Once again, Winning Trial Advocacy Tips has an excellent article for those of us who try cases. Here is an excerpt: There’s something strange about how our brains work. For some reason, our brains don’t seem to comprehend the word “Don’t” very well. In fact, our brains have the power…
The National Practioners Data Bank collects data about malpractice claims paid by health care professionals. The NPDB has a report that lists all of medical malpractice paid claims against all Tennessee health care providers between September 1, 1990 through November 29, 2009, a period one month short of 20 years.…
The judges in Shelby County have adopted new local rules of court. Here is a copy.
The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that a pharmacy does not owe a duty of care to unidentified third parties who were injured by a pharmacy customer who was driving while under the influence of controlled prescription drugs. In reaching the decision, the court rejected the arguments that pharmacies have a…
Legal Malpractice Law Review brought to my attention an interesting legal malpractice case from 1979 in Pennsylvania, Schenkel v. Monheit, 226 Pa. Super. 396 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1979). The plaintiff’s lawyer in the underlying case (and now the defendant) failed to sue the original defendant’s employer in an auto accident case. Plaintiff…
David Cline, the paramedic who was killed when the private ambulance he was driving slammed into the back of a TDOT roadside help truck on Interstate 65 on October 22, 2009, had a history of medical problems, including narcolepsy and epilepsy. Investigators are unsure why Cline left the highway but believe that the he…
The Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts has released the 2008-09 Annual Report of the Tennessee Judiciary. The report includes information about court filings and dispositions for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009. Here is some of the important data included in the Report: 1. There were only 10,659…
The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that the economic loss rule precludes a truck owner’s tort claims against the truck manufacturer. The case is Sapp & Smith v. Ford Motor Company, Opinion 26754 (S.C. December 21, 2009). Sapp filed suit against Ford alleging property damage to his vehicle (there…
Philip Brown, author of MS Litigation Review and Commentary, has an interesting post on the impact of social networking on the work of trial lawyers. An excerpt: I have talked with lawyers who are worried about a juror going home and researching parties on social network sites. What if a juror…
Today’s Tennessean has an article originally published in the Los Angeles Times that reveals a problem with nurses moving from state to state and leaving behind a bad disciplinary record. The article reports that "using public databases and state disciplinary reports, reporters found hundreds of cases in which registered nurses…