held liable for the negligent acts of an independent contractor, but a state supreme court ruled otherwise.

The court agreed that the security firm and its guard were independent contractors. The manufacturing company’s downfall was an exception to the rule of no liability for acts of independent contractors. If the work to be performed is inherently dangerous, the work can be delegated to an independent contractor, but the duty to use reasonable care cannot be avoided by the employer. Work is inherently dangerous when it involves a foreseeable risk of physical harm to others and requires special precautions.

In San Diego, many residents find services on the internet. There are many search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and many others. Our law firm of Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation suggests you investigate all companies with the San Diego Better Business Bureau before entering into a contract. If the seller is an individual, as in the example below, this would not be an effective strategy. In the below example, the buyer would have to sue not in the San Diego Superior Court [if he was a resident of San Diego County] but in the state where the seller lived. This would be expensive and time consuming. Our firm suggests having an expert inspect any vehicle prior to purchase if you are not an expert in this area. Similarly, if you have a question regarding the law, please feel free to e mail or call our firm. We would be happy to assist.

Robert found just the excavator he wanted advertised on an Internet auction site. Before making the successful bid, he contacted the seller through e-mail and received assurances from her that the product was in good condition. Robert then traveled to the seller’s home, which was several states away, and bought the excavator. When the equipment did not perform as expected and the seller did not respond to Robert’s request for a partial refund, Robert sued the seller in his home state.

Robert’s lawsuit failed because the seller was not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts in Robert’s home state. For a nonresident to bring herself within the reach of a state’s “long-arm” jurisdiction, she must purposefully have benefited from the privilege of doing business in that state. Perhaps the seller could have foreseen that residents of any state might bid on the excavator, but that was insufficient to bring her into the courts in Robert’s state. She had no control over who would ultimately be the winning bidder, nor could she exclude bidders from particular jurisdictions.

In San Diego, there have been many law suits in the San Diego Superior Court over the taking of land by the government. In San Diego, this is not unusual for the building of highways, roads, schools and private development. The forcible eviction from your home, even when compensated, can be devastating. If you have any questions about this or any other legal issue, please feel free to e mail our law firm of Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation. If our firm cannot assist you in your legal matter, we would be pleased to refer you to the San Diego County Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.

The power of government to take private property for a public use, with payment of fair compensation, has been nearly unassailable in our legal system. In most condemnation cases, the right to take the property is a foregone conclusion, and the parties litigate only the amount of compensation. Courts generally have deferred to the government’s articulation of a public purpose for the taking, even when private parties also benefit.

In recent years, there has been a trend toward closer scrutiny of a proposed condemnation to find a paramount public purpose, and even to stop the proceedings where one is lacking. Property owners targeted for a taking are receiving a more sympathetic hearing when they contend that the true beneficiary of the proceedings is not the public but simply another private party with designs on the property.

San Diego has many different types of courts. There is the San Diego Superior Court and the San Diego United States District Court and some others. In addition, in California, there is the California Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. In Washington, D.C. is the United States Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court has given a victory to freelance authors of newspaper and magazine articles, and a defeat to some major publishers of their work. The publishers hired the authors as independent contractors who would contribute articles to what is known in copyright law as a “collective work,” that is, a newspaper or magazine. Under federal copyright law, the publishers were the owners of the copyright in the collective work, giving them the right to reproduce and distribute the contributions as part of the collective work or any revision of that work. The writers themselves, however, retained the rights to their individual articles.

The dispute arose when the publishers, without obtaining the authors’ permission or agreeing to provide extra compensation to them, licensed the rights to copy and sell articles to a computerized database of periodicals and to the producer of CD-ROM products. When the authors claimed an infringement of their copyrights in their articles, the publishers defended by arguing that making the articles available on line or in a CD-ROM form constituted simply a “revision” of the collective work that was within the copyright of the collective work held by the publishers.

San Diego, California is a very technologically advanced area. There are, in San Diego, may satellites for televisions. In 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a rule that prohibited certain restrictions on the use of antennas designed to receive direct broadcast satellite service or television broadcast signals. Two years later the FCC expanded the rule to cover lease provisions where the antenna user was the tenant. Associations representing owners and managers of real estate unsuccessfully challenged the expanded rule in federal court.

The argument that the FCC had overstepped the bounds of the authority given to it by Congress failed. Congress has granted the FCC very broad regulatory authority so that it can keep pace with rapidly evolving technologies. As for “direct-to-home” satellite services, in particular, the FCC has exclusive regulatory jurisdiction, and has been charged by Congress to issue regulations to prohibit restrictions that impede viewers from using necessary devices.

In the view of the federal court, it was only a small and appropriate step for the FCC to extend its original authority over local or state land-use restrictions, restrictive covenants, and homeowner association rules to cover provisions in a lease. Given its mandate from Congress to prohibit restrictions on the provision of a regulated means of communication, the FCC can exercise its jurisdiction over a landlord who creates such a restriction even though, in so doing, the FCC alters property rights created under state law.

San Diego, California has many small business owners and employees. In fact, in San Diego, the number of small business firms are much more numerous than large business firms. The Internal Revenue Service has lightened the paperwork load for about a million small businesses. Employers are required by the Internal Revenue Code to deduct and withhold Social Security and income taxes from the wages paid to their employees. The withheld taxes are then held by the employer in trust for the benefit of the United States. Depending on the amount of employment taxes withheld, at various time intervals an employer must deposit the withheld amounts in an approved bank.

Before the IRS issued the new regulation, an employer could avoid having to deposit accumulated employment taxes every month if the total amount of such taxes was less than $1,000. The new regulation raises that threshold to $2,500. For quarterly and annual return periods beginning January 1, 2001, businesses with less than $2,500 in employment taxes for a return period may pay the full amount with the regular return for that period, rather than having to make monthly deposits.

At Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation we are not accountants however we can refer to accounting professionals and also advise you on legal strategies and techniques. Please feel free to e mail our firm.