The Fall travel schedule begins again. Many of you know that five years ago former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Penny White, former Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Joe Riley and I establsihed a seminar company called "Justice Programs." We offer a 15 hour CLE program each Fall that permits…
One repeated argument for restricting the right to trial by jury is that we need to have a state where businesses will want to settle, thereby creating more jobs and strengthening our economy. Well, to the extent that is a relevant factor in the tort deform effort it is should…
There is alot of public outcry about the profits of Exxon Mobil for the 3rd quarter of fiscal year 2008. The company reported profits of $14.83 Billion for the three months ended September 30, a 58% increase. Exxon Mobil had revenue of $137.74 Billion during the 3rd quarter of 2008. …
A Handbook for Tennessee Tort Lawyers 2009 is scheduled to arrive in Brentwood on November 3 and will start being shipped to purchasers on November 4. The 2009 of the book follows the same format as the 2008 version. It has been expanded to include 8 new chapters and 28 new…
The Tennessee Supreme Court released its decision in Hannan v. Alltel Publishing Company and has affirmed Judge Susano’s reversal of summary judgment in favor of the defendant. The court, by a 4-1 margin, re-affirmed its decisions in Byrd, McCarley and Blair and held a moving party who seeks to shift…
I have been doing some reading about Adobe Acrobat recently and came across this post about organizing documents using PDF Portfolios. I have not tried this method of document organization and, I confess, will probably ask one of our paralegals to look into it for our firm rather than attempting to…
The U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services has a website that delivers information on how well hospitals care for patients with certain medical conditions or surgical procedures, and the results of a survey of patients about the quality of care the patients received during a recent hospital stay. The…
The Federation of State Medical Boards has a website that allows you to order professional information on physicians and physician assistants. The reports include infomoration about disciplinary sanctions, education, medical specialty, licensure history and locations. The cost of each report is $9.95. Go the this site to place an order.…
Why should you care about the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Court v. Twombly , 127 S. Ct. 1955 (2007)? Because it changed the rules of pleading in federal court and, because Tennessee looks to interpretations of the federal rules to interpret its own similar rules, it…
The Congress has approved changes to the Federal Rules of Evidence, including the addition of Rule 502 dealing with the waiver of attorney-client privilege and work product protection as a result of inadvertent or intentional disclosure to another party. Click here for the text of the rule as it appears…