Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

For most people, workers’ compensation is dictated by your state’s laws. Workers’ compensation is a benefit provided to cover any work-related injuries you sustain. This benefit paid for by your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance plan. However, not all employees are covered. Exclusions vary state-to-state, but in general, the following types of workers are not covered:

• Business owners
• Independent contractors
• Casual workers
• Domestic employees in private homes
• Farmworkers
• Maritime workers
• Railroad employees
• Unpaid volunteers

Federal workers are also excluded from the states’ defined compensation coverage and are covered separately by a federal law.

Per the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal minimum wage is $5.85/hour.  That statement is a bit misleading due to the fact that there are exceptions within this law.  The two most common exceptions are for those jobs that pay tips and for young workers.

If you’ve ever worked at a summer camp and then looked at your pay stub to figure out how much per hour you were getting, you probably got a shock when you found out that it was less than minimum wage.  The youth minimum wage is in fact $4.85 if the following criteria are met:

• The employee is over 20 years old
• The lower wage is only paid during the first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment
• The work does not displace other workers

The minimum wage for a worker who receives tips (e.g. busboy) is $2.13.  Pretty sad, eh?  The following criteria must be met:

• $2.13 + tips >= $5.85
• The employee gets to keep all the received tips
• The employee customarily and regularly receives more than $30/month in tips

If even after the above, you still don’t make the equivalent of $5.85/hour, your employee must make up the difference.  If business is slow and you start noticing that it’s not working out to $5.85, then start keeping track so that you have some ammo when you ask your boss for the difference.
Overall, considering that many states have minimum wage laws that are much more generous, both of these laws are pretty arcane.  If having to pay someone $5.85/hour instead of $2.13 (a whooping $3.72/hour difference) is going to make or break your business model, you’ve probably got problems.  Plus, $5.85 is pretty much impossible to live off of.  I guess the federal government has to set regulations that are palatable by the lowest common denominator state.

Let’s hope that there wouldn’t be a reason why you would need to worry about this, but HYPOTHETICALLY, you may need to be aware of when/why an officer would have the legal right to search your car.  An officer may have a justifiable reason to pull you over, but that does NOT give the officer the right to search your car.   You may ask what is a justifiable reason.  This is where the law gets gray.  The legal term is “reasonable.”  I know that that doesn’t really seem definite, but that word is surprisingly used a lot in law.  Reasonable is usually determine by whether the officer sees something that would give reason for further investigation (e.g. drug paraphernalia) in the back seat.  Keep in mind that that’s only if the officer SEES it.  He/she is not allowed to ask you to lower your windows if it’s legally tinted to the point of not being able to see in.

In the end, use common sense on whether you think your vehicle is suspect.  For example, don’t leave empty beer cans (even if it’s was drank weeks ago) sitting the car.  It’s often tough to argue with the officer if the officer thinks that there is a valid reason to perform a search.  If you have nothing to hide, you’re better off with the inconvenience.  If you do, then don’t let the officer search and call your lawyer!

That’s a really good question. Well, to be totally honest, it’s because law is so damn confusing and I’ve gotten stung more than once for being unprepared and uneducated.  I totally appreciate how it got to be that way and the complexities and intricacies that evolved. I guess that’s why lawyers get paid so much. Should it really cost $1000 for some guy wearing a fancy suit to enter a “not guilty” plea in traffic court? The everyday person (me and you), shouldn’t have to deal in the minutiae (and costs!) of law when dealing with everyday situations. In the end, you just need to be educated and prepared enough to limit your risk and know when to scream uncle … err, I should say, call your lawyer.

My buddy LawHound and I will attempt to distill all the lawyering speak down to just what you need to know to know what to do next. Whether you’re interested in filing for a patent, understanding your rights when your neighbor’s tree falls into your yard, divorcing your high school boyfriend, or writing up a lease for your new rental property (the one you couldn’t sell because the housing market sucks), stay tuned!