Category: Law
While Toyota is definitely taking the brunt of recalls lately, other vehicle manufacturers have troubles of their own: GM is currently being sued over a 2009 Chevrolet. The owner of the Chevrolet claims he experienced repeated problems that caused him to fear for his safety.
This is not the first time GM has been sued for safety issues – in 2009 a wrongful death suit was filed against them for defective seat belts. 2009 also saw a recall of almost 1.5 million mid- and full-size Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Pontiac vehicles because of an engine oil leak problem that could pose a fire risk.
This kind of defect in a vehicle is precisely what the lemon law is about. It protects consumers from the harm or loss caused by purchasing a defective vehicle. Who has what rights and what duties in lemon law matters? It seems clear. The consumer has the duty to present the vehicle to the manufacturer or its representative, the dealership, in order that they are able to diagnose the defect and repair it. Along with the duty, the consumer has a right to expect the dealership to repair the vehicle honestly and expeditiously.
What are the rights of the manufacturer? Simply put, they have the right to expect that the consumer will present their defective vehicle at an authorized dealer for repair in a timely manner, and that the consumer properly maintain the vehicle. The manufacturer should have no other expectation. They should not expect a consumer to perfectly describe the defect they are experiencing or any other limiting requirement.
Of the thousands of lemon law clients we have spoken with, it is extremely rare that a manufacturer makes a legitimate offer to buy back or replace a defective vehicle. In each of these cases no hint of awareness of their affirmative duty was present.
Not all manufacturers or dealerships are the same. Some, certainly not enough, really do have the consumers best interests at heart.
If however you find yourself with a defective vehicle and a manufacturer who is not ready to step up and replace or refund as they should, find yourself an experienced lemon law attorney. Do your homework. Look at their record. See what others who have used their services have to say.
Be certain they offer you a free case evaluation without delay. Never be afraid to ask hard questions. Its important and it can determine the outcome of your lemon law case.
About Norman Taylor & Associates
Norman Taylor & Associates has been assisting consumers since 1987. Our goal is to provide individuals who have the misfortune of purchasing a defective vehicle or goods, and who have recourse under the Lemon Law, with the highest quality legal representation. With a twenty-three year history of successful cases, Norman Taylor & Associates has established its reputation as a firm of consumer advocates that gets the job done. We represent California residents of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
Car insurance is not merely an important part of protecting yourself financially on the road – its a legal necessity. However if youre trying to make a claim after being involved in an accident that wasnt your fault, you might come across something called uninsured losses. We take a look at exactly what that means for your cover
Uninsured losses can be described as potential financial losses, and they aren’t usually covered by a standard insurance policy. Uninsured losses generally include: injury to yourself or your passengers; loss of earnings; cost of alternative travel arrangements; or recovery of your policy excess from a third party. These are all very common costs incurred as a result of an accident, and you will understandably want to protect yourself against them.
According to the Department for Transport, around 3,500 people are killed and 40,000 are seriously injured on Britain’s roads each year. If youre involved in an accident, it could seriously affect your health or ability to work, and therefore have grave financial implications too. Standard insurance will always cover liabilities to third parties. However, if an accident isnt your fault, you will have to make a case to the other partys insurance provider in order to cover the damage incurred. If the other party does not take responsibility, this could potentially turn into a costly and lengthy legal procedure.
Some insurance providers may recommend that you take out optional additional cover, often from as little as 20, to boost your protection and cover uninsured losses. With Greenbee Legal Protection, for example, you would have up to 100,000 towards legal expenses to help recover these potential losses. Just make sure you contact your insurance provider immediately after an accident, as there may be time limits that apply.
The Government is currently investing in a road safety strategy, which is aiming for a 40% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured in road accidents by the end of 2010. We can all do our part to make Britains roads safer by driving carefully at all times. However, even if you are a safe and conscientious driver, you cannot always guarantee how other people may behave on the roads. By taking out comprehensive insurance you will give yourself great financial protection from accidents and as a result hopefully feel a little safer behind the wheel.
Lawyer website marketing helps a law firm to launch a better internet presence. It is vital for the law practitioners to list the services of some web marketing consultant who specializes in the promotional marketing for lawyers to assist them with their marketing efforts.
Every individual lawyer is in need of a distinct marketing plan. Single strategy cannot apply to all the lawyers. For example, a senior lawyer needs a different strategy to be applied in terms of lawyer website marketing, while a new lawyer who has just entered the legal business needs something else.
Every law firm is ought to be prepared for the new advertising components to be added to the lawyer website marketing plan. A legal representative can gain immensely through proper utilization of the techniques of content management so as to keep the content of his website fresh and interesting and such that it appeals to the client’s eye.
Lawyer website marketing must also have the interaction element incorporated in it. It should not just be a website but should also have some blog posts, forums, or some social media website or tool that the law firm can access. Moreover, the techniques used must clearly meet with the needs of a legal website. Internet presence depends largely on the abilities of the legal practitioner’s marketing capabilities to stay up to date in the field.Lawyer website marketing also relies on the advices given by experts specializing in advertising through various forms so as to remain current in the Search engine optimization results.
Improved internet presence also improves the brand awareness for a law firm. Legal firms should therefore make use of some services of the website design firms that specialize in lawyer website marketing to achieve the desired addressees.
Efficient internet marketing firms can help law practitioners to get a customized design for their brand. Several law firms may require different types of campaigning strategies for their publicity. The law firm must be able to design website marketing strategies which are not only successful, but are even receptive to the attorney’s wants and corporate goals.
There is a general belief among most investors that markets are controlled by operators and it is no place for small investors. It is believed that the operators enriched themselves at the cost of small investors. Two scams of 1992 and 2002 had certain operators at the center of the storm. There were other star players in the market also in the past that had a big role to play in the market movements. Let us examine the validity of the statement that Stock Markets are run by operators.
An operator is a person who is supposed to drive the market price of a particular share that is he decides what should be the pricing of the share and whether it should go up or down. It is also believed that operators in association with the management of the company first acquire certain stocks in the market and subsequently through rumors and such other communication mechanism create a mass interest in the share. Subsequently once the general public starts believing in the companys prosperity the operators sells the shares and makes handsome profits. Some operators also use circuit mechanism of stock exchanges to hike the price. The circuit mechanism allows the operator to put an order at a price which is 3 to 8% above the previous days closing. Once the share hits upper circuit there are very few sellers in the market since they believe that if the share has hit upper circuit it is likely to go up further. This is the modus operandi of an operator. For an operator to be successful some factors are very
important. Such as connivance with the management, low capital base of the company so that manipulation can be done with very little capital and a mass following.
Is manipulation possible in high volume shares? Let us now look at the trading statistics reported by stock exchanges (data of a particular date). Top 30 scripts i.e. 10 in each group, account for 41% of turnover in NSE and 37% of the turnover in BSE. Both the Exchanges put together this translates in to a value of about 4100 crores on a daily basis. As per the market share reported of brokers by NSE (NSE Bulletin) top 10 trading members account for just 24% of the market share i.e. on an average each broker would have about 2.4% of the market across all company shares traded by the company. Hence, the dominance that a single broker can have on the volumes in the market is minimal in highly traded scrips.
Then we move to low value high volume traded scrips. As per the data is provided by newspapers separately on Quotations page, the aggregate value of shares traded in this category on a particular date was studied. The turnover for BSE in such scrips was Rs.34,03,470 i.e. .01% of total turnover and for NSE is Rs.20,28,050 i.e. 0.003% and in terms of number of shares traded it is 1.5 % in case of BSE and in case of NSE 0.45%. This is one area where low funds can help to move the prices and give a false sense of liquidity. Hence investors are advised to refrain from investing in scrip just because it is low value; the merit of the share should be looked into before making the investments.
The Stock exchanges have a system of guiding the investors on stock selection by way of classifying the companies into various groups. A group stocks are highly liquid and good performing companies. B1 group are again good performing companies with lesser liquidity then A group stocks. B2 are stocks that have low capital bases and less liquid. Companies that do not adhere to Listing agreement are categorized as Z group. These companies do not attend to investor complaints and fail to file various investor related information with the stock exchange such as quarterly working, book closure dates etc. Shares which have concentrated activity and unusual price movements are categorized in T 2 T or trade for trade settlement, ie every sale and purchase must result in delivery and positions cannot be squared off during the day. This classification should be kept in mind while selecting a company for investment. Stock exchanges also verify the news items appearing in leading
newspapers and get companies to clarify on rumours. This information is also of vital importance since operators and company managements at times plant false stories in newspaper to mislead the public.
Special laws have been put in place to act as deterrent to such manipulation. The Insider Trading Regulations and Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices regulations are the tools available to SEBI to taken action against those manipulating the markets. The punishment is maximum penalty of Rs. 25 crores and imprisonment. Both these laws have been enacted in early 2000. Hence their effectiveness will be proved only with efflux of time. Till the enactment of these laws the prosecution of persons indulging in market manipulation had to be tried under the general legal system, the delays in the same are not unknown to us.
We always blame the regulators, brokers and exchanges if scams happen in markets. However the menace of operators will go only if we stop following their leads in the market. Tips given by operators are widely followed, and so long as you make money on these tips we do not blame anyone. However once the operator weakens then there is fall in prices and the blame game starts. Operators are creations of society and the greed inherent in all of us. Easy money by riding the operators tips is a strong attraction. Scams bring down the prices of not only the shares which were manipulated by the operators but also all other fundamentally good shares also held by us. Mass following that the operators thrives on would be absent if we refrain from buying those shares that are remotely associated with any operator. Reporting wrongful activities of company managements, dabba traders and other market participants will help the regulator in directing their efforts on the wrong doers. Remember, being a spectator to a wrongdoing and not reporting the same is as bad as committing the crime.
Many people who are unfamiliar with general transcription ask where to find transcription training so they can start working at home as a general transcriptionist. Some people think you don’t need any training at all and it’s simply a matter of being able to type fast and listen well. And there are some people that are naturals; they learn quickly how to use the software and other tools and they start right in on picking up work within a few days.
And some others start in this business after learning and doing transcription on the job with a former employer. Since they have the skills already in place and have been doing transcription for a while, they simply need to adapt to being home-based and self employed.
But for many others, it’s not so simple and they really need to get back to the basics and learn additional skills before attempting to move into this business as a source of home-based employment or income because this isn’t just some “type from home and make money” scheme. This is a genuine business working with real people and real companies to earn real money.
And it’s up to you to use your best judgement and decide if paying for a transcription course is really necessary.
If you’re unfamiliar with what “general transcription” is, let me start by saying that in my opinion, there really is no way to “train” to do general transcription. There are no accredited or certified General Transcription courses and learning to use a transcription machine or software is often part of another course in business or a part of certified medical and legal transcription programs. But so far, you cannot become a Certified General Transcriptionist.
And why is that? Because general transcription fills in the gap; it is everything but medical and legal, so you can get transcription work from any industry and any individual. Unlike the medical and legal fields, there are no industry specific structured ways of typing information into specific templates.
You may do an academic transcript one day in one format on one subject, then do a podcast or general interview the next day in another format in a completely different subject. And since each client sets up their documents a different way depending on what they’re going to do with it, the same client may have several different formats they want you to use.
In fact, your clients may simply say, ‘Just set it up how you think is best,’ and you get to be creative. So you simply cannot learn to use only one or two different “one size fits all” templates. It’s much too varied.
So basically, if you decide you need hands-on training in a formal setting, you’re more than likely looking at having to take a medical transcription or legal transcription certificate program and then adapt what you’ve learned into the general transcription field. And that’s not really a bad thing because you can never have enough education.
Now if you already have a solid grasp of the English language, typing and you can learn software rather quickly, you may not need to take any professional courses to start in general transcription. But you may need to learn a little bit more about the business end of things, like what software you need and how to get clients. In this case, there are a few books and online resources you can buy.
You need to thoroughly check these resources out though to make sure you’re not wasting your money. So check for testimonials and even contact the authors. Make sure the course or book will provide a wide variety of sample document formats to use and how to set them up. This will help you learn your word processing program. But remember, these are just samples. You won’t know ahead of time what your specific clients may want, but if you get enough practice, you’ll be able to set up anything they require.
Good transcription training courses that are worth their money should also provide you with several sample digital audio files you can practice with, and where to find more samples online, such as business podcasts to download and practice with. It should also include a section that shows you how to record a webcast or podcast from the Internet using digital audio recording software, and a brief section on how to convert a physical cassette tape to a digital file.
And finally, it should show you how to use AutoCorrect and other keyboard shortcuts that will help you with your typing speed.
So, while taking a formal course in transcription training can be costly without getting a college grant, finding a decent course online or simply learning by doing does not have to be expensive. With a little research and effort, you should be finished and on your way to working from home in as little as a few months time.
And remember, having the freedom to work at home with a business that is growing in demand will provide you with the means to enjoy your family, avoid the stress of the average workplace, and give you a sense of pride that you can only achieve from being your own boss.