State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company, the professional liability insurance company owned by doctors, has once again lowered the cost of insurance paid by Tennessee doctors. Some highlights: The rate revision represents an overall rate decrease of 8.4% at limits of $1,000,000 / $3,000,000. This results in an average per physican…
" Sleep Tight, Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite – The Impact of Bed Bugs on Our Daily and Legal Lives" is the new go-to resource on bed bug litigation. David E. Cassidy and others wrote this article for the Fall 2011 edition of FDCC Quarterly published by the Federation…
Subject to several exceptions, the Tennessee Supreme Court has the right to choose what cases it will hear. A T.R.A.P. Rule 11 petition is filed when one seeks permission to appeal a case to the Tennessee Supreme Court. In the year ending June 30, 2011, 888 Rule 11 petitions were…
What burden should be placed on a party seeking a new trial if the losing party discovers that the winning party engaged in deliberate discovery misconduct? In Duart v. Dep’t of Correction, No. 18476 (Conn. Jan. 24, 2012), the Connecticut Supreme Court said the movant must establish the following: (1) There…
One of the defenses commonly asserted in an Erb’s Palsy medical malpractice case is the "natural forces of labor defense." The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York recently ruled that a trial judge did not abuse his discretion by ruling that the defense could not be…
Andrew F. Popper, a law professor at American University, has written an article entitled "In Defense of Deterrence." Here is an abstract of the article: The civil justice system deters misconduct. It generates far-reaching and positive market effects beyond victim compensation and recovery. Civil judgments, settlements, the potential for…
The Cross-Examination Blog has published a helpful checklist on avoiding errors in preparing for and conducting cross-examinations that will be helpful to trial lawyers handling tort cases. The blog is written by Ronald Clark, the author of the Cross-Examination Handbook, which I reviewed last year. Here is the review. Ronald…
What to know more about the explosion of personal injury and wrongful death jury verdicts in Tennessee? A report released by the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts revealed that the following Tennessee counties did not award one penny in damages in any tort case for the year ended June…
There were ten jury and non-jury awards of $1,000,000 or more in Tennessee tort cases in the year ending on June 30, 2011. The number of million dollar verdicts was exactly the same as it was ten years earlier, a year when there were 50% more trials. These are the…
Tennessee jury verdicts were down substantially in 2010-11, according to data released by the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Total damages awarded in tort cases in state court were only $32,051,326, down by a little over 60% from a year earlier, when the total damages awarded was over $91,000,000.…