Cyber Criminal

BOSTON, MASS.

“When it comes to a blog, where you get your material and how you use it can land you in hot water just as much as, if not more than, what you say. Using unauthorized photos, failing to properly credit a source you quote, using copyrighted material, or allowing comments that contain any of the above can open the door to a lawsuit. That’s not why most people start blogs,” said Emily C. Shanahan, an associate at TBHR.

There are some steps you can take to help ensure your blog sticks to its intended purpose without making you or your company vulnerable to a lawsuit:

• Screen comments on your blogs – Stay in control of the content of your blog either by not allowing comments or by clearly defining from the outset what standard posted comments have to meet. If they don’t, delete them. That being said, don’t play editor of your users’ comments.

• If you quote them, give them credit – Trying to pass off somebody’s words as your own can lead to big trouble. If you’re going to quote somebody, keep it short and always credit the person who said it and in what publication.

• Using photos and images – Just because you find an image on the Internet does not mean you have permission to use it. When it comes to artwork, use only what you create, own the license for, pay to use or know to be free stock photography or clip art.

• Celebrities – While using celebrities as fodder for your blog might make for entertaining content, it could open the door to a defamation lawsuit if you’re not careful. Even associating a celebrity’s name and/or image with your blog in a positive manner can lead to trouble down the road if you don’t have his or her permission.

• Company trademarks – Do not use in your blog trademarks that you do not own or are not licensed to use. You can, however, mention another company by name. As a precaution, you may want to mention if the company’s name is trademarked.

“A lot of this stuff is common sense, but many businesses seem to check their common sense at the door when they start up blogs,” said Shanahan. “Your blog is meant to give you a business advantage, not put you out of business. So when it comes to most blog posts, if you have a doubt about whether or not a post could be taken the wrong way or puts you at risk, consult your attorney. Better safe than sued.”

This release is not intended to be, nor should be construed as, legal advice.

About Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers, P.C.:

Formed in 1991, Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers, P.C. is committed to providing high quality, comprehensive legal services to its clients. Featuring a breadth and depth of experience and perspective usually found only at larger law firms, Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers. P.C. offers sophisticated legal counsel to entrepreneurs, businesses, individuals, families, and institutions.

Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers’ areas of expertise include corporate law, employment matters, mergers and acquisitions, litigation and dispute resolution, estate planning, taxation, real estate, bankruptcy, and municipal law.

The offices of Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers, P.C. are located at 101 Huntington Avenue, Prudential Center, in Boston, MA 02199. For additional information, or to arrange for a consultation, please call 1-617-218-2000, e-mail info@tbhr-law.com, or visit www.tbhr-law.com.

Pain and suffering is impossible to precisely measure. There are a few things to keep in mind when trying to figure out what’s fair compensation…

It will help if you can associate your pain and suffering with a dollar amount. What do you think your pain and suffering should be worth? The insurance adjuster will have their own view of how much your injuries are worth. You’re going to have to convince them that your amount is fair.

Sometimes your pain and suffering can only be partially put to a dollar amount. You can sometimes get the full amount of the damages that you requested for hard costs. For example, the pain and suffering you have can be detrimental to your job if you return to work only partially recovered from your injury. You can request that the suffering is costing you income and that it is added to the punitive damages.

Consider the traveling that a real estate agent has to do every day. They will not be able to get a lot done if they are still in pain from an injury. They will only get the work done by working harder than normal. In this situation you can argue that part of your pain should be reimbursed by an amount comparable to your salary.

This won’t win everything but it will help with negotiations. You will want more compensation than just lost salary. But it’s still a useful tool to show the adjuster how the suffering is affecting you in areas outside of medical bills.

Pain and suffering and the way your life was affected by it increase the punitive damages. More damages will arise the longer the injury is left untreated, and damages increase with the number of areas in your life that are impacted. Damages will also increase if there is scaring or permanent injury.

Making up for the wrong doing in your life that resulted from the accident is what punitive damages are for. You will get more money the better you prove this point.

How much can you get for a scar? It depends on the effect of the scar. A young woman can have a lifetime of emotional suffering as a result of a scar on her face. An elderly man with an unseen scar on his back can’t make the damages seem as bad.

A scale of one to five can be used to rank pain and suffering after examining these factors. Use reality. The adjuster will assume you are trying to take advantage if you multiply a lower category of pain and suffering by five. If the adjuster thinks you’re artificially inflating the number there’s a good chance the judge will also think it.

The case has to be extreme but you can go above the five point scale. There cannot be any doubt and the defendant’s fault has to be clear. There has to be lasting effects and severe injury. Gross negligence almost always has to be the cause of the accident.

In a highly unusual use of a federal law in which legal experts describe as “creative” and “aggressive,” a St. Louis, Missouri woman has been indicted in what may be the country’s first case of cyber-bullying. Federal prosecutors say Lori Drew, 49, and others created an account on the social networking site MySpace pretending to be a 16-year-old boy to fool her neighbor, 13-year-old Megan Meier.

According to prosecutors, Drew used the MySpace account to establish a relationship with Meier, acting for weeks to be a boy interested in forming a romantic relationship her. A short time later, Drew suddenly ended the relationship, taunting Meier and telling her the world would be better off without her. Consequently, a distraught Meier committed suicide by hanging herself.

Drew is Arrested and Charged with a Crime

The federal indictment, which was delivered in Los Angeles after state prosecutors in Missouri declined to bring charges, is unprecedented, and legal commentators believe it may seriously stretch the federal statute on which it was based. The indictment charged that in violation of MySpace terms of service, “Drew and co-conspirators knowingly and agreed with each other to intentionally access a computer … to further a tortious act, namely, intentional infliction of emotion distress.” According to the prosecution, Drew violated MySpace’s terms by using a fictitious name, among other things, and thus had no authority to access the MySpace service.

“This adult woman allegedly used the Internet to target a young teenage girl, with horrendous ramifications,” said United States Attorney Thomas O’Brien. “Any adult who uses the Internet or a social-gathering website to harass or bully another person, particularly a young girl, must realize their actions can have serious consequences.”

The Unprecedented Charges may Create a New Realm of Cases

The case presents a new wrinkle in the interpretation of federal law. Legal experts warned that such an interpretation could criminalize routine behavior on the internet. After all, people regularly create accounts or post information under aliases for many legitimate reasons, including avoiding spam and a desire to maintain their privacy online.

This new interpretation also gives a business contract the force of a law: violations of a web site’s terms of service could now lead to criminal sanctions, instead of just civil lawsuits or ejection from a site.

“I think the danger of applying a statute in this way is that it could have unintended consequences,” said John Palfrey, a Harvard law professor. “An application of a general statute like this might result in chilling a great deal of online speech and other freedom.” Drew is scheduled to be arraigned in St. Louis but the trial will be held in Los Angeles were MySpace is headquartered. If convicted of the charges, Drew faces up to 20 years in prison.

With the economy spiraling down the drain and unemployment rate going up, along with it is the rise in numbers of identity thieves. Because of the growth of individuals losing their jobs lately, many unwanted persons want to take advantage of the desperation of these job seekers. Take for example that news about a certain person, in the hopes of finding a job over the internet; he caught himself losing two $100 bills from his account without him knowing. This happened right after he followed instructions on a job listing ad on how they’d be able to hire them or give them work tasks and be paid home based. At some point, the supposed poster required the candidate to submit vital information such as his driver’s license number, social security number, his address, and almost his entire world for the sake of a should have been background check. The ad post also mentioned that by doing so, he’d be notified about his work 48 hours after. But days had passed without any word from the said company. He then noticed the different comments under the said job posting. Messages from other contractors like him wrote there something like it being a scam. Then someone suggested that whoever had followed the said instructions should check their bank account.

And so this certain contractor did, and that’s when he found out about the money that he had been losing slowly without his idea. Without knowing what to do next, the said contractor victim closed his debit card account immediately and a fraud investigation for the said website owner was requested. Out of desperation, we all get to jump on to whatever comes our way that we find would be helpful. However, in that rush we tend to ignore the safety precautions that we should be following. Amidst the worry and panic, one should always remember to keep your head straight especially when it’s about your security. Important information that shouldn’t be shared without proper papers should be kept private. If you are asked for a background check, you should also inquire about who will do the background check and the search should be legal, and properly guided by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The next thing to consider is to try and do background search as well on your prospected employer or company. You have the right to know whether the company and employer, or the job poster flyer is legit or not. This will guarantee that you’re not falling in some phishing job post, or identity theft and fraud. By taking in all these precautionary measures, you’ll be assured the security that is more important than losing everything just because you thought you’d finally have a job. Remember that you need to be able to work to earn enough for a living, not lose it on the way there. Not caring about what you’re doing would only lead you to more trouble, and believe me; you wouldn’t want to have that. Not now when life and work is becoming synonymous to survival. Safety and security still outranks risking your identity.

In a highly unusual use of a federal law in which legal experts describe as “creative” and “aggressive,” a St. Louis, Missouri woman has been indicted in what may be the country’s first case of cyber-bullying. Federal prosecutors say Lori Drew, 49, and others created an account on the social networking site MySpace pretending to be a 16-year-old boy to fool her neighbor, 13-year-old Megan Meier.

According to prosecutors, Drew used the MySpace account to establish a relationship with Meier, acting for weeks to be a boy interested in forming a romantic relationship her. A short time later, Drew suddenly ended the relationship, taunting Meier and telling her the world would be better off without her. Consequently, a distraught Meier committed suicide by hanging herself.

Drew is Arrested and Charged with a Crime

The federal indictment, which was delivered in Los Angeles after state prosecutors in Missouri declined to bring charges, is unprecedented, and legal commentators believe it may seriously stretch the federal statute on which it was based. The indictment charged that in violation of MySpace terms of service, “Drew and co-conspirators knowingly and agreed with each other to intentionally access a computer … to further a tortious act, namely, intentional infliction of emotion distress.” According to the prosecution, Drew violated MySpace’s terms by using a fictitious name, among other things, and thus had no authority to access the MySpace service.

“This adult woman allegedly used the Internet to target a young teenage girl, with horrendous ramifications,” said United States Attorney Thomas O’Brien. “Any adult who uses the Internet or a social-gathering website to harass or bully another person, particularly a young girl, must realize their actions can have serious consequences.”

The Unprecedented Charges may Create a New Realm of Cases

The case presents a new wrinkle in the interpretation of federal law. Legal experts warned that such an interpretation could criminalize routine behavior on the internet. After all, people regularly create accounts or post information under aliases for many legitimate reasons, including avoiding spam and a desire to maintain their privacy online.

This new interpretation also gives a business contract the force of a law: violations of a web site’s terms of service could now lead to criminal sanctions, instead of just civil lawsuits or ejection from a site.

“I think the danger of applying a statute in this way is that it could have unintended consequences,” said John Palfrey, a Harvard law professor. “An application of a general statute like this might result in chilling a great deal of online speech and other freedom.” Drew is scheduled to be arraigned in St. Louis but the trial will be held in Los Angeles were MySpace is headquartered. If convicted of the charges, Drew faces up to 20 years in prison.

In the 2009 issue of New Jersey eAuthority, there was news published regarding the Schley v. Microsoft Corp. case. Apparently Microsoft revoked its written job offer to a candidate after failing the background check. According to the story, the plaintiff was sent a letter by Microsoft telling him that he’s being offered a job for the company. It did however, mention in the letter, that the offer only is effective if he’s cleared after the background check. He probably missed that part through all the excitement, because he ended up, not only without a job, but without a home as well. It seems that he went to talk to the hiring manager who, maybe simply trying to be friendly, suggested he quit his job, sell his house, and transfer from New Jersey to Washington, to be prepared for the position, which he instantly did so. But he later then was told he failed the admission for the job after being found out that he had a felony conviction record.

This incident is a grave example not only of what jumping into conclusions could do, but what a criminal background check result could cause. Although the story might have sounded so negative because of the deprivation of work for the said plaintiff, it should be remembered that the letter was at some pointed drafted to mean well. It even included the conditions about the offered work. Almost every establishment around the state, especially the large ones, requires not only a criminal background check for its employees and applicants, but a comprehensive background search all in all. These background checks cover everything from previous employment history, to significant license and credit records, and many more. These prerequisites are necessary in order for the company to be able to evaluate an applicant or employee’s capacity, attitude, assets, and behavior.

In most cases, the incident above could have gone a different route had at some point the plaintiff disclosed the felony conviction prior to the job offer. This information could prove to be helpful in finding ways to contradict a company’s withdrawal because if they had known about it before, say during an interview or something, they wouldn’t have the reason to be shocked after the conviction appeared during the background check. However, if the said information wasn’t disclosed, then the applicant really is at fault. Basically because he should’ve known the effects of a felony charge being in an individual’s background. This type of information is a terrible case sensitive issue that should immediately be relayed to the hiring committee so as to be cleared whether it would influence your application’s process. When you’ve done all these, at least you’re guaranteed that when they do request a background check from you, they already know at some point what to expect from it. And that the information you shared to them, after they had heard it, wouldn’t bother them nor go in the way of your application anymore. If and only if, they’d still consider the process after you’ve told them about the condition of your background record.