Detroit & Chicago Business Organizations Legal Blog

Most of those who deal contractually in Detroit and Chicago likely do so assuming that the only way their contractual partners can terminate their agreements is if they have legitimate cause to do so (after all, how valid can an agreement be if one side can walk away from it at any time?). Yet there are scenarios where a contracted partner can indeed end an agreement for its convenience. The trick to avoid getting caught up in such a scenario is knowing what situations the right to terminate for convenience applies to. 

Typically, this privilege is extended automatically to government entities. Indeed, the Code of Federal Regulations shows that the right to terminate all or part of a contract due to it not being in an agency's best interest is inherent. In the event that a government entity does end an agreement in this way, its contracted partner only has the right to collect payment for whatever services it had already rendered, as well as the costs associated with ending its work. 

As a business owner in Michigan or Illinois, you want your business to stand out from your competitors. One way of accomplishing this is by obtaining a trademark. The terms "trademark" and "brand name" are interchangeable; yet, according to FindLaw, in addition to words or names, a trademark can also be a device, a symbol or any combination of the four, used to indicate the source of goods for sale and to extinguish the goods from a particular seller or manufacturer from the goods sold or manufactured by competitors. 

If you are the owner of a trademark, you have the option of registering it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Federal registration of your trademark is voluntary, however, and you do not cede your protections under trademark law if you choose not to register it. The actual use of your trademark in commerce grants you common law trademark rights regardless of whether or not you choose to register it. This means that if you are the first to use a trademark, you may seek legal recourse if another company infringes your intellectual property rights by co-opting use of your established trademark. 

Many people throughout Michigan and across the country still face unlawful discrimination in housing and lending. According to a new lawsuit, Liberty Bank discriminated against mortgage borrowers in African American and Latino neighborhoods in two Connecticut cities. The lawsuit was filed by the National Consumer Law Center and the Connecticut Fair Housing Center. They accused the bank of "redlining," denying home loans or avoiding giving credit to buyers because of the racial or ethnic identifications of their neighborhoods.

Redlining is a prohibited practice under the federal Fair Housing Act. According to an attorney filing the lawsuit, the case came after a two-year investigation that involved examining the bank's lending data. The suit alleges that from 2010 to 2016, the bank originated 1,197 home loans each year, but only 40 of those annually were to African American or Latino home buyers. This was 3.34 percent of all completed loans. The complainants said that the bank made more loans than expected in white areas and fewer in those identified as African American or Latino.

A federal appeals court has ruled that undocumented immigrants may not necessarily be excluded from bringing housing discrimination claims. Michigan residents might be interested to learn how the court came to that ruling and what impact it might have. The judge who wrote the opinion said that the plaintiffs in the case had presented evidence sufficient to suggest that a requirement that applicants have proof of legal status could be harmful to Latinos as a class. Latinos are a protected class under the Fair Housing Act.

The ruling comes after a district court had dismissed the claims of four families against a mobile home park. The families appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit decided the lower court had made a mistake. The case was sent back down for a determination of whether the policy requiring proof of legal status disproportionately impacts Latinos.