The Federal Reserve has a lot of power over the economy. It is obligated to promote maximum employment and guard against inflation. In the near term, long-term interest rates, which presently are very low, could rise after the Fed raises its benchmark rate. Rates have been hovering near zero since 2008. Yellen is cautious, however, not to take the market by surprise with any change in monetary policy.

In a recent interview, Yellen said equity market valuations are high and warns of “potential dangers.” Yellen said that “she sees risks as moderated and does not see any bubbles forming, though the central bank is watching the issue closely.”

According to the latest ruling by Second Circuit, the NSA’s collection of massive amounts of phone records violated the US Patriot Act. Although they never reached the constitutional question, the court said that Congress never gave the agency the authority. But Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, believes the court had it wrong, and that Section 215, the provision in question, authorizes the NSA to conduct mass collections. The Act is set to expire in a few weeks. Congress will either renew the Act, change it, or eliminate it altogether.

Under Section 215, certain investigators

may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.

The controversy is over the words “any intangible things,” and in other parts of the Act, the words “information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.” The court agreeing with privacy advocates that the “relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation” language is too broad. Members of Congress, however, believe that the language is necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks. In any event, any phone record seizure must be preceded by a warrant.

The House is set to vote on the USA Freedom Act. The Freedom Act extends the Patriot Act but removes the power of the NSA to collect bulk phone records.

Posted by Nadia Haddad.

“Intellectual Property law works, until it is stretched.” According to a New York Times article, the problem with intellectual property law is that lawyers try to push the idea of I.P. too far in other areas, like software development, because they believe more the better. The article states that a software patent is a good example of a failed “experiment” because no one today can name a major software innovation whose investments relied on a patent. Some software innovations such as Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, Netscape’s browser, or Google’s search are not responsible for their existence because of a patent. The article mentioned how software patents are expensive, threaten competition, and are occasionally used for accounting fraud.

Intellectual Property plays an important role for all humans in society. In general terms, intellectual property is any product of the human intellect that the law protects from unauthorized use by others. Intellectual property is important because it drives economic growth and competition, as well as creating and supporting high paying jobs.

The mind is the most important thing a human possesses, because that is the root of who you are and what you want to do. We live life through people’s intellectual properties or inventions, which is why we need to protect them.

Nadia is a business administration major with a minor in international business at Montclair State University, Class of 2016.

Posted by Stephanie Simms.

In this article, Ruby Tuesday is facing a civil rights lawsuit for discriminating against male job candidates. The government is suing on behalf of, Andrew Herrera, who worked at an Oregon Ruby Tuesday, and Joshua Bell, who worked at a Ruby Tuesday in Republic, Missouri. They were only allowed to work there for a temporary period of time. What makes the situation worse for Ruby Tuesday is they specifically had an internal job posting that stated only girls should apply to their restaurant. The law of discrimination based on gender states that, employers are prohibited from classifying jobs based on gender, unless employer can prove gender is essential to the job.

The government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit was filed in the federal district court in Oregon. The lawsuit explains how the postings which were passed around to stores within nine states, and their content is a violation to the Equal Opportunity Employment laws from the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1991. EEOC San Francisco Regional Attorney William R. Tamayo stated, “It’s rare to see an explicit example of sex discrimination like Ruby Tuesday’s internal job announcement. . . . This suit is a cautionary tale to employers that sex-based employment decisions are rarely justified and are not consistent with good business judgment.” Everyone is entitled a fair chance when it comes to jobs, because one cannot just tell someone they cannot work somewhere without putting them up to the task. Both of the men say they were denied the opportunity to earn more money because they were not allowed to compete for the jobs.

In the end, Ruby Tuesday hired seven women and no men for the 2013 summer jobs. EEOC’s Seattle Field Office Director, Nancy Sienko said, “[Mr. Herrera] was shocked and angered that Ruby Tuesday would categorically exclude him and other male employees” from a lucrative job. The job announcement was distributed to restaurants located in Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada and Utah.

The lawsuit does not indicate exactly how much in damages the men were seeking for the discrimination due to their gender.

Stephanie is business administration with a minor in biology at Montclair State University, Class of 2017.

A New Jersey appellate court recently ruled in James v. Ruiz that testifying experts cannot bolster their opinions by piggybacking or “bootstrapping” the written conclusions of other experts who are not testifying in court.

The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right of the accused to confront witnesses against him, thereby excluding hearsay from a case. Hearsay is testimony from a witness who relays information to a jury from a second-hand witness. Hearsay is considered unreliable because the witness who supposedly said the statement is not present in court to be subject to cross-examination.

To illustrate how this works, imagine a case where counsel is trying to prove that Peter was in New York at the time of a robbery. Counsel asks a witness on the stand whether Patrick told him that Peter was in New York in order to place Peter in New York at that time. This is an out-of-court statement made to prove the truth of the matter asserted (that Peter was in New York), and therefore, cannot be cross-examined by opposing counsel because Patrick is not in court. As a result of scenarios like this, rules of court have been crafted to prevent juries from considering hearsay statements in both criminal and civil cases.

Under Federal Rule 703, “an expert may base an opinion on facts or data in the case that the expert has been made aware of or personally observed.” New Jersey has adopted Rule 703 and takes a strict view on what constitutes personal observance. For example, while certain medical records can be admitted under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, if those records contain medical opinions regarding a complex medical condition, then under the recent decision in James, they cannot be referenced by a testifying witnesses as a consistent (or non-consistent) opinion to his opinion, unless the testifying expert relied on those opinions for his or her own “personal” findings. The witnesses relied upon must be testifying as well. Therefore, simply rubber-stamping one’s own opinion based on a non-testifying expert’s opinion, is bootstrapping and violative of Rule 703.

Together with the business records exception and Rule 703, New Jersey also has Rule 808, which has no federal analog. Under N.J.R.E. 808:

Expert opinion which is included in an admissible hearsay statement shall be excluded if the declarant has not been produced as a witness unless the trial judge finds that the circumstances involved in rendering the opinion, including the motive, duty, and interest of the declarant, whether litigation was contemplated by the declarant, the complexity of the subject matter, and the likelihood of accuracy of the opinion, tend to establish its trustworthiness.

Thus, there are times when a non-testifying expert’s opinion can be permitted, but the trial judge must evaluate the expert’s motives, duty, and interest in giving the opinion; whether they had litigation in mind at the time of the opinion; the complexity of the subject matter; and whether the opinion is accurate. If the opinion regards something that is complex and contested in the lawsuit, the opinion will not be permitted under Rule 808. If it is an uncontested opinion or something insignificant, then it will more than likely be admitted.

There is a line drawn between facts and data, which any expert can discuss, provided that they are relied upon by other experts in the field, and expert opinions. And again, non-testifying expert opinions cannot be admitted unless the testifying expert relied upon those opinions in his analysis of the case and will be testifying. According to the court, “[i]f the requirements of Rule 808 are met, and a testifying expert has reasonably relied upon the non-testifying expert’s opinions, then the testifying expert may be permitted to refer to that absent expert’s opinions in the course of explaining his or her own opinions in court.”  The court continued: “However, this pathway should not be used as a ‘subterfuge to allow an expert to bolster the expert testimony by reference to other opinions of experts not testifying.’”

The bottom line is testifying experts cannot be used as a conduit to admit non-testifying expert testimony. This applies especially to bootstrapping “net opinions” in this manner. In addition to the constitutional issues raised here, doing so is simply unfair. If a plaintiff has an expert who is testifying against the defendant’s expert with an opposite opinion, then permitting the bootstrapping of a non-expert’s opinion is like having two experts against one in front of the jury for the price of one.

A Raleigh police officer sued Starbucks in 2012 for burns he sustained when the lid of his coffee cup popped off. According to the officer, when the lid came off, the cup collapsed and burned him. The stress activated his Crohn’s disease, and as a result, he lost part of his intestine. He claims damages of $50,000. His wife also sued for loss of companionship.

This is a classic case of the Eggshell Skull Rule: “take the plaintiff as they are.” Here, the officer’s Crohn’s disease is an unforeseeable circumstance of the burns, yet Starbucks may still be liable, according to the rule. The case is an analog to the Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants case discussed in class.

Posted by Sukayna Khalifeh.

According to the New York Times (Peter J. Henning), there are no real findings of liability for violations from the cases arising from the 2008 financial crisis. Henning wrote about two cases in particular that were recently resolved but the top managers in the companies were not held liable. One of them involved fraud charges against Freddie Mac’s former chief executive, Richard F. Syron. This case “concluded only with an acknowledgment that no party is the prevailing party” (Henning). This was concluded because there was “no accepted definition of a subprime mortgage,” so there was no way to prove Syron had intentionally given false accounts of loans. The second case was against Ernst & Young, an auditor of Lehman Brothers. They were charged for accounting fraud but reached a settlement with the government for $10 million instead even though Lehman Brothers set off the financial crisis in September 2008 by going bankrupt. It was the largest bankruptcy in American History according to the New York Times (Henning).

Both of these cases were huge contributors to the financial crisis yet the perpetrators still were not held liable for illegal or dishonest behavior. “Management was aware of accounting maneuvers used to make its finances look stronger than they were,” (Henning) yet the Security Exchange Commission still stopped the investigation on Lehman Brothers in 2012. They were not criminally charged nor was any civil action taken.

Henning also wrote about the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), which is designed to pursue “cases against banks for violations of the mail and wire fraud statutes.” This has been a successful and helpful tool that prosecutors used against JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup. Although this is a powerful tool, it has not been used to hold individuals for violations. Henning implied that the Justice Department should focus more on individuals in the corporation and charge them for misconduct instead of the corporation as a whole. The guilty individuals inside the company should be held liable for wrongdoing.

Sukayna is a double major in finance and management, information and technology (MIT) at Montclair State University, Class of 2017.

Posted by Lauren Mudrick.

In April 2015, the Entertainment and Sports Performing Network (ESPN) filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court against the telecommunications company, Verizon, for breaching a contract. Disney, who owns ESPN, claimed that Verizon made a unilateral decision, with little to no discussion with cable networks, when it released a new cable package called FiOS Custom TV.

The package took channels from basic cable and separated them into smaller specific categories. “ESPN claims that it would have most likely embraced this new innovative package if it were done in compliance with their contractual agreement.” Verizon claims that it is “within the company’s rights under the agreement to give customers these choices, and that this is what the customers want.” 21st Century Fox and NBC Universal joined ESPN in its disagreement with Verizon. These companies too claimed that the FiOS cable package violated their contracts.

A contract is a promise made between parties for which the law recognizes the performance of as a duty, or gives a remedy to the breach of. The said companies had in the past formed a contract with five basic elements: offer, acceptance, consideration, capacity, and legality. With these five elements, the contract is valid unless it is declared voidable or unenforceable. If breached, the courts may rule an equitable remedy for the plaintiff. If Verizon really did go against any element of this contract, ESPN will “be made whole again” by a remedy due from Verizon.

Lauren is a business administration major with a concentration in management at Montclair State University, Class of 2016.

Posted by Kate Robinson.

Jordan Belfort, an infamous stockbroker, known for making millions in the 1990s, plead guilty to securities fraud and money laundering in 1999. In 2003, he was sentenced to four years in prison, but only served 22 months and owed a personal fine of $110 million. Today, Mr. Belfort’s story is known as being the basis for the 2013 film, “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

In 1989, Jordan Belfort was illegally running his own investment company, Stratton Oakmont. Mr. Belfort and his partner, Danny Porush, were able to make millions by defrauding their company’s investors by using a “pump and dump” scheme. Brokers would push stocks onto their innocent clients, which would help to inflate the stocks’ prices. The company would then sell off its own holdings in these stocks at an extreme profit.

During the time when Mr. Belfort was at an all-time high in his so-called career, he spent lavishly. His business was able to give him the funds to purchase a mansion, sports cars, and several other expensive toys. But with the help of his abundance of cash, Mr. Belfort developed a serious drug addiction, which often lead him to trouble. However, to this day he has developed an interest in writing and has released two memoirs. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California and operates his own company, which provides sales training and markets “Straight Line” training programs aimed at building wealth. Mr. Belfort claims to have straightened out his life since serving his time in prison, and has reportedly paid $14 million of the $110 million fine levied against him.

Kate is a sports, events and tourism marketing major at Montclair State University, Class of 2017.

Posted by Daniel Lamas.

In October 2013, Shaneen Allen was arrested for carrying a registered gun across the New Jersey border. Allen, who is a Pennsylvania native, was going on a routine visit to New Jersey when she was pulled over. As she opened her glove compartment, the officer noticed the concealed weapon. Allen was questioned and arrested.

Allen’s punishment could have included up to three years in prison, but thankfully her attorney got her out of serious jail time. Allen was in hot water for almost two years. Recently, Governor Chris Christie issued a pardon to Allen and was praised by many gun rights groups. As an American, I feel that the Second Amendment is very important, not only to people as individuals, but mainly to show what this country was built upon.

Personally, I do not feel that Allen did anything wrong as she was a legal, registered carrier and had no bad intentions. Governor Christie did the right thing and helped defend a very important amendment that supports what our Founding Fathers would have wanted. Not many people would have been quick to pardon somebody in Allen’s situation, but luckily for her, Governor Christie had her back. People like Allen who are legal carriers are what keeps the country the way the Founding Fathers intended it to be. If more gun owners were registered like Allen, crime would be monitored easier and street violence would come to an ease.

Daniel is a business management and merchandising major at Montclair State University, Class of 2017.