It’s fall, the leaves are changing colors. The legal world is constantly changing, as well. About 15 years ago, I made two predictions that were immediately disregarded but soon became reality: 1) Same-sex marriage would be legalized, and 2) Marijuana would be legalized. These issues were outlandish then, but commonly accepted now.
Allow me to make ten more predictions that might seem outlandish for the present, but have a reasonable chance of eventually happening:
- A school district will be sued over high school football related deaths which will lead to canceled programs due to the inability to receive liability insurance resulting in a long-term effect on the future of the sport at all levels. LIKELIHOOD: MEDIUM
- Plastic and chemical companies will face a tidal wave of lawsuits over PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that have become one of the major pollution issues of our time. It is legitimately possible that every human alive could be a plaintiff. LIKELIHOOD: HIGH CERTAINTY
- The legal blood alcohol limit for Operating While Intoxicated will drop from .08 to .06. Utah went from .08 to .05 in 2018; 50 countries have a BAC limit of .05 and 30 other countries have an even lower limit. LIKELIHOOD: A FIRM MAYBE, LEANING TOWARD PROBABLY
- The State of Michigan will revisit a Congressional compromise that relinquished its claim to Toledo, OH in exchange for becoming the 26th state in 1896 and demand the city be returned. LIKELIHOOD: C’MON …
- There will be a shortage of lawyers. The emphasis on skilled trades and student debt have left law schools with the lowest enrollment in history. LIKELIHOOD: DEFINITELY
- Congress will amend the law which allows for social media companies to insulate themselves from legal liability for user posts. The rate of suicide and depression among teen users of Facebook, Instagram that is related to algorithms promoted and used by the companies will be used to hold them liable. LIKELIHOOD: UNCERTAIN
- Social media use will be restricted to people 16 years of age and older. Meaningful restrictions, outside of clicking a button that says you’re over a certain age, will be put in place to age-gate social media platforms. LIKELIHOOD: FIRM PROBABLE
- Amazon will be broken up over antitrust laws. Amazon is scheduled to go to trial in 2026 over allegations of operating an illegal monopoly by fighting efforts of sellers on its platform to offer products cheaper elsewhere. LIKELIHOOD: POSSIBLE; BUT AMAZON LIKELY PAYS A LARGE FINE AND BUSINESS CONTINUES UNINTERRUPTED.
- Gun laws will remain unchanged. LIKELIHOOD: CERTAIN, BORDERING ON REALLY CERTAIN
- Pennies will be removed from circulation. It costs three cents to make one penny and two-thirds of the pennies produced over the past 30 years are no longer in circulation. Conservative estimates hold that there are about 240 billion pennies lying unused around the United States. LIKELIHOOD: NOPE
Please feel free to hang on to this issue of My City for the next 15 years and let the editor know she either made an incredibly great decision or a tremendously bad one by allowing this attorney to have space for sharing his thoughts in the publication. Catch you all then!