February 2005 E-Newsletter

2 New Judges Join Superior Court On Jan. 24th, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed two new judges to the San Diego Superior Court- Francis "Frank" M. Devaney and Timothy B. Taylor. The salary for each position is $139,784. The Governor's press release contains the bios of the two appointees. Devaney fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Vincent P. DiFiglia. Taylor fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Eugene "Mac" Amos.

Federal Sentencing Guidelines Now "Advisory" Unless you have been living on a desert island this past month, you've probably heard that the Supreme Court ruled that federal sentencing guidelines are now "advisory" instead of mandatory. Many defense lawyers are glad the guidelines have been made advisory and some judges are probably glad too. In fact, local Judge J. Lawrence Irving resigned in 1990 rather than enforce the sentencing guidelines. What happens now? No one knows. Stay tuned...

New Judicial Council Forms Judicial Council made some changes their forms effective Jan. 1, 2005. The listing of new forms can be found at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/forms/. Just pull down the menu and click on "Recent Forms Changes 1/1/2005."

Pending Cases Up on Web The California Supreme court has finally put up a listing of cases on its site that the high court has accepted for review. Cases are listed chronologically by the date the review opinion was posted on the website. Practitioners can read these opinions and use this information to tailor their arguments to the court.

Free Westlaw & Lexis Access Need to use Westlaw to find a case? Need to Shepardize something in a snap? Just stop by any location of the Law Library and you can use Westlaw or Lexis free! The Law Library has purchased access to several WestLaw databases including: California case law, code, regulations and court rules; all other state cases and codes; US cases, USCA, and court rules; KeyCite (West's answer to Shepardizing) and Black's Law Dictionary. Additionally, the Law Library has purchased access to California cases, jury instructions, US cases and codes, and Shepard's at Lexis. This allows you to Shepardize any citation free of charge. From Lexis you can e-mail the results to yourself or download the information to a disk. Stop by the reference desk and we'll be glad to show you how to get started!

Hein Online Now Available What's Hein Online? It's a full text database to which the Law Library has purchased a subscription. It provides access to a collection of over 450 law journals, treatises, and the Federal register. These journals are searchable by keyword, citation, author or title. This database can be accessed at any of our four library locations. Come in and give it a try! Or, if you need a specific article in a hurry and have a citation, call one of our locations and we will see if we can find it and fax/e-mail it to you for a nominal fee. Many of the journals are available from volume one up to the most recent volume allowed under the contract with the original publisher. The Hein Online collection includes: Federal Register Library, U.S. Supreme Court Library, Most-Cited Law Journals, Core U.S. Law Journals, International & Non-U.S. Law Journals, and Treaties and Agreements Library. Each section allows full-text seaching across the pages in their collection. The libraries provide exact images of the pages just as they originally appeared in hardcopy, including all charts, graphs, and photographs.

Is the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board Heading for the Chopping Block? On Jan. 6, 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger submitted a reorganization plan to the Little Hoover Commission that recommends the elimination of 88 boards and commissions, including the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board. The plan proposes absorbing the commissions and boards into existing state agencies, creating new agencies, or in some instances completely eliminating them. A total of 94 boards and commissions are on the list. Boards soon to be absorbed include Building Standards Commission, Court Reporters Board, Dental Board, Industrial Welfare Commission, Medical Board, Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board, Postsecondary Education Commission, Public Library Construction and Renovation Board, Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board. The Commission on Uniform State Laws is also slated for complete elimination. The full list of boards and commissions which the Governor is considering cutting can be found here. There has been some negative response to this plan from many consumer groups. Once Gov. Schwarzenegger formally submits the plan to the Legislature, which he can do in less than 30 days, the reorganization becomes law unless either the Senate or the Assembly rejects the plan within 60 days after receiving it. Stay tuned to see what happens...

To-Dos for your Computer Protect your computer from the minions of the devil, otherwise known as computer viruses. No, you don't need to hire an exorcist or drag out the holy water. Just read this article to learn about giving your computer a checkup and doing preventative maintenance. And if you want to keep your computer healthy year round, this article discusses good spam blockers and anti-virus software.

Outsourcing Legal Work to India Think outsourcing of jobs applies only to manufacturing jobs? Think again. It seems that many large corporations are sending "routine" legal work to lawyers in India. The biggest surprise may be that the legal publisher Thomson West has started using Indian lawyers to write summaries of unpublished U.S. court decisions. At least for now, the summaries have to be checked by U.S. lawyers, but that could change in the future. Additionally, paralegals could be hard hit in the near future since much of the outsourced work is work that is normally given to a paralegal. See this link to an Indian firm advertising its paralegal services to U.S. attorneys. San Francisco-based firm Pillsbury Winthrop LLP has already started outsourcing some of its patent application processes to engineers in India. The detailed technical drawings done by Indian engineers will be incorporated into a patent application for a client. Some people are not too happy about losing jobs to India and have set up a website expressing their displeasure.

Millionaire Spammer First to be Convicted of Felony Spamming Finally a world-class spammer is getting his just desserts! Jeremy Jaynes, known worldwide as the eighth most prolific spammer in the world, has the dubious honor of being the first person convicted of felony spamming under Virginia's anti-spam laws. There is an interesting jurisdictional twist in this case because Jaynes is a North Carolina resident, but Virginia asserted jurisdiction because Jaynes sent the messages through America Online's servers, which are physically located in Virginia. AOL is headquartered in Virginia, so it is not surprising that Virginia also happens to have the nation's toughest anti-spam laws. The jury recommended that Jeremy Jaynes be sentenced to nine years in jail. His sister received a $7,500 fine for helping Jaynes send out millions of spam messages to AOL customers. The fine probably won't be a financial hardship for the duo since they accumulated an estimated $24 million dollars selling fake products like the "internet history eraser" to those dumb enough to turn over their credit card numbers. Final sentencing will be later in February. Lawyers for the spammers say they will appeal.

February 2005 Legal Links This is the month of "love" or so say the greeting card companies. So this month I'm focusing on interesting "love links" in honor of Cupid. Murphy's Laws on Love- this site lists all the Murphy's Laws that apply to love (and some that don't!). Online Dating- Does it Work?- this site explores the pros and cons of online dating. The author of this site runs several dating websites too, but he's decided to share his thoughts on benefits and drawbacks of online dating free of charge. It's pretty well written and has good information. How do I know? I met my husband online....no really! I did! Email me if you want the full story. DatingSiteReviews.com- this site lists many of the online sites available for e-dating and posts reviews of each site. If you are new to the e-dating scene, this site might help you figure out which dating site is right for you. Waytoopersonal.com- this site is a collection of interesting online dating stories. If you've ever tried dating online, these stories will resonate. If you haven't tried dating online, these may scare you silly. Contest for Worst Valentine's Day Story- if you think you've had a bad Valentine's Day, wait'll you read these sad stories! This contest was sponsored by Jones Soda and they said the 5 winners each got a case of Chocolate Soda to help ease their woes. After reading these stories, I think they should've gotten a year or two of free therapy thrown in as well!

Reference Question of the Month: New Landlord/Tenant Laws? Q: I heard there were some new landlord/tenant laws that went into effect Jan. 1st. Can you tell me what they are? A: Sure. There were many new laws put into effect as of January 1, 2005, including several new landlord/tenant laws. Here is a short summary of the landlord/tenant laws. Unlawful Detainer Complaints- In 2003 the Legislature amended CCP 1166, which deals with the required contents of eviction complaints. ( SB 345) Eviction complaints must now contain several attachments: (a) A copy of any written lease or rental agreement regarding the premises, to be labeled "Exhibit 1;" (b) A copy of the notice to quit, to be labeled "Exhibit 2"; and (c) A copy of the proof of service of the notice to quit, to be labeled "Exhibit 3." The Judicial Council has revised the Unlawful Detainer Complaint ( UD-100) , effective January 1, 2005, to conform to the amended CCP 1166. The updated form serves as a checklist of all the required attachments. (It is the updated form rather than the statute that spells out the exhibit labeling requirements.) If any attachments are omitted, the court must grant a 5-day period to amend the complaint to include the missing items. It is permissible to omit the written lease attachment if the lease or rental agreement was oral, if the landlord and his agents no longer have possession of the document, or if the eviction is based solely on nonpayment of rent. Cash Payments for Rent or Security Deposit- New Civil Code section 1947.3 prohibits landlords and their agents from requiring cash as the exclusive form of payment for rent or security. ( SB 115) An exception remains for dealing with tenants who have stopped payment on a check or attempted to pay with a check drawn on insufficient funds. Even then, the landlord cannot require cash payment for more than three months after the previous check was returned unpaid. A landlord exercising the right to demand cash payment must give written notice stating that the previous check was dishonored, attaching a copy of the bounced check, and informing the tenant how long cash payment will be required (not to exceed three months). The notice must be served in compliance with Civil Code section 827 (which in turn refers to Code of Civil Procedure section 1162). The statutory requirements are expressly non-waivable, as a matter of public policy. But the landlord's legal right to terminate a tenancy, e.g., for nonpayment of rent, remains unchanged. Notice of Rent Increase- On January 1, 2001, Civil Code section 827 was amended to require 60 days written notice of large rent increases (i.e., where the aggregate increase over the previous 12 months exceeded 10 percent of the lowest rental amount charged to the tenant during that period). The amended statute had a sunset clause that would automatically repeal the enlarged notice period unless the sunset date was deleted or extended by January 1, 2006. Civil Code section 827 has now been re-enacted without the sunset clause, effectively extending indefinitely the 60 day notice requirement for large rent increases ( SB 1145)

We hope you've enjoyed our newsletter. We're hard at work on the next edition. In the meantime, please visit us online at: http://www.sdcpll.org/. And come see us in person at one of our locations. For locations and hours please click here: http://www.sdcpll.org/location.htm. For more information contact: Amy Hale-Janeke, Reference Librarian/ Head of Media Relations, at ahale@sdcll.org.