Tenants beware: foreclosure doesn’t just affect homeowners

If you rent a house or apartment, you may not think that the foreclosure crisis that has plagued the U.S. can affect you at all. If you think that, then you are very wrong. Across the nation, foreclosures suffered by the owners of properties from rental homes to apartment complexes have been causing massive problems for renters who can find utilities shut off and eviction notices – even if they have what they think are...

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Texting and driving don’t mix – when will the Pennsylvania legislature move to ban texting while driving?

Almost every day, someone in the U.S. is injured or killed in a motor vehicle accident involving a distracted driver who is texting while driving on a public road. Earlier this week, a Minnesota woman was charged in connection with a crash last October when the minivan she was driving struck a 65-year-old man who was riding his motorcycle, according to a story in The Star Tribune in Minneapolis. The woman was allegedly texting on...

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Improperly calibrated Breathalyzer machines harm the innocent and let the guilty go free

Imagine you are stopped by the police for suspected drunken driving and you submit to a Breathalyzer test. That evidence, whatever it determines, will be used against you in court, so it had better be right. But what if it's not right – what if the police used a Breathalyzer unit that wasn't properly calibrated on a regular schedule as designed? [caption id="attachment_1214" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image credit: © iStockphoto.com/DNY59"][/caption] Then it throws your alleged blood...

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Highway safety and speed cameras: what you need to know

It's a never ending cat and mouse game – drivers speed and police look to catch them in the act. In the last several years, though, police in some locales around the U.S. have gained a crafty new tool – high-tech video "speed cameras" that can take photos of speeding vehicles.  Those photos are then used as evidence for tickets that are issued remotely and mailed to the owners of the offending vehicles. A story...

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Justice upheld: Illinois repeals it’s archaic death penalty

The availability of the death penalty as a sentence for heinous crimes in the United States raises searing emotions on both sides, but one thing is for certain: it is irreversible. That's why the repeal this week of the death penalty in Illinois was the right thing to do. Why? Because, as Gov.  Pat Quinn of Illinois said so eloquently when he signed the bill, "We cannot have a death penalty in our state that...

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Hospital errors in the U.S.: you have a right to know the facts

If you or a loved one has to be admitted into a hospital for emergency or scheduled surgery or treatment in the U.S., you probably think that it's a routinely safe place to go. Reality, however, may be very different from those expectations. Across the nation, medical mistakes routinely occur inside hospitals and the systems in place to report those errors vary greatly from state to state. [caption id="attachment_1156" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Photo of surgery in...

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Minnesota trying something new to prevent traffic deaths: a memorial Web site for victims

Across the United States, motor vehicle accidents claimed the lives of 24,474 people in 2009, plus another 4,462 motorcyclists and 4,872 pedestrians and bicyclists, according to federal statistics. The numbers are sobering, and at least one state – Minnesota – is trying to do something to make people more aware of the human carnage happening everyday on the state's roadways. In an announcement today, the state's Department of Public Safety (DPS) unveiled a new Web...

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Winter’s not over: Carbon monoxide safety at home is still critical

Yes, we're all excited about the warmer weather we've been enjoying locally, but the fact is that winter isn't really yet over and winter-related carbon monoxide dangers continue to exist in our homes. With that in mind, we here at MyPhillyLawyer have put together some important information to remind you how you can keep yourself and your family safer while running in-home heating equipment that produces deadly carbon monoxide (CO) gas. Carbon monoxide is an...

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Juries are being picked via Facebook?

What this could mean in your legal case and what you need to know A new trend in courtrooms across the nation includes searches being done by prosecutors and attorneys on Facebook and other social media sites of prospective jurors who are being polled for possible selection for juries in a wide range of civil and criminal cases. Think about that for a moment. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and others are certainly everywhere...

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