Panama City Florida Injury Lawyer Blog

Dramatic things are occurring around our constitution's First Amendment free speech rights. They aren't worth anything if one is on the Supreme Court grounds, but with narrow limits, they are golden elsewhere, possibly even in indecency cases and stolen valor matters.

Interesting times are ahead as the Supreme Court will decide what limits should be applied to free speech rights. Are they really guaranteed by the constitution? Are there limits despite the clear words of the Amendment? Consider challenges to the exercise of free speech and cases being considered by the court.

Occupy Wall Street protesters are pushing the limits of free speech, not in what they say, but where they say it. As has long been known, constitutional rights are not unconditional. The protesters have a right to harangue about unethical banking practices, but they don't have the right to obstruct traffic. The constitution guarantees only a right to peaceful assembly. To be peaceful, its protest must respect public safety and not disturb the peace. Therein lies the justification for the arrest of some of the occupy Wall Street protestors. They clearly can't push first amendment rights past established safety and disturbance boundaries.

Other cases, presently under consideration by the Supreme Court, bear a close watch in the coming months. The Stolen Valor Act case of U.S. v. Alvarez will examine whether it is a federal crime to lie about receiving military decorations. Review of the Court of Appeals decision that the Stolen Valor Act is an unconstitutional limit on free speech is underway by the high court. And in another case, the FCC's indecency rule is being challenged. That case stems from the fleeting expletive uttered by Bono at the Golden Globe Awards in 2003. In the context of these cases, consider the irony that the U.S. Code prohibits a person from demonstrating, standing, displaying signs, or making a harangue on the Supreme Court's grounds or in the building. I told you it is an interesting time.

As we begin the World Series of Baseball, some baseball history might be interesting. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, now 91, played a pivotal role at a key moment in the development of players' rights forty-four years ago.

If you have watched much baseball, you might remember Charlie Finley. He was the owner of the Kansas City Athletics. He was abrasive and disliked almost everything including other owners and the idea of baseball players unionizing. When Finley got in a fight with the players' association, lawyers for Major League Baseball urged Finley to hire Stevens, a Chicago antitrust lawyer, for advice. The league's lawyers thought that Stevens' level head and mild demeanor would give temperamental balance to the hotheaded Finley.

In 1967, that balance paid off when the Kansas City team became rowdy on a commercial flight home after playing the Boston Red Sox. Finley's reaction was typical. He fired his team's manager, fined pitcher Lew Krausse, and suspended the players' union representative, Jack Aker. Matters spiraled out of control as the players' association threatened to file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board. Fearing that they were about to lose baseball's longstanding exemption from antitrust laws, other team owners urged Finley to settle the dispute fast.

Marvin Miller, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, showed up at the New York meeting as did the Kansas City Athletics' alternate team representative, Jim "Catfish" Hunter, and Finley. Finley came with Stevens who he introduced as "my lawyer from Chicago." Finley was as argumentative as expected, but Stevens with an occasional hand on his arm or a trip outside with Finley, brought him back to an even keel. By the end of the evening, Stevens' calm had prevailed, and the dispute was over, leading to the first collective bargaining agreement for players with a minimum salary of $10,000. Now, their average salary is over $3 million.

Let's talk about traffic law, specifically, traffic citations. The common thinking is that accidents go down if our city gives more traffic citations to control speed, reckless driving, and so on. Right? Well, one town in northern California sharply reduced the number of traffic tickets, and guess what. Accidents went down. Way down.

Roseville, California, reduced the number of tickets its police gave by 84%. The number of tickets was 1,317 in the first six months of 2011 compared to over 8,000 during the same time the year before. The city manager said he wanted his police staff to focus on long term solutions to traffic problems and not feel pressured to write tickets. Also, he made it clear that he doesn't like speed traps. A few nearby cities may want to take note of that. Instead of spending their time using radars on approaching cars, officers in Roseville are assigned to dangerous areas and are asked to be creative about solving traffic and safety problems. What was the result? Traffic tickets were down, as I said, by 84%. Accidents dropped, too, by 7% despite the fact that tickets were almost not being written.

Modern research does support the idea that drivers are more likely to follow the laws and be safe if they fear getting a traffic citation, but the interesting experience in Roseville suggests that traffic tickets aren't the only way to achieve road safety. Anything that is helpful to reduce the number of traffic deaths in this country, over 33,000 a year, and associated costs of at least $150 billion, is welcomed. But to an officer with a hammer, meaning a ticket book, everything may look like a nail.

Based on the Roseville statistics, officers and their bosses in the city halls can't say that tickets are the solution to everything. Most don't want to. Innovation in traffic safety, such as by better timing of traffic lights, is now becoming the focus. Giving police officers the leeway to devise practical solutions to problems may be the best way to achieve safety.

Understaffing a nursing home puts patients at risk. If any business, whether it be a nursing home or a hospital or a factory, does not have enough employees to do a job, that job cannot be done properly. Understaffing in health care settings is catastrophic. Yet, it has become a way of life, or death, in nursing homes as their corporate owners put profits ahead of patient safety.

Neglect and abuse are rampant in nursing homes because of understaffing. In nursing homes, staff time is directly related to the ability to provide minimal care. Statistics show that higher staff levels and lower nurse turnover are linked to fewer medical complications like pressure ulcers, infections, and deaths. I will give you this example. Poor nutrition due to inadequate food intake is a major reason for death in nursing homes. This should never happen. Feeding patients who need assistance, encouraging patients to remain independent in feeding themselves, and supervising patients at mealtimes require staff time. When it is inadequate, patients suffer, and they die or they suffer from bad problems like pressure ulcers which are in large part the result of poor nutrition.

Government regulators have recognized the danger of understaffing in nursing homes. Regulations exist, but they are not followed in too many cases. Nursing homes are required to have enough staff to provide all necessary care to all patients on a 24-hour basis, but in practicality, I don't see this level of staffing happening in many nursing homes. During depositions or in private conversations, many nurses have cried and told me that they despise not being able to provide conscientious care to their nursing home patients. Their staffing is so sparse that they run from patient to patient without having the ability to provide good care.

As an attorney representing patients, I can file suit, but what can you as a family member do immediately? Contact the Agency for Health Care Administration in Tallahassee. That agency will direct you without delay to the people who can provide prompt assistance.