Source: https://schlissellaw.wordpress.com/tag/constitutional-issues/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 12:09:37+00:00

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The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in the case of Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz v. the United States. The specifics of the case were discussed in a series of articles in the New York Law Journal Monday and yesterday by Marcia Coyle.
The Milavetz & Gallop firm, based outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, along with some of their clients, challenged certain provisions of the amendments to the Bankruptcy Code of 2005, called BAPCPA (Bankruptcy Abuse and Prevention Consumer [credit card company, actually] Act) on First Amendment grounds, only one month after it became law.
The Milavetz firm most prominently challenged provisions of the Code which demands that they place a notice on all Bankruptcy related advertising that indicates that the firm is a “debt relief agency,” thus equating law firms with the fly-by-night debt counselors you hear about on the radio. The firm argued that this is insulting to lawyers and an unconstitutional regulation of true, non-misleading speech.
They also challenged the Code’s new requirement that attorneys representing clients contemplating bankruptcy may not advise those individuals, if they are below a certain income level, to take on any new debt. Milavetz asserts that this rule unconstitutionally interferes with the lawyer/client relationship. It also prevents attorneys from advising clients to consolidate debt by taking out a new loan, a strategy which may help keep some people out of bankruptcy altogether.
Hopefully the Supreme Court will indeed find these overeager provisions of the 2005 Bankruptcy Code amendments unconstitutional.
If you need help with a Bankruptcy, Foreclosure, and Mortgage Modification matter in the New York area, please give us a call at 800-344-5431 or you can click here to contact us by e-mail.
Picture courtesy of Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz, P.A.
Can The Police Strip Search You For Driving on a Suspended License?
Have you ever failed to pay all or part of a ticket, and then unknowingly had your license suspended, and then continued to drive using that suspended license? Have you ever hung out in a club or bar where people were using drugs? Do you know anyone who has failed to keep their property clean? If so, it is possible for the police to arrest you and, until recently in New York City, strip search you!
The law in New York states that a police officer may arrest you if he sees you commit a misdemeanor. The three crimes listed above (and many others) qualify as misdemeanors, and so if the police observe you committing one of them, they are permitted to, but are not obligated to, arrest you.
Judge Lynch reaffirmed the notion that the Constitutional default setting of the police should be “Do Not Search” mode. Deviations from that require some specific, individualized justification. The police must have some specific reasons to justify a “reasonable suspicion” that a detainee may be in possession of either contraband or a weapon that poses a danger to the police.
The bottom line is that it is better not to commit any misdemeanors to begin with. But if you are arrested for one, the police need some specific facts on which to base a suspicion that you in particular have contraband or weapons (that would be revealed by a strip search) in order to conduct a strip search. If the police find anything illegal during a strip search, and the search was conducted without “reasonable suspicion,” you may be able to have that evidence suppressed. So be sure to hire a good criminal defense attorney to help you with this or any other criminal defense matter.
The majority of states have laws establishing that marriages are only recognized when created with a marriage license and an official marriage ceremony. This is very important because many rights are dependant on the existence of a valid marriage. For instance, only a wife is entitled to an equitable share in the couple’s marital property and only a husband in a valid marriage will inherit from his wife if she dies without a Last Will and Testament.
Many situations exist, however, where a couple lives as husband and wife without ever formalizing their relationship with a marriage license and ceremony. This is referred to as a “common law marriage.” The parties will only have marital rights if their common law marriage is valid in one of the few states that still recognize common law marriage. Those states include Pennsylvania, Alabama, Colorado, District of Columbia, Georgia (if created before 1/1/97), Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire (for probate purposes), Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Ohio, and Florida (if created before 1968).
Even where a couple lives in a state like New York that has abolished common law marriage, if the marriage is valid in a state that does recognizes common law marriage, then New York would recognize the marriage as well, pursuant to the “full faith and credit” clause of the Constitution.
Not only that, but “behavior in New York before and after a New York couple’s visit to a jurisdiction that recognizes common-law marriage, like Pennsylvania, may be considered in determining whether the pair entered into a valid common-law marriage while cohabiting, even briefly, in the other jurisdiction.” Evidence of either actual cohabitation in Pennsylvania (like hotel receipts) or the renewal of the private marriage vows in Pennsylvania would still be required.
Because New York only recognizes a common law marriage where that marriage is valid under the laws of a state that validates common law marriage, it is important to understand what the elements of a common law marriage are in that state. This will determine what one must prove in order to have the marriage recognized in New York. Using our Pennsylvania law example, there is one primary requirement that must be met to validate a common law marriage.
“A common law marriage can only be created by an exchange of words in the present tense, spoken with the specific purpose that the legal relationship of husband and wife is created by that.” “Present tense” means that there must be evidence that the couple made a verbal commitment to enter a marriage at the time of that verbal statement. This means that making statements affirming or acknowledging a pre-existing marriage status or verbally expressing the intent to get married in the future do not qualify.
Interestingly, in September of 2003, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in its PNC Bank decision purported to abolish all common law marriage going forward, after the date of that case. However, other Pennsylvania courts may not be bound by its decisions, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania declined to abolish common law marriage, deferring that decision to the legislature.
But even assuming that the PNC Bank decision were binding, many common law marriages will still survive. If the facts that gave rise to the common law marriage took place before September 13, 2003, when PNC Bank was decided, the marriage would still be valid. This means that if the couple made their private statements creating the marriage, cohabited in Pennsylvania, and had the general reputation of being married prior to Sept. 13, 2003, then their common law marriage would still be recognized under Pennsylvania law, even if PNC Bank were held to be binding precedent.
If a couple has (1) made statements to each other to effect their marriage, (2) has lived together continuously (and at least temporarily on vacation in a state like Pennsylvania that recognizes common law marriage), and (3) has held themselves out and has had the reputation generally of being husband and wife, then New York Courts may indeed recognize their marriage as valid for the purpose of equitable distribution in divorce, a spousal share in an estate, and many other purposes.
As always, these legal issues are complicated, and it is worth noting that our office has extensive experience in matrimonialand estate law. If you need legal representation in general, or if you find yourself in a situation where you may have legal rights under the theory of common law marriage in the divorce or estate contexts, please do not hesitate to contact our office.
 See, e.g., In re Steiner, 786 N.Y.S. 2d 83, 84 (N.Y. App. Div. 2nd Dept. 2004); Sears v. Sears, 700 N.Y.S. 2d 626, 627 (N.Y. App. Div. 4th Dept. 1999); Lancaster v. 46 NYL Partners, 651 N.Y.S. 2d 440, 443 (N.Y. App. Div. 2nd Dept. 1996); Tornese v. Tornese, 649 N.Y.S. 2d 177, 178 (N.Y. App. Div. 2nd Dept. 1996).
Carpenter v. Carpenter, 617 N.Y.S. 2d 903, 904 (N.Y. App. Div. 2nd Dept. 1996); In re Landolfi, 727 N.Y.S. 2d 470, 472 (N.Y. App. Div. 2nd Dept. 2001).
 Carpenter at id.; In re Landolfi at id.
In re Landolfi at id.
Staudenmayer v. Staudenmayer, 714 A.2d 1016, 1020 (1998).
PNC Bank Corp. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board, 831 A.2d 1269, 1272 (Commw. Ct. Penn. 2003).
Stackhouse v. Stackhouse, 862 A.2d 102, 104-05 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2004).
As reported here, and as Mitchell Rubenstein predicted, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court will consider a teacher’s appeal of a Kings County Supreme Court’s nullification of a rabbinical arbitration panel’s decision in an employment case.
Following a dispute between the Hebrew Academy of Five Towns and Rockaway and one of its teachers, Nachum Brisman, regarding the school’s decision to terminate his employment, both sides agreed to have their dispute arbitrated by a well-known rabbinic panel, the Beth Din of America. The rabbinic panel’s arbitration decision favored the teacher in the dispute and when the teacher brought the decision to the Kings County Supreme Court to enforce the decision, it instead vacated it. Judge Balter’s decision can be read here.
Now, Brisman has appealed the lower court’s vacature of the arbitration before the Appellate Division. Three major orthodox Jewish organizations, the Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel of America, and Torah U’Mesorah, joined together last week to file a “Friend of the Court” brief, arguing that the Appellate Division should reverse Judge Balter’s vacature of the arbitration panel’s decision.
You can read the amicus brief here.
The organizations’ amicus brief emphasized that their support of Brisman’s appeal “should not be construed as advocacy on behalf of either party with respect to their underlying claims.” Rather, they clarified in the brief that they are advocating for the reversal of the Supreme Court’s vacature of the rabbinic arbitration agreement in order to prevent the weakening of the rabbinic arbitration system in general.
We will see if the Appellate Division agrees. Update 2/19/10: It does!
Does E-Mailing a New Yorker Give the State Jurisdiction Over You?
Norm Simon and Samantha Ettari wrote an article for Monday’s edition of the Metropolitan Corporate Counsel magazine regarding how New York’s long-arm statute (§ 302(a)(1)) may give New York courts jurisdiction over non-New Yorkers by merely sending e-mail to someone in New York!
Mr. Simon and Ms. Ettari surveyed a number of recent cases that relate to whether’s New York’s jurisdiction statute gives the state jurisdiction over foreign parties, even where that party’s only contact with New York was by phone, e-mail or other electronic communication.
However, recent New York Supreme Court cases have held that e-mail, and even telephone conversations alone will not support New York long-arm jurisdiction without something more. The authors cited one recent case, CPI NA Parnassus B.V. v. Ornelas-Hernandez, Index No. 600997/08 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co. Feb. 6, 2009), where a business deal was transacted electronically, but the two out-of-state parties dealt with a third party based in New York. In that case, the court found a sufficient nexus between the transaction from which the litigation arose, the parties, and the state. However, the same judge ruled in Shahidsaless v. Ebadi, Index No. 115835/07 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co. Jan. 14, 2009) that one meeting in New York by two out-of-state parties, along with an e-mail exchange between them was not sufficient to establish jurisdiction.
The authors concluded that the courts consider many factors when determining long-arm jurisdiction based on electronic or other contacts with parties in New York. The cases mentioned indicate that small differences in the facts of a situation can make all the difference in ambiguous cases.
As always, you may contact our office with any questions about this or a related matter.

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