Civil Law Archives - The Poliquin Firm

Interview with Mike Bradley on WGMD-The Talk of Delmarva

Katherine Thomas — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 07:45:01 +0000

Ron Poliquin gives a radio interview with Mike Bradley on The Talk of Delmarva - WGMD Click here for details are shared by Ron Poliquin, Attorney for Former Delaware State Auditor Kathy McGuiness.
08/16/2023 - Julia Hardy

If you have questions about your rights, we would love to hear from you. Leave us a comment here or find us on Facebook. If you us our contact us page, someone will get back to you!

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COVID Employee Alert

Katherine Thomas — Sat, 04 Jul 2020 10:18:00 +0000

Ron Poliquin, DoverLawOffice.com,

This is a COVID employee alert on unpaid wages and overtime. There has been an uptick, extreme uptick, in the number of unpaid wage claims since the pandemic. There are many employers out there who are closed for various reasons, who are expecting employees to go weeks and sometimes months without pay and using the pandemic as an excuse.

This is not only wrong; it is illegal, and employees have remedies to solve these problems. Employees should not be expected to work without pay or work beyond 40-hours a week without getting paid overtime pay. The government has put in place many programs for businesses such as the Paycheck Protection Program to help employers get through this trying time. That does not mean that employees need to be sacrificing their pay for employers.

Another thing that has happened is that employers are asking employees to switch from salary to hourly. Now the whole point of going from hourly to salary is that you don’t have to work 40-hours a week. You are basically paid for your time and they are not keeping hours. But, because of the pandemic there are some employers who are asking or unilaterally switching employees pay from salary to hourly, so be careful of that. Don’t be a sucker, don’t let emotions, don’t let employers manipulate you.

There are many employees who are sacrificing their pay, their time with their family because they believe that they owe some loyalty to these employers or their boss. It is great to have loyalty but one of the principles of this country is that you should get paid for what you do and paid for your work. So, make sure you are getting paid if you have any issues you come see me, Ron Poliquin DoverLawOffice.com, or see an otherwise qualified employment attorney and make sure you assert your rights. Be you own best advocate.

Thank you!

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Five things you need to know about medical malpractice

Katherine Thomas — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 18:03:31 +0000

Ron Poliquin, DoverLawOffice.com,

I am here to talk about five things you need to know about medical malpractice claims. In my capacity as a civil rights lawyer, I have been able to successfully handle millions of dollars’ worth of medical malpractice claims. What is medical malpractice? Medical malpractice occurs when a hospital, doctor, healthcare profession, or some other agency to a negligent act omission causes an injury to a patient. The negligence might be the result of misdiagnosis, failure diagnosis, failure to treat, aftercare, or health care management. Just because there is an unfavorable outcome by itself does not mean there’s malpractice. There are five things you need to know about medical malpractice.

One – Do not be afraid to seek out a claim. Doctors screw up all the time just like everybody else. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death. Do not feel guilty about consulting with a medical malpractice attorney if you think something went wrong, that’s why that doctors' have insurance. Because doctors screw up and who should be left holding the bag? It certainly should not be the patient or the patient’s family.

Two – Two things need to be proven in a medical malpractice claim. One, the doctors deviated from the standard of care, meaning in the standard of care that is agreed to by the medical professional community and two, that there was a deviation actually caused the injuries.

Three – Get the right attorney, not all attorneys practice medical malpractice cases. The reason I got involved in medical malpractice areas is through my cross over into civil rights. Medical malpractice cases require a different type of expertise. They require a different type of statutory requirement than a typical auto injury case. So, don’t just assume just because somebody takes auto injury cases or personal injury cases that they take medical malpractice cases, that is not entirely the case.

Four - The statute of limitations always runs in a medical malpractice case. A medical malpractice case means a statute of limitations, that is how much time you have to file a lawsuit. If you have run out of the statute of limitations, and you can file after that time period, you will be out of luck. Claims against health care providers must be brought within two years of the date that the injury occurred. Now, if the injury was unknown and could not have been discovered within a two-year period, that action may be brought within three years. But in no event after the expiration of three years. That means that time goes fast.
In a lot of cases when our loved one is experiencing a medical emergency we are not thinking about lawsuits. We are just thinking about getting that person treated and we are thinking of getting that person healthy. So, remember that clock is ticking at the time you discover that there could have been a mistake.

Five – Don’t be afraid to get a second opinion regarding doctors and don’t be afraid to find a new doctor if you don’t feel that you are receiving proper medical care. A lot of top medical malpractice cases are discovered through second opinions by doctors. Your health is too important to place in the hands of a provider who has not earned your confidence, isn’t answering your questions, or is not giving you adequate time and attention.

Now, in medical malpractice cases, here is my last bit of advice, be your own best advocate. Seek out a qualified professional attorney to review the case and qualified experts serving in your case.

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Pregnancy Rights for Women and Men

Ron Poliquin — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 06:37:09 +0000

Ron Poliquin DoverLawOffice.com, Delaware Employment Lawyer. We are going to be talking about pregnancy rights for women and men under the law, specifically, under federal law Title 7 the big one. The Civil Rights Act of 1962 is the federal law that protects employees from discrimination based on sex.

Now when we first encountered this issue in 1976, General Electric actually fired a married employee because she was pregnant. This case went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court held that discrimination, because of pregnancy, was not discrimination over an employee’s sex. This may surprise us today, however predictable, there was a firestorm of public outcry over this opinion.

That led to what we know as the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. The Act added pregnancy and everything that goes with pregnancy, including breastfeeding to Title 7. Meaning that individuals could not be discriminated based on pregnancy. The Act provides that pregnant workers be provided opportunities only based on their ability or inability.

Just recently there was a jury, here in Delaware in the last year, that ruled that a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisee must pay a Delaware woman $1.5 million in damages as related to workplace discrimination because they made it ultimately impossible for her to breastfeed her child at work. She was allowed only one hour of breastfeeding per shift. In addition, other co-workers complained about her taking breaks because she was breastfeeding. That created a hostile work environment which the employer did not remedy. So, that led to a large jury award in an employment case as of this year.

Now the question, might be surprising, can men be protected under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act? The Supreme Court has said YES! In the Newport News Shipbuilding case, the EEOC, Newport News gave pregnancy benefits including maternity leave to female employees but not male employees. Ultimately the Supreme Court decided that was a violation of Title 7. You need to be assertive if you’re being discriminated against because of pregnancy gender or if you have another employment issue please feel free to contact my office. Go to DoverLawOffice.com, this is Ron Poliquin thank you for your time.

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Sexual Orientation Discrimination

Ron Poliquin — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 19:24:11 +0000

Does Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex, does that include sexual orientation and gender identity? That is the issue coming up before our U.S. Supreme Court in three different cases.

The first case includes a funeral director who was fired after telling her employer that she was transitioning from a male to a female.

In the second case, a county employee was fired after his employer found out he was gay after it was discovered due to his participation in an LGBTQ softball league.

The third case is about a male skydiving instructor who lost his job after trying to reassure a female client that she didn’t need to worry about a tandem skydive with the instructor because he was gay.

Now it’s important to remember that under Delaware state law you are protected based on gender identity or sexual orientation. So, in Delaware even though we don’t know whether or not you are protected under federal law, we do know you are protected, and you’re entitled to sue under state law.

Previously we had employment attorneys representing plaintiffs’ employees. I’ve gotten around this somewhat because you can sue under Title 7 on sexual stereotypes. For instance, in the Price Waterhouse case and Hopkins, the employee was allegedly denied partnership because she did not fit the firm’s image of a proper woman. According to some partners, she was too masculine or not too feminine enough. The Supreme Court ruled that she had made out a claim under Title 7 because it was based on disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sexual stereotypes.

So, there were times when I filed claims on behalf of homosexuals, gays, and lesbians because they did not fit sexual stereotypes. But this is different in front of the Supreme Court now. This will decide once and for all, hopefully, whether or not you can discriminate under Title 7 based on gender identity or sexual orientation. In each of these cases, the lower courts received inconsistent conclusions.

Either way, there are protections currently under Delaware law and some protection under federal law for individuals that get discriminated against on based sexual orientation or gender identity.

If questions or have been discriminated on based on this or any other protected actions or need any questions answered, please come visit me Ron Poliquin DoverLawOffice.com

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Top Tips from a Dover, Delaware Divorce Lawyer

Ron Poliquin — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 03:39:08 +0000

Dover, Delaware Divorce Attorney, Ron Poliquin, gives his top tips for anyone seeking a Divorce Lawyer in Delaware. Visit www.DoverLawOffice.com or call (302) 702-5501 today!

Ron Poliquin, DoverLawOffice.com,

This is Ron Poliquin’s Top Tips before getting a divorce.

Get an attorney and get a plan before telling your spouse you’re going to get a divorce. Consult with an attorney prior to your divorce, before the chaos begins. The person you marry may be vastly different than the person you divorce.
Get organized. Get your financial paperwork together, bank statements, tax forms, W-2’s, pay stubs, 401k, mortgage information, car payments, anything having to do with the marital finances. Okay, in every marriage there is usually somebody that is in charge of the finances and there’s somebody that’s not in charge of the finances. Now if you’re not in charge of the finances, make sure you have access and can get that information before you tell your spouse you’re getting a divorce. Because the chances of getting that information readily afterward are going to be slim. Especially if your spouse is angry at you.
Don’t come to some kind of agreement without knowing your rights. It’s good to be civil. It’s good to compromise. It’s not good to make rash uninformed decisions in a hyper-emotional state. There are people that come to me all the time that say I just want to get this over with. Well, that might be fine now, but what about two years’ down the road when you don’t have your finances in order and when you’re not able to pay your bills? What happens then? So, first, know what you’re entitled to through the advice of an attorney, then work on a compromise that will work for both of you.
There are no winners in a divorce. Okay, it usually doesn’t matter whose fault it is. It doesn’t matter who’s actions caused the divorce, who cheated on who or who is bad toward who. That’s not going to really make a difference in getting a divorce and going through proper division, get over it. It doesn’t matter whose fault it was or who you see if you think your husband or wife was the cause of the divorce.
I’m your attorney, not a therapist. Get an emotional support group together. A network could be friends, could be a priest, could be a therapist. Divorce is a super stressful time in your life. It could be one of the most stressful time in your life. Do not underestimate how this divorce is going to impact your life. Attorneys are not equipped to handle that. So you are going to need to get that support system from another venue.
If you’re in an abusive relationship, all bets are off. Get a protection order right away. Call the police, get a PFA. As an attorney, what I can do if you’re interested in making your spouse pay or dragging your spouse through hell, call another attorney. If you want someone who stands up for you, to help you resolve matters fairly so you can move on with your life, I can do that. But make sure you get an attorney, make sure you get counsel.

This is Ron Poliquin, DoverLawOffice.com

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Is It Discrimination For a Female Teacher To Be Terminated Over a Topless Photo?

Ron Poliquin — Tue, 21 May 2019 19:01:37 +0000

Ron Poliquin, DoverLawOffice.com,

Today’s question, “Is it discrimination for a female teacher to be terminated over a topless photo that was found by a student?” That is what plaintiff Lauren Miranda is claiming. Miranda was fired after a teenage student ended up with a topless selfie of this public-school math teacher, but Miranda did not send the photo to the student. She sent it to another male teacher in the district that she recently had a relationship.

Apparently, the photo was passed around and somehow wound up in the student’s hands. Miranda is suing the school district, superintendent, and other administrators on the basis of gender discrimination, seeking $3 million dollars and to be reinstated at the school.

What she and her legal counsel are arguing, in a sense, is that if the nipples in the photo had belonged to a male teacher, if it was a topless photo of a male teacher, no action would have been taken. In fact, Miranda noted that there are male teachers on Facebook that have topless photos that are easily accessible on social media platforms and never to her knowledge has that been reprimanded let alone fired.

To me, Miranda is focused on the nipples and topless photo. I would ask her some questions as far as to see if this is, in fact, gender discrimination. How has the school handled prior cases of pictures of teachers? How did the picture get into the hands of the student? Did the school do any kind of investigation? A question we have to ask is this topless photo sexual in nature? I think it would be a more clear-cut case if it was a pornographic picture of someone having sex, but here you are talking about simply a topless photo.

It is a very difficult case; I think there is a good argument to make that a topless photo in and of itself does not make you a bad role model. It is not sexual in nature. I also think it obviously helps that she did not pass out the photo, it was passed on by someone else.

If I were a betting man, I would bet that the court would defer to the school, but I would still represent Miranda because I think it is a worthwhile cause to proceed with. What is obvious here is in this day and age with everyone’s private lives not being so private and being on the internet, employers are going to have to make some big adjustments to make sure men and women are treated equally in the workplace. Especially when it comes to issues like this.

If you feel like you have been discriminated against because of your gender, please contact DoverLawOffice.com or contact a qualified employment attorney. Thank you!

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First Year Lawyer Wins Tax Victory In Chancery Court

Ron Poliquin — Fri, 03 May 2019 14:10:15 +0000

Author: Jennifer Batchelor
Issue Date: 2005-02-23
Source: Delaware Law Weekly

When first-year attorney Ronald Poliquin sat down for a hearing before Chancellor William B. Chandler III, he was flanked only by his clients: two New Castle County residents who objected to the way the county government was handling taxpayers’ money. New Castle County, on the other hand, had called in the troops, and a bevy of lawyers from Saul Ewing filed into the courtroom.

The matter of the day was a preliminary hearing in Korn v. New Castle County, a case in which the Court of Chancery ultimately ruled that the county had adopted an invalid FY 2005 budget, and had exceeded its statutory authority by holding a surplus of approximately $206 million in its coffers.

A 2004 Widener University School of Law graduate, Poliquin represents Richard J. Korn and Andrew Dal Nogare. Korn, who made an unsuccessful bid for New Castle County executive last year, selected Poliquin to handle the litigation by default, the 27-year-old attorney said.

“Richard Korn had been looking throughout Delaware for an attorney to [take the case] and he couldn’t find one,” Poliquin said. “He came to me and I was sympathetic to the cause and I figured there was nothing to lose.”

According to Chandler’s Feb. 10 opinion in the matter, Korn and Dal Nogare alleged that New Castle County and various members of its government had acted illegally by accumulating unauthorized reserves within the county’s general and sewer funds.

Chandler agreed with the plaintiffs.

The chancellor determined that while the New Castle County Code permits the county to retain revenues in excess of its expenses during a fiscal year, the reserves must be equal to 20 percent of the respective funds in which they are held. New Castle County’s reserves had exceeded its FY 2005 general and sewer funds by more than 100 percent, the opinion stated.

Because the county had adopted an invalid budget and retained unauthorized reserves, Chandler declared that: 1) the New Castle County executive and council members may not make appropriations beyond a given fiscal year, unless those appropriations are encumbered; 2) the New Castle County executive cannot create off-budget reserve accounts other than those within the general and sewer funds, and 3) the county’s reserves cannot exceed 20 percent of the total estimated revenue of a given fund for a given fiscal year.

The court noted that any deviation from the 20 percent could be appropriated to the reserves either by legislative action or by altering the permitted appropriation for the fiscal year. Altering an appropriation would require a supermajority vote of the 13-member county council, the opinion said.

In addition to issuing the three declaratory judgments, the court denied the plaintiffs’ request to permanently enjoin an $80 million bond sale that county council had approved for FY 2005. The county wished to issue the bonds in order to fund certain capital projects, rather than tapping into its reserves to do so, the opinion said.

Chandler denied the injunction because the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that they faced irreparable harm — a showing necessary for obtaining a permanent injunction. Further, the chancellor said he doubted that the county would pursue a bond sale because he had deemed the budget on which it was based illegal.

In addition to the county itself, County Executive Christopher A. Coons, the entire county council and other officials were named as defendants in the action. Though the plaintiffs’ complaint was actually lodged against former county executive Thomas Gordon and other past officials, the recently elected Coons, and the current county government are still operating under their predecessors’ erroneous policies, the opinion said.

“It is left, therefore, to the new stewards of New Castle County to give effect to this decision and to put right the errors they have inherited,” Chandler wrote.

Poliquin said the county has proposed an ordinance that would permit the county to maintain its current reserves in off-budget accounts. Coons said only that the county is considering an ordinance that would “rectify the situation.”

When asked whether he had received assistance from more senior attorneys at his firm, Young Malmberg & Howard in Dover, Poliquin said that he had sought their counsel, but that the matter was his, and he ran with it. Thus far, handling Korn has proved a great experience, the freshly minted lawyer said.

Poliquin said the plaintiffs would like to see some of the excess funds returned to taxpayers, but that he does not believe the county plans to do so at this time. The plaintiffs are simply waiting to see what the county’s next move will be, he stated.

Should the plaintiffs disagree with the county’s plans, they will again look to the court, Poliquin said.

Download the full PDF article here

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Who wants to be a Whistleblower Multimillionaire?

Ron Poliquin — Wed, 01 May 2019 23:04:51 +0000

Ron Poliquin, doverlawoffice.com.

A question we're talking about today is who wants to be a whistleblower multimillionaire? A whistleblower multimillionaire. And how do you become a millionaire the easy way? Traditionally you could go through game shows, reality TV, the lottery, maybe go to the casino. Now there's another way.

Blow the whistle on a federal or state agency committing fraud pursuant to either the Federal False Claims Act or the State False Claims Act, or a whistleblower act.

That's exactly what happened when a Duke University lab analyst sued the University of Duke University on behalf of the federal government showing Duke fudged data to help the university win and keep lucrative grants from the National Institute of Health and in the EPA. Duke settled the case by paying $112.5 million dollars to the US government, but guess what that lab analyst received? He received $33.75 million dollars for his trouble. So if you happen to know of any fraud going on with either federal grants, perhaps in one of our fine universities here in Delaware, or going on with fraud in money in state or federal government, contact my office, and we'll investigate the claims and guide you through the process. And you may just become a multimillionaire for your troubles. This is Ron Poliquin, doverlawoffice.com. Because remember, if you don't stand up for your rights, who else will?

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Police Misconduct

Ron Poliquin — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 11:39:00 +0000

Ron Poliquin, DoverLawOffice.com your Dover Employment and Civil Rights Attorney,

We are here to talk about some hot topics that mainly involve police misconduct. That was a hot video that we released as far as talking about bad cops. Recently there was a decision that came out by the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, saying flipping the bird, yes giving a middle finger to the police is protected by the First Amendment. Although I wouldn't recommend it, they decided it was protected by the First Amendment.

In this case, it is a civil lawsuit of an individual suing a police officer individually. Basically, what happened is a police officer in Michigan pulls over a driver, cuts the driver break by not giving him or her a speeding ticket. As the police officer is driving away, the individual gives the officer the middle finger. Okay, the police officer pulls this person over again and actually punishes that person for the middle finger by raising the ticket to a speeding ticket, the harsher speeding ticket.

So, what happened in this case though is that the court said the officer could not do that. That could in fact fringe on the driver so the defendants right to be free from unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment as well as her free speech rights under the First Amendment. The court decided that any reasonable officer would know that a citizen who raises her middle finger engages in speech protected by the First Amendment. So, there was clearly no basis for the officer to arrest this driver a second time just solely based on the middle finger.

I'm going to give you a couple of examples on police misconduct that could be civil lawsuits:

Excessive Force is when officers use of force is unreasonable. Whether the use of force would be unreasonable depends on the surrounding facts and circumstances of the case on whether it's excessive force. If the amount of force was reasonable it doesn't matter what the officer’s intentions were. But the reverse is also true if the officer had good intentions, but the use is unreasonable the excess excessive force claim will not be dismissed. So, excessive force means that an officer cannot use force beyond what is necessary to detain the defendant.

False Arrest is basically to be able to prevail on a false arrest claim the victim must show that the arresting officer lacked probable cause. That is facts sufficient to cause a reasonable person to believe that crime had occurred. It is not enough for the facts to be simply incorrect. Even if the officer relied upon facts which later turns out to be false, the officers not liable if he believed those facts were, in fact, accurate at the time.

Malicious Prosecution is basically when a claim asserts that the officer wrongly deprived the victim of the Fourteenth Amendment Right to Liberty. To win on this type of claim you must prove four things.

the defendant police officer commenced a criminal proceeding.
the preceding ended in the victim’s favor, usually, there's no conviction or it gets dismissed.
this is the most important one, that there was no probable cause.
that the proceeding was brought with malice towards the victim.

Usually, what happens in these types of claims, are going to have to show that there's some kind of falsehood. Either that the police officer made up facts for an arrest or that he left out facts in order to arrest and provide prosecution in his case. In any case against a police officer, you must overcome the qualified immunity defense. Meaning in order to win a civil rights claim, an individual bringing a police misconduct claim must prove the actions of the police exceeded reasonable bounds and fringed the victim’s constitutional rights and produce some injury or damages.

These lawsuits can be very expensive, and they can be very hard to prove. In order for you to prove them, you're probably going to need the help of an experienced attorney. So, if you want to get your case evaluated, if you think you've been a victim of police misconduct either excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution or maybe there's something else we're not talking, please see in an experienced attorney. Thank you for your time. Ron Poliquin DoverLawOffice.com

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