The search-and-seizure provisions of the Fourth Amendment are all about privacy. To honor this freedom, the Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable” searches and seizures by state or federal law enforcement authorities. However, law enforcement may override your privacy concerns and conduct a search of you, your home, office, personal or business documents, bank account records, etc. if they have probable cause to believe they can find evidence that you committed […]

The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Rakestraw v General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. clarified whether a disability produced as a result of symptomatic aggravation of a pre-existing, non-work-related medical condition was compensable. The Supreme Court held the claimant must establish more than the aggravation of symptomatology from a pre-existing, non-work-related condition for that claim to be compensable based upon aggravation of that condition by work-related factors. However, […]

Recently, questions have been raised by community mental health facilities as to whether an electronic signature is given the same legal effect as a traditional, written signature. In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA). Two years later, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a draft of a proposed HIPAA security regulations. In part, the regulations addressed security obligations of “covered […]