This post is a first in a series of posts that will address new laws passed by the 106th General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Bredesen. The posts will run two or three days per week over the next several weeks. The first post is a change to…
Texting while driving is now illegal in Tennessee, and a study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute reaffirms why the law is necessary. For truck drivers, the risk of a crash or near-crash event increases by a 23.2 times as compared with non-distracted driving. Read the entire study here. UPDATE: …
Deaths on Tennessee roads continued to decrease in 2008. A total of 1035 people were killed on Tennessee roads in 2008, down from 1211 in 2007and 1339 in 2004. Nationally, 37,261 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2008. Tennessee deaths were 16.55 per 100,000 of population, over 33% higher…
Not in the Seventh Circuit, it doesn’t. In Bakery Machinery & Fabrication, Inc. v. Traditional Baking, Inc., No 08-1967 (7th Cir. June 29, 2009) the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit refused to vacate a default judgment under Rule 60(b)(6). The Court ruled as follows: [W]e drew a clear…
The trial of virtually every personal injury or wrongful death case involves the use of one or more photographs. The recent decision in Zerega Ave. Realty Corp. v. Hornbeck Offshore Transp., LLC, __ F.3d __ (2d Cir. July 6, 2009) (No. 08-0639-CV) reminds us that the failure to lay a…
I have released three prior posts on the financial condition of State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company – click here to read them: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. The bottom line is that conservative financial management at SVMIC has permitted the company to accumulate a quarter of a billion dollars…
Penny White, Joe Riley and I are on the road again this Fall for the 2009 Justice Programs seminars. This two-day, 15-hour is designed for Tennessee lawyers who do civil litigation. We will be in Nashville November 19 and 20, Chattanooga on December 3 and 4, Memphis on December 10 and…
The agent who sells us our professional liability insurance coverage sent me this last Wednesday: On August 1, 2009, new federal regulations enforced by the FTC will go into effect; the so-called Red Flag rules, which require businesses, including lawyers and law firms, to take pro-active measures to detect and…
Last Friday a Memphis jury awarded almost $24M to a woman and her husband in a civil suit arising out of what the jury found to be medical negligence arising from the failure to promptly diagnose breast cancer. The woman is in the last weeks of her shortened life. It…
The American Conservative Union, the nation’s oldest conservative lobbying organization, has firmly held core beliefs. Those core beliefs are apparently for sale to the highest bidder, even if the highest bidder is on the opposite side of the issue than the other potential bidder. Credibility free-fall.