Blog

By Nathan Vinson, Attorney English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, LLPIf you receive a vacation home as a gift, you can exchange it for another property to avoid a big tax hit.Receiving a home or significant piece of property as a gift may sound wonderful. And it is, in nearly every case.But sometimes when you get a piece of property as a gift, it’s not quite what you want, or perhaps it is too much of a burden to handle. You may decide to sell it, or, you may find it more advantageous to do an exchange. That’s a strategy we recommend to clients on occasion to help avoid tax on a second home. That tax is usually at the more advantageous capital gain rate, but nevertheless, it is still tax dollars out of your pocket.I’ll explain how it works. Read More

Depending upon the law of the state in which a person dies, it may be possible for his or her survivors to file a wrongful death lawsuit, a survival action, or both. Typically, state law also dictates who has the right to file suit, the appropriate lawsuit(s), the types of damages that may be sought, and how the proceeds will be divided among the various interested parties.Difficulties sometimes arise in identifying the proper party to bring the suit. When this happens, it is up to the trial court judge to apply the law to the particular facts of the case. If any litigant is dissatisfied with the judge's ruling, he or she may seek relief in the court of appeals, or thereafter the state supreme court. Read More

When a person is injured on someone else's property, or when a loved one dies as a result of an accident on another party's property, there is the possibility of filing a premises liability lawsuit seeking compensation for damages such as medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering.However, the burden is on the plaintiff to prove his or her case by a preponderance of the evidence. Business and landowners are very resistant to a finding of liability and will fight hard for a dismissal of the case if at all possible. Read More

The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016: What Businesses Need to Know Read More

By Nathan VinsonBetween our phones and our e-mail, everyone in America (and likely around the world) is hit with scams every day. We’re promised millions by the wife of a dead African dictator, or told that the caller is from the IRS and needs payment of back taxes immediately. Door-to-door sales people tell us there is something wrong with our roof. Insurance flyers attempt to scare us into thinking that something horrible will happen if we don’t buy their insurance.Most of us brush this stuff off without a thought. We hang up on the scammers, delete those spam e-mails and move on. But for the elderly, it’s hard to tell the difference between a genuine offer that needs our attention and fraud.While we all fear looking stupid or gullible, what’s truly frightening for an elderly person is the prospect of looking dumb in front of someone we love and trust. Asking for help as you get older is difficult. Scammers know this – and push the elderly into it by insisting their offer is for a limited time or that dire consequences can result if they don’t act right now. Read More

Where do you file a product liability lawsuit?Most of the time, the answer is simple. You file it where the actionable issue occurred. If you live in Kentucky and that's where the accident happened, it's easy to determine you file your lawsuit in Kentucky.Sometimes, there are multiple possibilities for where to file a suit. If the opposing party doesn't like the plaintiff's choice of court, the opposing party can ask for a dismissal of the case or, in some situations, a transfer. If the plaintiff disagrees with the trial court's order regarding jurisdiction or choice of forum, the plaintiff can file an appeal.Once the proper court has been decided, another possible issue is that of choice of law. Typically, this question arises when an issue could possibly be resolved according to the law of two or more states. However, sometimes, the choice of law question involves the law of differing nations. Read More

 We live in an increasingly fast-paced society in which people take on multiple activities at once to get more things done. The level of risk that accompanies this habit varies according to the tasks at hand. For instance, if a person decides to drink coffee while reading a book, the worst thing that will probably happen is that the book will get ruined by spilled coffee. But in distracted driving cases, the level of risk goes up substantially.When a driver attempts to do another task, such as sending a text message, changing music, or applying makeup, the risk of a serious injury or death is high.Our firm has seen multiple accidents in which people were seriously injured or even died due to distracted drivers. In an Atlanta case that's gotten national attention, a teenage driver was using SnapChat while driving and became involved in an accident in which a man was left with traumatic brain injuries. Part of the evidence in the case is a SnapChat screen shot that indicates the teen was driving more than 100 miles per hour. You can read about this case in an article on the TechCrunch news web site.If you're not familiar with it, SnapChat is a social media application for smart phones that allows users to record video or photos and add more information, drawings and writing over the photos. One of the ways to use SnapChat is to add a filter over the photo that shows more information about where the photo was taken. One option is a filter that shows speed. While that's fine to use if you're a passenger, and kinda fun to use if you're traveling 400 miles per hour on an airplane, it's a terrible idea to use this feature while driving. We feel like this should go without saying - but obviously, some need to hear it. Read More

The term "qualified immunity" refers to a doctrine under which an allegedly negligent public official is shielded from liability when sued in his or her individual capacity for discretionary acts that were performed in good faith and within the official's scope of employment.Recently, a Kentucky appellate court was called upon to review a claim of qualified immunity as it pertained to a personal injury lawsuit brought by two people injured in a school bus wreck that allegedly happened due to the failure of certain government officials to respond to public complaints about the condition of a road in Leslie County, Kentucky. Read More

A negligence case has four components:  duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages. Sometimes, a particular situation - such as a slip and fall injury, an act of medical malpractice, or a defective product - turns a simple negligence case into a more complex inquiry.Sometimes, however, the opposite is true. A recent case from the Kentucky Court of Appeals illustrates this point.Facts of the CaseIn Campbell v. Pro Video Audio Productions, Inc., the plaintiff was working as a professional stagehand at a concert in Louisville in 2012 when his foot became entangled in a tarp placed on the stage. He fell approximately seven feet, hurting his arm, leg, face, and hand. He sued the defendant, who was in the business of providing stage construction and sound system services, alleging that it had created an unreasonably dangerous condition by failing to place handrails around the stage. Read More

By Nathan Vinson, Attorney English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, LLPPrince performing in concert in Louisville, Kentucky. Photo by Bob Young.News reports since Prince’s death have indicated he died intestate – which means without a will. It’s hard to imagine someone who had complex dealings with the music world and a sizable fortune not having this very basic legal document.You’re talking about a guy who changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in a contract dispute with Warner Brothers (finally settled in 2014) and put out albums under the symbol name – and never seemed to lose credibility or popularity because of it. His cool factor really has nothing to do with legal issues. As a fellow musician, I just stand in awe of anyone who has such a long, productive career and had such a strong fan base that lasted decades.Think of the legality of changing your name to a symbol and continuing to produce records. It probably gave his business and legal advisors some heartburn. Lawyers were likely involved in many aspects of his musical career, determining usage rights, negotiating record deals, negotiating with booking agents for venues and many, many other things. He had employees certainly and probably more than one business entity. It was a complex life. Read More