This week’s column is a followup to last week’s question from Marissa C., who fell on some stairs in her senior living community. She wanted to know whether there are safety regulations for stairways in apartments and commercial buildings, and whether violation of those regulations can lead to legal liability. This column shall address handrail safety guidelines, visual delineation requirements and issues of tread height and depth. Violation of any of these standards may establish liability against the landlord. Read More

Reading too much into the questions that U.S. Supreme Court justices ask during oral arguments and then leaping to conclusions about the likely outcome of their deliberations can leave one looking foolish when a final ruling is issued. But at Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearing regarding Proposition 8, the justices seemed to clearly telegraph the low likelihood of a sweeping ruling involving same-sex marriage. Read More

➤ “ Industry must try to curb cellphone thefts,” Letters, Opinion, March 17 Read More

Central to Nathan Lean’s claim that our American Freedom Defense Initiative ads spread “hate” is his charge that the ads “suggest collective guilt on the part of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims for acts of terrorism.” Yet nowhere do our ads suggest any such thing. Instead, they highlight real hatred and incitement to violence from influential Muslim leaders and spokesmen. Muslims and non-Muslims who abhor and oppose that hatred and incitement should be standing with us, not condemning us. Read More