Journey To Justice Blog - May 19, 2013

New Jersey Employment and Civil Rights Attorney Discusses Teen Sexting & The Suicide of Hope Witsell
Posted by: Kevin Costello
April 29, 2013
Topic: New Jersey Employment and Civil Rights Attorney Discusses Teen Sexting & The Suicide of Hope Witsell

I'm starting to sound like a broken record. This isn't just a product of my age and fast-approaching senility. I seem to being singing the same song in blog after blog. I suppose that's because I see the same issues over and over, but I have to admit, I'm getting tired of it. Or more properly, I guess what I should say is: I'm getting tired of having to address these issues.

I remember being in my twenties when the internet was first powering up. It held such promise. As a long term...

New Jersey Employment, School Harassment, School Discrimination and Civil Rights Attorney Discusses Cyber Bullying and the Law
Posted by: Kevin Costello
April 11, 2013
Topic: New Jersey Employment, School Harassment, School Discrimination and Civil Rights Attorney Discusses Cyber Bullying and the Law

I recently served as a panelist on a "Cyber Bullying" panel for our local bar association. It got me to thinking that this is a timely topic for the Journey to Justice. There's so much to say about this that I'm going to have to guard against being too wordy. I want to make my point, give you as the reader a bit of law, and a bit of a perspective, but not over-talk it.

But it's me, so I probably will.

First of all, I do hate the internet. I really do. Not utterly, and...

Workers' Compensation Rights are Protected by Law
Posted by: Kevin Costello
March 14, 2013
Topic: Workers' Compensation Rights are Protected by Law

As an employment and civil rights attorney, I can tell you from experience that no employer is happy when a worker is hurt on the job, or sustains an injury caused, or exacerbated, by work. It causes slow-downs, absences, extra work for Human Resource and Benefits people, shifting around of employees to cover the injured employee's work, and, of course, increases in workers' compensation insurance rates.

Then, on the other hand, that's part of the "cost" of doing business....

New Jersey Employment and Civil Rights Attorney Discusses Public Perception and Misinformation
Posted by: Kevin Costello
February 28, 2013
Topic: New Jersey Employment and Civil Rights Attorney Discusses Public Perception and Misinformation

In many other blogs, I've talked about the intellectual war going on in this country between right wing and moneyed interests (corporations, Chambers of Commerce dedicated to advancing corporate goals, "deregulators" who think nothing of accumulating money at the cost of equality and resulting in poverty, failed social policy, etc.) on the one hand, and "everyone else" who isn't part of that effort, on the other.

Marks and Engels, more than a hundred years ago,...

Employment and Civil Rights Attorney Talks About the Truth Behind Tort Reform
Posted by: Kevin Costello
February 17, 2013
Topic: Employment and Civil Rights Attorney Talks About the Truth Behind Tort Reform

How about that title to get your attention, eh? From time to time as I do these blogs, I really check myself once or twice before I publish. I sometimes wonder if I'm being too strident and too anti-corporate, too suspicious and cynical, about the aims of the insurance industry, the banking industry, and large corporations generally, and about their "super conservative" and "neoconservative" apologists and allies.

I think about that because I'm not a...

Employment and Civil Rights Attorney discusses the Citizens United Decision and Corporate Status
Posted by: Kevin Costello
February 4, 2013
Topic: Employment and Civil Rights Attorney discusses the Citizens United Decision and Corporate Status

The dialogue in this country often mis-appreciates - sometimes broadly and badly - what the law actually says about something. That's understandable, though regrettable and correctable. In the same way that most people completely fail to understand medicine the way doctors do and "get it wrong" far more often than they get it right, especially when they only have a little bit of information (just enough to be dangerous), lay people think they know what the law is going to say, what it's all...

Employment and Civil Rights Attorney Discusses United States Supreme Court Case Involving Proposition 8
Posted by: Kevin Costello
January 17, 2013
Topic: Employment and Civil Rights Attorney Discusses United States Supreme Court Case Involving Proposition 8

I've used that title about roses before, because it works. I've also talked often about marriage equality in this blog. I'm not gay and I'm married. My marriage is very precious to me; it's very meaningful to be married. It's not the same thing as a "committed" relationship. I don't even know what a "civil union" or a "domestic partnership" really is. Do you? If someone told you that they're on in the same with marriage, does your brain automatically equate it...

Religious Public Accommodations are 'Public' Accommodations
Posted by: Kevin Costello
November 20, 2012
Topic: Religious Public Accommodations are 'Public' Accommodations

Sometime ago, in 2007, a same sex couple wanted to perform a "civil union" ceremony for their family and friends. Were New Jersey a more progressive and enlightened State - a shortcoming dramatically highlighted by the most recent election where other states moved forward on same sex rights leaving New Jersey in the dust - they would have simply been getting "married," but that's a subject I've covered exhaustively in other Blogs and I don't think I need to make that point...

Never Discuss Politics or Religion in Polite Company
Posted by: Kevin Costello
November 1, 2012
Topic: Never Discuss Politics or Religion in Polite Company

Those of us of a certain age remember the admonition as kids, even when it wasn't directed at us. Perhaps we remember it from the cantankerous family gathering around the Thanksgiving table just after a particularly hot election, or as a discussion around certain holidays. Passions would stir, tempers would flare, and someone would eventually say, "Never discuss politics or religion in polite company."

Nothing stirs the blood more than God and flag. Every philosopher and politician...

EEOC Shuts the Door On Employer Witness Tampering
Posted by: Kevin Costello
September 25, 2012
Topic: EEOC Shuts the Door On Employer Witness Tampering

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - the EEOC - is the federal agency charged with investigating and remedying employment discrimination and civil rights abuses in the fifty states and territories. Where it can, meaning, where the states actually have civil rights laws themselves, the EEOC also "cross-files" with local state anti-discrimination agencies. Such is the case in New Jersey, for example, where we have a Division on Civil Rights (DCR). When you file...