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School yard bullying has been around for ages.  However, with the advances in technology and the resulting social media, new forms of bullying have emerged.  Bullying is now occurring via the Internet on Facebook and MySpace,  and texting.  Some extreme cases of bullying have resulted in teen suicide in recent months.  A 15 year old immigrant from Ireland, who was attending a Massachusetts High School , committed suicide after being relentlessly humiliated and bullied by nine class-mates.   She was subjected to both verbal harassment and threatened physical abuse.

A Massachusetts District Attorney filed charges against the offending teens.  The charges range from criminal harassment and civil rights violations to stalking and statutory rape.  These cases are rarely prosecuted, making this a watershed case.

Massachusetts is very close to passing a new anti-bullying law.  To view the bill under consideration, go to MA-BILLTXT and type BULLYING in the Bill Name  box.

Forty-one  states already have some form of anti-bullying legislation or have just recently passed it:

STATUTES

Database: STAT-ALL

Query: PR,CA(BULLYING). 

RECENTLY PASSED LEGISLATION

Database: LEGIS-ALL

Query: BULLYING

The question on whether school officials should be held liable for injuries to students  resulting from bullying done on school grounds is also being considered.   To read more about this topic, go to the ALLNEWS database and run the following search:  

TI,SU(BULLY! CYBER-BULLY! & SUICID!) & SCHOOL /S LIABLE LIABILITY SUIT LAW-SUIT LITIGAT!)

In WestlawNext, running a plain language search for BULLYING AND SUICIDE   returns an interesting secondary source article:   111 Am. Jur. Trials 123 – Public School District Liability for Injury or Damage to Student Resulting from Bullying or Other Nonsexual Harassment by Another Student.

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The demise of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010 cost the lives of 11 rig workers.  The damage to the environment will be devastating, affecting hundreds of species of fish, birds and wildlife along the Gulf Coast.  The economic impact on the fishing industry and the tourism industry could be tremendous.   There have already been numerous lawsuits filed and the number will just continue to grow.

The docket databases on Westlaw can assist you in determining who the legitimate parties are in these suits and the various causes of action that might arise.  Access the DOCK-ALL database and run a search similar to this to get started:

TI(B.P. “BRITISH PETROLEUM” TRANSOCEAN HALLIBURTON “LLOYDS OF LONDON”) & ST(LA MS AL FL TX) & ENVIRONMENT! “WRONGFUL DEATH” “DEATH ON THE HIGH SEAS” “OIL POLLUTION ACT” & DA(LAST 30 DAYS).

Click on the PDF icons listed in the dockets to view the complaints as filed with the court.  If you are interested in following the status of a particular docket, simply click the TRACK THIS DOCKET link on the upper left of the docket.

The largest oil spill in history occurred during the 1991 Persian Gulf War; it released approximately 520 million gallons of oil, dwarfing the second largest spill.  The Deepwater Horizon spill is gushing 280,000 gallons of oil per day.  Some are estimating that within 50 days, the Deepwater Horizon spill might become the worst oil spill in U.S. history, overtaking the Exxon-Valdez incident which spilled eleven million gallons of crude oil along the southern coast of Alaska in 1989.  Exxon-Valdez caused a national outcry against “big oil” in the United States and led to the passage of the 1990 Oil Pollution Act.

To view the current codification of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, do a Find to 33 USC 2701.   Click the blue hyperlink at the top of the document, Chapter 40 – Oil Pollution – to incorporate the text of all sections of the Act in to one document for ease of reading and printing.

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While losing an iPhone prototype might earn an Apple engineer a free flight and a free beer, the same might not be said for the attorney who loses her Blackberry.

Are you concerned about the security of the information on your mobile device?  What if someone gets access to this confidential information? What ramifications might it hold regarding attorney-client privilege?

In December last year, Jeff Richardson (iPhone J.D.) complained:

Security is very important for lawyers, but articles like [ABA’s Parting the Curtains on the iPhone's Security Problems] frustrate me a little.  First, the hacking required is very sophisticated.  The hacker mentioned in that article is Jonathan Zdziarski, the foremost authority on iPhone security who literally wrote the book on iPhone Forensics.  I have no doubt that if Zdziarski gets your iPhone and wants to do you harm, you are in trouble.  The random guy who picks up the iPhone you left on a subway will almost certainly not be Jonathan Zdziarski.

To read more about this emerging issue, and the pros and cons of using mobile devices in your law practice, try the following Westlaw searches:

Search:

IPHONE BLACKBERRY “SMART PHONE” TREO “PALM PILOT” “PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT” “MOBILE DEVICE” /P “LAW FIRM” LAWYER ATTORNEY COUNSEL /P #SECURITY PRIVATE PRIVACY & ATTORNEY-CLIENT-PRIVILEGE

Database:       TP-ALL

Search:

IPHONE BLACKBERRY “SMART PHONE” TREO “PALM PILOT” “PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT” “MOBILE DEVICE” /50 “LAW FIRM” LAWYER ATTORNEY COUNSEL /50 #SECURITY CONFIDENTIAL   ATTORNEY-CLIENT-PRIVILEGE

Database:        ABAJ

Search:

TI(IPHONE BLACKBERRY “SMART PHONE” P.D.A. “PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT” “MOBILE DEVICE”) & #SECURITY ATTORNEY-CLIENT-PRIVILEGE CONFIDENTIAL!