The Tennessee Medical Malpractice Reporting Act found at Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 56-54-101, et seq. went into effect on January 1, 2009 and replaced statutes regarding similar previous reporting requirements. Bold the old and new statute require that lawyers report all medical malpractice settlements and judgments obtained in calender year 2008. The…
Jeffrey surreptitiously installed video equipment in the bedroom of the marital home (where Jeffrey may or may not have been living, depending on whom one believed), including a motion sensing optical eye in the headboard of the bed and a camera concealed in an alarm clock. His wife Cathy learned…
Evan Schaeffer at The Trial Practice Tips Weblog has started a three-part series titled "15 Ways to Ruin a Deposition." Here is his first post on the subject. The first tip? Deposing someone who doesn’t need to be deposed at all.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has just ruled that liability insurance policy limits are not discoverable in typical personal injury and wrongful death cases in Tennessee. Unlike the vast majority of states, our TRCP 26 does not mandate disclosure of limits. The Court ruled that insurance policy information " is not subject to…
The February 2009 edition of the Tennessee Trial Law Report is at the printer and will be mailed to subscribers in the next day or two. This edition includes a summary of 24 different cases addressing various aspects of the law of torts, civil procedure, evidence and trial as decided by Tennessee appellate…
The goal of lawyers who represent plaintiffs in personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits is to help the client. But sometimes the receipt of proceeds from a lawsuit can actually cost your client money. How can that be? If your client is receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and the settlement…
The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued another opinion about expert testimony, this one concerning the ability of a family practice doctor to testify about a criminal defendant’s ability to form the required mental state to commit a crime. The Court ruled that the expert was qualified to give such an…
The Tennessee Supreme Court has adopted several changes to the rules of civil procedure, evidence and appellate procedure. By orders dated earlier this month, the Court adopted the recommendations of the Rules Commission about the changes that were necessary. The changes now go to the General Assembly for its review,…
In 1997, five years after the adoption of comparative fault in Tennessee, Donald Capparella and I wrote a book called Tennessee Law of Comparative Fault.. Five years later our friend John Wood joined us for the second edition of the book, and West Publishing Company took over the printing and…
The Tennessee Supreme Court has just released an opinion reversing the ruling of a trial judge who excluded the testimony of a sleep expert in a criminal case. The defendant alleged that he did not have the criminal intent to commit sexual acts with his stepdaughter because he was asleep…