Archive for the ‘Pleasant Grove Attorneys’ Category

The following article was published in the Salt Lake Tribune recently, discussing Utah legislation with regards to panhandlers. If you have any opinion on the issue, you should voice it now, whether you are for it or against it. Contact your city council and congress members. It is a great way to be involved and know more about what is going on behind the scenes in your state. The law isn’t just about what you can’t do, you just have to remember do what you can.

Attorney: Utah cities need to reexamine panhandling ordinances

“After winning his case against the state’s restrictions on panhandling, civil rights attorney Brian Barnard believes Utah cities need to rethink their own statutes.

Barnard had previously warned that both Lehi and Orem had crept into unconstitutional territory in restricting panhandling directed at motorists driving on city streets.

“I would hope those two cities will look at their ordinances and bring them [into compliance with the ruling],” Barnard said.

Barnard sued the state on behalf of three people who were asked by police to stop panhandling motorists for money. Salt Lake City was also named as a defendant but agreed to not enforce the state law pending the outcome of the state case.

U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart ruled in March that the state law banning people standing near a road from soliciting money was an unconstitutional infringement on free-speech rights. Stewart found the statute overly broad.

“The court does not dispute that the state has a legitimate and important interest in regulating conduct that occurs on busy roadways, and it may do so as long as the legislation is written so as to avoid infringing on constitutionally protected rights,” Stewart wrote. “However, it may not do so through sweeping statutes that regulate conduct unrelated to the government interest.”

But officials in Orem and Lehi indicated they will not be retooling their ordinances any time soon.

“Our feeling is that, although he struck down the state statute, our ordinance is drafted more narrowly,” said Greg Stephens, Orem’s city attorney. “But we are still OK.”

Stephens said the city does not ban begging on sidewalks but does on the actual roadway.

Lehi Mayor Bert Wilson said the city has not done anything with its ordinance since Barnard first called it unconstitutional.

“It’s just been sitting there,” Wilson said. He said city attorney Ryan Wood has been busy working on other projects.

Attempts to contact Wood were not successful. He did not return multiple phone calls to his office.

Barnard said the Orem and Lehi ordinances appear to restrict free-speech rights in that they target people who solicit money or sell services to passing motorists.

“The [ordinances] apply to Girl Scouts selling cookies and guys [waving signs] in front of pizza shops, as well as panhandlers,” Barnard said.

Stephens, Orem’s attorney, said the city did not ban panhandling, but any soliciting activity in actual roadways. It also bans people from begging near ATMs and in front of businesses without the owners’ permission.

The ordinance permits passive appeals for money from the sidewalk, Stephens said.

In an earlier interview, then-Orem city attorney Paul Johnson said the city also outlawed firefighters from going into the roadway to collect funds for muscular dystrophy research.

Salt Lake City attorney Ed Rutan said Stewart’s ruling will be a factor if the city resumes work on its ordinance targeting aggressive panhandling.

“Anytime you legislate in the First Amendment area, you have to make sure your ordinance is narrowly drawn,” Rutan said.

Salt Lake City tabled its proposed aggressive panhandling ordinance to weigh the public comments it received on the matter.”

For original article go to: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53869053-78/panhandling-attorney-state-barnard.html.csp?page=1

One of America’s leading companies from the 2000’s seems to be garnering a lot of media attention lately. Hopefully they don’t bite off more than they can chew [a la Netflix.]  The following article details the latest ongoing in a patent squabble the company is engrossed in.

“Google’s lawyers fending off Oracle’s Java-related patent infringement claims found themselves in Judge William Alsup’s crosshairs on Tuesday.

Alsup took after Google’s team, led by Keker & Van Nest, for breaking its own agreed-upon rules aimed at streamlining patent-marking issues at trial. Alsup even threatened to take away one of Google’s key defenses — the argument that Oracle didn’t mark, or provide notification of, some of the patents in the suit, a position aimed at limiting exposure for past damages.

Google has claimed it wasn’t liable for damages on five of six patents at issue prior to the summer of 2010, when the suit was filed, saying Oracle was practicing the patents ­— in essence, using them in its products — but had not marked its products.

Alsup didn’t want to deal with that at trial and let the parties come up with an agreement that called for Oracle, and then Google, to produce detailed information on which Oracle products they contend do or do not practice the asserted claims and why .

Alsup said it was “manifestly clear” that Google blew the Jan. 20 deadline to produce that information. Google, Alsup wrote, “merely objected to Oracle’s testimonial evidence and complained that it did not have time to analyze the source-code citations provided.” Google didn’t analyze and address each product listed by Oracle or identify any other products that practiced the asserted claims.

“Google is herby ordered to stand and deliver on its end of the bargain,” Alsup wrote. He gave the team, headed by Robert Van Nest and including lawyers from King & Spalding and Greenberg Traurig, just two weeks to comply.

The judge appeared highly skeptical that Google has a legitimate reason for failing to produce the agreed-upon information. Even if there is evidence that Oracle didn’t produce codes and information needed for Google to comply, as Google contends, Alsup said it “cannot justify the wholesale refusal to respond at all as required by the stipulation.”

For its part, Oracle says its lawyers and engineers spent more than 100 hours complying with the agreed-upon procedure. “For each of the six patents at issue, Oracle identified the specific products, and versions of products, that practice the patents, provided citations to source code files, identified fact witnesses who could provide supporting testimony, and summarized their expected areas of testimony,” a Friday filing by Marc Peters of Morrison & Foerster said. “But now Google has reversed course completely and has refused to engage substantively in the issue-narrowing process it proposed. Instead of responding with a statement identifying which Oracle products it contends do, or do not, practice the patents, Google served Oracle with a litany of objections.”

The much anticipated trial has been delayed until at least April to allow for Oracle to come up with yet another damages estimate. Oracle has struggled to submit a damages theory that satisfies Alsup, who has said the plaintiffs were overreaching with a theory that put damages in excess of $6 billion.

The trial will proceed in three phases, beginning with copyright claims. The second phase will be on patent liability. The last phase, if there is an infringement finding, would address damages. Alsup estimates the trial will take two months.”

For original article go to: http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202540913039

For more information about your legal issues, contact Hansen, Wright, Eddy and Haws today.

Located In Pleasant Grove, Utah and Now located in Nephi, Utah.