It is reported that Michigan State will be paying $500,000,000 to the young women who were abused by Larry Nassar. I used all the zeros for a reason. It is a shocking number. I am not going to dive into all the facts and circumstances that led to the settlement in this post. What I do want to stress is this: If you see wrongdoing in your organization, particularly if you are the leader…

I saw an interesting tweet from Elon Musk the other day, It’s super messed up that a Tesla crash resulting in a broken ankle is front page news and the ~40,000 who died in the US auto accidents alone get almost no coverage. On the one hand, I understand his point. An accident involving a broken ankle isn’t too much to get excited about. On the other hand, the advent of the self-driving vehicle technology…

One of the things I hear over and over from distressed franchisees is that they purchased a franchise because it was a “proven business model.” Now, I don’t blame most franchisees for this thought process as they head into their franchise business purchase.  The franchise industry has done a remarkable job of marketing itself where people are preconceived to believe franchises are proven business models. Second, some franchises have been in business for a long…

I am not getting any younger. This is a fact but it also means my friends are not getting any younger either. And lately, I’ve seen some of those friends down-sized and looking for work. It can be hard for older workers to obtain employment. This article from Forbes discusses some factors that enabled the EEOC to obtain a $2.8 million settlement with Darden Restaurants (parent of Olive Garden) on behalf of older job applicants.…

The Brick Gentry Law Firm of West Des Moines, Iowa recently added its trial team blog to feature information on several practice areas including, but not limited to, the following: Personal Injury; Employment Discrimination and Harassment; IP Litigation; Business Litigation; Class Actions. This trial team blog is edited by Brick Gentry shareholder Rush Nigut. In 2006, Rush started his individual award-winning legal blog, Rush on Business, and has maintained it since that time. Rush…

Most Iowa personal injury lawyers work off contingency fee contract rather than hourly fees in a personal injury case. That is, the lawyer receives payment from the settlement or verdict proceeds, if any, based on a percentage. Usually if there is no recovery the lawyer does not get paid for attorneys’ fees. The typical Iowa personal injury contingency fee is 1/3 of the total recovery but sometimes is increased to 40 or even 50 percent…

Generally when you are injured at work the best the injured client could hope for is a good workers’ compensation claim. But I recently saw an interesting blog post from the Illinois Workers Compensation Blog that described how a worker actually received over $15 million in a personal injury suit against multiple companies involved. After an investigation it was determined that the companies has several safety violations and the worker successfully pursued the case against…