Author: By Jim Flynn
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Flynn: Who owns what in a marriage?
Who, as between spouses, owns what? You might think this would be an easy legal question to answer, but it’s not. Take the big screen TV, for example. The husband bought it by writing a check on his personal checking account and the money in the account came from his paycheck. So, does he alone…
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Jim Flynn: A lesson in class-action lawsuits
Class-action lawsuits are in the news just about every day. They make headlines because the whole idea of class-action lawsuits is controversial and stridently opposed by many and because the amounts paid in settlements are sometimes in the same league as the net worth of, say, Bill Gates. What are class-action lawsuits? In simplest terms,…
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Jim Flynn: Courts and how they interpret the laws
If you paid any attention to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, you know that, in theory at least, legislatures make laws and courts interpret them. However, this is easier said than done. That’s because language is inherently ambiguous, legislatures aren’t always precise in its use and situations…
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Jim Flynn: Article XXV offers way to remove president
Since it’s frequently in the news , I thought I would tell you how a sitting president can, in contrast to impeachment, be removed from office by a procedure set forth in Article XXV of the Constitution. Article XXV was proposed by Congress in 1965 and ratified by the states in 1967. The assassination of…
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Jim Flynn: Getting to know the Rules of Civil Procedure
Civil trials, a term that includes just about everything except trials involving criminal prosecutions, are governed by a detailed set of rules known, logically enough, as the Rules of Civil Procedure. These rules have been evolving for hundreds of years, and continue to evolve. Their stated purpose is to “secure the just, speedy and inexpensive…
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Jim Flynn: Thinking safety at the old ball game
Although the recent performance of the Colorado Rockies’ bullpen might have caused you to cancel all plans to visit Coors Field this year, you should still know something about the Colorado Baseball Spectator Safety Act. This law has little to do with spectator safety. Rather, its purpose is to protect owners of professional baseball teams…
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Let the buyer – and seller – beware
In the old days (meaning maybe 60 years ago), anyone buying real estate (or a horse.) was subject to a “buyer beware” rule of law. (The fancy lawyer term for this is “caveat emptor,” which means “Let the buyer beware” in Latin). The risk of defects, even if known to the seller, was solely on…
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Jim Flynn: When your insurance company is not on your side
Most lawyers would agree that having good insurance is more important than having a good lawyer and that insurance, when available, is a better way to deal with life’s unpleasant surprises than is litigation. (Whom, for example, do you sue when your house is struck by lightning?) But insurance has problems of its own, one…
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Jim Flynn: Coloradans have some protection from phone solicitations
Although the deluge of telephone calls associated with the 2016 presidential election has (for the most part, and thank goodness) gone away, calls seeking charitable contributions know no season and continue unabated. Charitable contributions, whether solicited by telephone or otherwise, are big business. An article in The Denver Post in December said there are now…
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CFPB may be endangered but Federal Trade Commission marches on
Although President-elect Donald Trump and, for that matter, the entire Republican Party seem bent on putting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau out of business (or at least turning it into a congressional lapdog), the Federal Trade Commission marches on, unmolested, with its consumer protection agenda. Perhaps this is so because the FTC has been around…