In recognizing that vast timberlands in Maine are in private hands, the State created a law that provides legal protection to those landowners who allow free access to those lands for recreational purposes .The Recreational Use Statute, 14 M.R.S.A. § 159-A, protects a landowner from liability if a person is injured while recreating on the landowners property.
news
Permanent Disbarment for Lawyer
The Verrill Dana attorney who stole thousands of dollars from his clients has been permanently disbarred from practicing law in Maine. This was the first lifetime disbarment in the state.
He will also mostly spend two years in jail.
A former Verrill Dana law partner will not appeal the lifetime disbarment handed down against him by Maine’s highest court.
The historic ruling permanently bans John D. Duncan from practicing law in this state, and effectively ends his law career. It is the most severe professional sanction ever imposed on a Maine lawyer, according to the state Board of Bar Overseers.
“He accepts the consequences,” Duncan’s lawyer, Toby Dilworth, said Monday.
“From the beginning of my representation of him, he has acknowledged his misconduct and taken full responsibility.”
Business
Employer Liability
The Maine Supreme Court recently ruled on a case that suggests greater liability for employers for actions of their employees. The case concerned a employee who was driving home after completing a work assignment when he crashed into another vehicle, killing one and injuring two others.
The significance of the Court’s ruling is its indication that in future cases, Maine courts should allow for an expansion of time when an employer may be legally liable for the actions of an employee. The dissenting judges in the case noted that the ruling is a change in Maine law. The legal standard has been that a person who is “going to or coming from work is responsible for his or her own actions.”
Under Maine law, an employer is liable for the actions of an employee when their actions were within the “scope of employment.” To determine if the specific actions were within the scope of the employment, the court will look at three factors: (1) if the action was the type the employee was hired to perform; (2) the action took place substantially within the time and space as authorized by the employer; and (3) the action was done, at least in part, to benefit the employer.
The exact impact of the Court’s ruling is not yet known, though the ruling may lead to an employer being liable for the actions of an employee when they are driving to or from work or a specific assignment. The ruling in the case overturned a lower courts dismissal of the case at an early stage of the case, and the Court did not articulate a new standard for the lower court to use, or for other future Maine cases. The Court did not explain what specific facts it found to be different in this case, or if they thought the current standard was outdated. However, based on the somewhat limited facts of the case, employers should be aware that they may be liable for their employees actions while they driving to or from work, or a specific assignment.
Property
Court Upholds Takings
The Maine supreme court says the state Transportation Department legally took land occupied by a well-known restaurant so it could build a new bridge over the Penbobscot River.
In its ruling Thursday, the court says the former owners of the Sail Inn failed to present any evidence, other than personal opinion, contradicting the state’s position that taking all five acres of the restaurant’s land in Prospect was necessary.
The court also says plaintiffs Paul and Robert Dyer not contest that traffic safety concerns existed during construction of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge near the site of the Sail Inn.
The state condemned land for construction of a bridge to replace the Waldo-Hancock Bridge, which was built in 1931. The replacement bridge opened in 2006.
Property
Why automatic rental termination fees are illegal
The story below describes a property management company that was automatically charging tenants a penalty if they moved out before their lease ended. While typically if you back out of a contract, which is essentially what your lease is, you still have to meet your obligation or pay to compensate the other party.
The reason a landlord cannot automatically charge the tenant the remainder of the lease amount or even a fee, is that if the landlord fills that unit, they will be making more than what they would have made under the contract. The landlord can only recover what they would have made if the lease / contract was fulfilled by the tenant.
But this does not mean you can just get out of your lease without risk. If you sign a one year lease, and move out before the end of the lease, you may have to pay the rent while you are not there. Your landlord will need to try to find another tenant.
A Portland-based property management company has agreed to stop automatically charging early termination fees when tenants leave an apartment before a lease is up.
According to Maine’s attorney general, Port Property Management typically charged tenants early departure fees of $600, even if it immediately re-rented the apartment. Attorney General Steve Rowe says automatic early termination fees can be illegal under Maine law if a landlord immediately finds a new tenant.
Under a court-ordered consent decree, Port Property Management also agreed to pay a $10,000 civil penalty and to refund money to tenants who were improperly charged early termination fees.
Port Property Management, which manages more than 700 apartments in Portland and South Portland, did not admit to any wrongdoing.
Government
Court sides with School
The Portland Press Herald had sued the school to get notes from a meeting concerning job performance.
The Portland School Committee will not be forced to release notes from a private meeting last summer, thanks to a unanimous ruling Thursday by Maine’s highest court in favor of the committee and against the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.In a case that tested Maine’s right-to-know statute, the state Supreme Judicial Court found that the School Committee was within the law to hold the private meeting with school officials.
Committee members at the July 25 meeting grilled Superintendent Mary Jo O’Connor and Finance Director Richard Paulson about their job performance, relative to an unexpected $2.5 million budget deficit. Both officials later resigned.
Members said the meeting was private because they limited the discussion to job performance. Under state law, such talks are allowed to be held privately if they have the potential of damaging an employee’s professional reputation.
The newspaper sued the School Committee, claiming that the meeting went beyond a simple review of job performance by getting into budget issues and thus should have been conducted in public.
In an earlier ruling, Superior Court Justice Roland Cole agreed in part and ordered some notes taken during the meeting to be released to the newspaper. The School Committee appealed the ruling, and the notes were not released pending the higher court’s decision.
The high court’s seven justices sided unanimously with the School Committee.
news
Portland Firm takes on Missionaries Case
A Portland law firm is one of three lead counsels involved in a federal lawsuit filed by relatives of U.S. missionaries killed in Colombia.
The suit claims that Chiquita Brands International Inc. contributed to their deaths by financing the leftist rebel group known as FARC.
Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios is representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Miami. It seeks unspecified damages for families of five missionaries from the Sanford, Fla.-based New Tribes Mission. They were kidnapped in the 1990s, held hostage for lengthy periods and killed by members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the suit says.
news
Maine Incarceration Rate Lowest
While the Country a whole has jailed over a million and half people, Maine’s rate is the lowest.
Maine had the nation’s lowest incarceration rate in 2005, the latest year for which data is available, according to a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
The report found that the country’s prison population nearly tripled over the last two decades – rising from around 585,000 in 1987 to nearly 1.6 million in 2007.
It also found that for the first time, more than one out of every 100 American adults is behind bars.
The Pew report shows that despite recent concerns in Maine about prison overcrowding, the state has relatively few inmates when compared with other states. Maine also spends a comparatively small percentage of its tax revenue on jails and prisons.
news
More bad lawyers
I find it hard to believe Mr. Clarke did not know his actions were a clear violation. Then to not bother looking it up, or contacting the Bar to find out? He seems to have gotten off easy.
The violations stem from Clark’s financial relationship with an elderly widow who suffered from multiple sclerosis when they first met. She later developed Alzheimer’s disease and a personality disorder, among various physical ailments.
According to Mead, the widow, Eugenie B. Landry, owned a “small but valuable oceanfront residence,” which, upon her death in 2005, was sold.
The estate, which Clark controlled — and under which he was named the beneficiary — received the net proceeds of $524,000 from the sale.
“Clark ultimately took $325,000 from the estate,” Mead wrote in his opinion, adding, “He used the money to cover his children’s tuition costs and to pay off his mortgage.”