Should a county bear any financial responsibility when it fails to release a jail inmate on time and the inmate gets injured in an altercation when he should no longer have been in jail and therefore not in the position to be harmed. The Tennessee Supreme Court recently decided such…
Tennessee Court of Appeals rules that Tennessee courts lose jurisdiction to reconsider dismissal when an aggrieved party fails to take proper action within the limited 30-day window after entry of final judgment. In Hailey v. Wesley of the South, Inc., d/b/a Wesley at Dyersburg, No. W2012-01629-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 19,…
There is a new case on how one establishes the deadline for filing medical malpractice claims against the military hospitals and other health care providers associated with the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). The case applies to FTCA claims arising in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan.…
More of our coverage of the 2013 Tennessee Health Care Liability Report issue by the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance reflecting medical malpractice claims information for the year ending December 31, 2012. As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, the total damages paid to claimants in 2012 was…
Tennessee law has an unusual rule concerning expert witnesses in health care liability cases – the "contiguous state rule." Usually, the rule hurts patients because it limits the pool of expert witnesses available to testify on their behalf. Sometimes, however, it comes back to bit health care providers. An ophthalmologist…
The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance has released the 2013 Health Care Liability Report. Unfortunately, the report bears the date on which it is issued rather than the year the data used to generate the report is based. In any event, the data confirms what most of us…
The New York Times had a nice obituary about the life and death of Bob Gibbons, a fine trial lawyer and gentleman from Austin, TX.
What constitutes "excusable neglect" under Rule 59 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure? Ms. Hayes, who goes by the stage name Shania Twang, entered into a written contract with Mr. Cunningham to perform in a musical show in Branson, Missouri. The show was to run a little over 5 months,…
These days, almost all Tennessee nursing homes and rehabilitation centers include arbitration agreements in their admission documents. In this case, enforceability became an issue because the arbitration agreement was signed by the patient’s sister who did not have a power of attorney. Moreover, it was undisputed the patient did not have…
Nashville is the home of country music, and country music is filled with wonderful stories. I envy the ability of country music songwriters to tell a complete story in three minutes, purposefully injecting a handful of magical words called "the hook" to make that story stick in your mind and heart…