Before becoming LegalReader's Editor-in-Chief, Jay W. Belle Isle worked as a freelance copywriter with clients on four continents. Jay has a degree in Business Administration from Cleary University and a Juris Doctor from Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Jay has also worked as a contracts administrator for a DOD contractor specializing in vehicle armor.
5/14/2015 After a weeklong trial, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in a football-related head injury case. The jury awarded the injured high school football player almost $1M, finding that the school district and the school nurse had acted negligently in allowing the student to continue playing after he complained of a head
Image: Public Domain 5/13/2015 Welcome to part three of “Waste of Time Wednesday: the Tort Reform Edition.” This segment could aptly be titled, “Equal Access for All – Except You.” As you remember, the ultimate goal of tort reform was to lower insurance rates. One way of doing this was by establishing artificial caps on
5/13/2015 General Motors issued two recalls today. One deals with seats that may not be anchored properly and the other is for potentially defective seat belts. This latest bout of recalls includes roughly 525K vehicles, compared to the company’s 2014 record-breaking recall total of 26.95M vehicles. The first of the vehicles being recalled is the
5/12/2015 Out of the frying pan and into the fire! Earlier this month, the Ambassador for God got her suit against all homosexuals dismissed and now ol’ Mister Scratch gets His turn. In the great state of Missouri comes the Satanic Temple filing suit against the state under the state’s own Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
5/11/2015 It appears I shan’t be getting a chance for 15-minutes of fame by defending all gay people everywhere in federal court in Omaha, Nebraska. The Ambassador for God’s suit against all homosexuals was dismissed. A pity really. My opening argument was brilliant and Paula Abdul choreographed the summation. Despite what one can only assume
Image: www.PointsInCase.com 5/11/2015 Imagine that your favorite creamy dessert suddenly disappeared from stores due to the risk of it killing you. You’d probably be sad, but relieved that you were still alive and unharmed. Not so in Texas, where potentially contaminated Blue Bell ice cream is still on the menu. Rather than pitch the last
5/8/2015 One question during the recent oral arguments on legalizing gay marriage has caused quite the kerfuffle in the religious education community. Will legal gay marriage cause religious colleges to lose their tax-exempt status? Ooh, looks like another religious freedom debate! The tiny question with the epic punch came from SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito and
Image courtesy of LifeWorld 5/8/2015 Welcome to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, hailed as the best piece of secret policy making since Moses’ conversation on a mountaintop. This week, I’m focusing on how the TPP turns healthcare into wealthcare. You should be afraid, very afraid. It’s profits before people (again!) with Big Pharma coming out the
5/7/2015 Texas, it would seem, is afraid that the SCOTUS is going to give the go ahead to gay marriage. The Texas Senate committee on State Affairs is considering Senate Bill 2065 which would allow, among other things, churches the right to refuse to marry gays without fear of civil or criminal repercussions if doing
Image: Public Domain 5/6/2015 Last week, we talked about the original goal of tort “reform.” This week, we’ll cover how it missed its mark because tort reform does not lower insurance premiums. The proponents of this ultimately useless effort insist that by reducing tort filings and limiting what they call “jackpot justice” or inflated damages