Supreme Court rules in favor of Safeco, Geico
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[##_1L|1012405396.jpg|width="131" height="91" alt=""|_##]The U.S. Supreme Court limited the rights of consumers under a federal credit-reporting law in a victory for insurers Safeco Corp. and Geico Corp. and other financial-services companies. The justices today said the Fair Credit Reporting Act doesn't require insurers to notify every consumer who is offered something short of the best rate when seeking a quote or applying for a policy.
"Notices as common as these would take on the character of formalities, and formalities tend to be ignored,'' Justice David Souter wrote for seven of the court's nine justices.
The court also unanimously limited the applicability of a provision that permits damage awards even when consumers don't suffer any injury. Although the justices didn't go as far as the insurance industry had sought, they said Safeco wasn't subject to the provision because it didn't recklessly violate the law.
The insurance industry had said it faced the prospect of billions of dollars in damage claims had it lost the high court case. Some 2,600 lawsuits alleging violations of the fair-credit law are pending in federal courts.
The "most critical aspects'' of the ruling favored the industry, said David F. Snyder, a lawyer with the American Insurance Association. "The Supreme Court balanced both consumer needs and business needs in a common-sense decision.''
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.