The Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled that client money held in a lawyer’s trust account can be counted as an asset for purposes of determining whether the client is eligible for Medicaid benefits. The case is Dorszynski v. Department of Human Services, Case No 20071851 (Oregon Ct. App. October 27,2010).…
A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about the spread of litigation funding to divorce cases. Jordan Furlong has written a very interesting post on litigation funding and, in doing so, raises some real concerns about the future of the legal profession. An excerpt: The fact that third-party litigation…
The Colorado Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the collateral source rule and has ruled that a plaintiff may recover the full, not discounted, amount of medical bills in a personal injury case. In Volunteers of America Colorado Branch v. Gardenswartz, Case No. 09SC20 (Col. Nov. 15, 2010) the court explained…
Here is yet another example of an error in calculations by a jury that resulted in a less-than-intended verdict. According to jury verdict expert Shannon Ragland this is a frequent occurrence. How do you protect your client from a similar result? First, make sure the jury understands that…
The world of litigation funding has now found its way to divorce litigation. Here is another article in the same series that reveals the role of litigation funding in tort and commercial litigation cases.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that a trial judge appropriately admitted surveillance videos of the plaintiff into evidence. The videos were taken in a case where the quality of life of the plaintiff after the accident was "hotly disputed." The videos showed…
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has reported that post-mortem testing has demonstrated an increase in the level of drug involvement among fatally injured drivers over a five-year period from 2005 to 2009. According to data compiled by NHTSA, 63 percent of the 21,798 drivers who were killed in…
The November 25, 2010 New York Times has reported on a study that has found that no progress has been made at improving patient safety in hospitals. The study is reported in last week’s New England Journal of Medicine. It was conducted from 2002 to 2007 in 10 North Carolina…
Mediation is an important part of personal injury and wrongful death litigation. Indeed, my only significant quarrel with mediation is that defendants often refuse to engage in any settlement negotiations in significant cases without a formal mediation. I still remember the days where lawyers could actually engage in settlement negotiations…
AAJ Education’s Breaking News in Medicare Secondary Payer Requirements: Moratorium on Reporting Teleseminar, November 23, will give you the breaking news and latest on Medicare Secondary Payer reporting requirements, the Bradley v. Sebelius 11th Circuit decision, what the moratorium means, and what happens next. To view the agenda and faculty,…