General legal issues

I received an interesting question concerning the ownership of photos taken by on-duty firefighters and thought the subject was worth discussing here in Fire Law Blog. The question: who legally owns a photo taken by an on-duty firefighter, the firefighter ...

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Fire Law blog is all about the connection between the fire service and the law. Virtually every aspect of what firefighters do – is impacted by the law and legal issues. Legal services are expensive, and not everyone has friends ...

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Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a fire-law year in review article and I was blown away at how many major legal decisions were handed down in January and to a lesser extent February of 2010. ...

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Change comes hard to the fire service. We all know the worn out saying about 200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress. So it is understandable that firefighters in Orange County, Florida sought to block attempts by the fire department ...

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This week's Fire Service Court Radio discusses the recent decision by the City of South Fulton Fire Department – not to respond to a fire in a non-subscriber's home. Listen as attorneys Brad Pinsky, Chip Comstock, John Murphy and yours truly debate ...

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There are a number of nasty disputes going on around the country between volunteer firefighters and local politicians. Perhaps these types of disputes are inevitable. Lord knows that well over 90% of the career fire departments I come in contact ...

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In these difficult economic times, the average taxpayer does not appear to be inclined to tolerate too much in the way of misconduct from public employees. So firefighters in Key Peninsula, Washington were bracing for the worst last week when ...

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The hard financial times of the past few years have led many jurisdictions to consider restructuring,  consolidating, and merging their fire departments. Nationwide, parts of the country that never considered regionalization before have taken bold steps in an effort to provide a ...

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I know a lawyer should never complain about too many law suits, but at some point you have to ask when is enough going to be enough. Another group of New Haven firefighters have filed suit over the 2003 promotional ...

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On June 25, 2010, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon signed a bill into law that eliminated the residency requirement for St. Louis firefighters. On July 1, 2010, the City of St. Louis filed suit to challenge the law. The law was ...

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I received a great question today, and wanted to add it to the online discussion: Have there been any cases or instances of firefighters receiving reprimands or disciplinary action for posting fire pictures on their Facebook page? Answer: Yes there ...

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An important piece of legislation was passed in Florida last month, and signed into law on June 1, 2010 to close a loophole in Florida law that treated the death of a firefighter during training as not “in the line of ...

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The DeKalb County Fire Rescue released the report on why the initial crews dispatched to a reported house fire just after 1:00am on January 24, 2010, failed to find the fire, and returned in service. Crews were sent again to ...

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Four DeKalb County firefighters are on paid administrative leave following a fatal fire Monday. Questions are being asked about why crews did not find the fire when first called to the scene shortly after 1:00am, and returned several houses later ...

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