Firm News, Bracamontes & Vlasak, P.C., San Francisco
Bracamontes & Vlasak, P.C. secures confidential seven figure settlement in personal injury and habitability case for San Francisco tenants in 2010.
All Firm lawyers awarded Hero Awards by the San Francisco Aids Legal Referral Panel (ALRP) for cases in 2009.
Kristen Ross' Note, "Eviction, Discrimination, and Domestic Violence: Unfair Housing Practices Against Domestic Violence Survivors", is cited in an opinion of a New York court.
Michael Bracamontes publishes article: "Understanding the Foreclosure Trend on the West Coast," Thomas Reuters/Aspatore, 2009.
Recent Law and Events
The Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act of 2010:
On May 7, 2010 Governor Schwarzenegger signed into California law the Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act of 2010 (SB 183). This new law and addition to the California Health and Safety Code will help protect tenants and families by requiring owners to install carbon monoxide detectors in all dwelling units intended for human occupancy containing a fossil fuel burning heater or appliance, fireplace, or an attached garage. Carbon monoxide detectors shall be installed in single family homes on or before July 1, 2011, and in all other dwelling units, including hotels, condos, and multi-unit apartment buildings, on or before January 1, 2013.
Violations of the new Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act will be infractions punishable by a maximum fine of two hundred dollars ($200) for each offense; however property owners will be given a 30-day notice to correct as a chance to avoid the fine. Local ordinances may be enacted as consistent with the new state law.
Health and Safety Code Section 17926.1 specifically applies the requirements of the Act to landlords who rent dwelling units to tenants. Landlords may enter units for purposes of installing or maintaining carbon monoxide detectors with notice pursuant to Section 1954 of the Civil Code. Pursuant to the Act, carbon monoxide devices shall be operable when the tenant takes possession of the unit.
Book Reviews
Influence, by Robert Cialdini (HarperCollins, 1984):
In Influence, Robert Cialdini articulates six "principles of compliance" or psychological factors that influence our decision-making: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. While each principle in isolation is fairly straightforward, Cialdini shows how the principles can nevertheless be used to secure compliance in situations in which compliance would not otherwise occur. Cialdini's overall purpose in Influence seems to be to alert us (the consumer) how otherwise benign and useful social rules can be manipulated for profit.
As a consumer rights attorney, I highly recommend Cialdini's book. Influence is full of interesting examples and results backed by empirical data and experiments related in lively, smart prose. Far from a book intended for the marketing professional, Influence is a work for consumers. Cialdini reads like a Platonist, reminding the consumer to listen to her gut and mind the shadows of the cave in the marketplace.
Bracamontes & Vlasak, P.C.
Ryan Vlasak
The Great Trials of Clarence Darrow: The Landmark Cases of Leopold and Loeb, John T. Scopes, and Ossian Sweet, by Donald McRae (Harper Perennial, 2009)
This riveting biography of the famous trial attorney, Clarence Darrow, focuses on his last three landmark trials in the 1920s. In the first great "Trial of the Century" Darrow defended Leopold and Loeb, two 19-year old sons of Chicago millionaires. Leopold and Loeb committed America's first known "thrill killing" of 14-year old Bobby Franks. In 1925 John T. Scopes was charged with violating the Butler Act, which forbid the teaching of human evolution in classrooms. As an avid agnostic and proponent of education, Darrow saw the Scopes-Monkey trial, as it was dubbed, as one of the great battles of the twentieth century. The trial represented a national tension between the ignorance of religion and the enlightenment and progress of science. In a trial that shed light on the virulent racism of Detroit, Darrow defended an African American doctor and his family being charged with murder. When the Sweets moved into an all-white neighborhood in the suburbs of Detroit a white KKK-inspired lynch mob surrounded their house and bombarded it with rocks and threatening chants. In the ensuing chaos one of the white neighbors was shot dead. Author Donald McRae details each trial with such vividness and intrigue in this page-turning biography that the reader may have to remind herself that this is a biography rather than a paperback murder-romance fiction.
McRae's book highlights the uniqueness of Darrow as a trial attorney. Darrow introduced controversial psychological testimony to shed light on the personal travails of the damned, quoted poems from Persian author Omar Khayyam's Book of Love in his closing statements, and moved audiences with his incredible oratory talent. Darrow's immediate goal was to save whatever doomed soul he was defending. His ultimate goal was to set precedent. But the precedent he craved was not purely legal, it was more than one rule that could be repeated, cited, and dryly applied. Instead, Darrow sought a sort of emotional and humane precedent. He wanted to better the human cause, enlighten the masses and create a more empathetic and open-minded polity. Darrow believed that the answers of the court should be drawn from something more instinctual and emotional than the stale evidence collected or "applicable" lifeless law. Darrow's philosophy is hard to ignore. It sometimes feels inapplicable and out of touch in today's legal reality. But, this uneasiness with his emotional approach makes the reader question why it might feel so foreign while simultaneously true.
Without leaving the reader sensing that Darrow was false or cliché, McRae illustrates that Darrow didn't believe in justice, he believed in love and the hope of human understanding. The mix of murder, racism, forbidden love, religion and science make this book a compelling and thought provoking page turner for any reader.
Bracamontes & Vlasak, P.C.
Jacqueline Ravenscroft
