The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a verdict in a case where a bus driver was attacked by a knife-wielding passenger, resulting a bus crash that resulted in several injuries and the death of the bus driver. A trial resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff passenger. First,…
Day on Torts
A Different Take on “Tort Reform”
The Economic Policy Institute has a different take on the impact of "tort reform" on the economy. An excerpt: The legal system for adjudicating tort claims in the United States delivers important bene?ts to the American people. Most notably, these benefits include the compensation of injured persons (including people harmed…
Medical Practice Guidelines
It takes a tremendous amount of time and money to screen medical malpractice cases. Our office reviews over 700 cases per year and rejects over 95 percent of them over the phone. Of the remaining 5 percent most are rejected after review of the medical records and, if appropriate, consultation…
Getting Good Results
Here is an interesting post from the Virginia Injury Laywer Blog offering an opinion on how to get good settlements in personal injury cases. Permit me to comment on a couple: "1. Don’t just dabble in personal-injury cases; the insurance defense lawyer is too good for that, and he will…
Race and Gender Challenges in Jury Selection
We all know that Batson v. Kentucky applies in civil cases. But a new decision released yesterday from the Tennessee Supreme Court – Zakour v. UT Medical Group – actually discusses how judges and lawyers should apply Batson in real life. This is the meat of the opinion: In this case, the…
Water Intoxication Lawsuit
Well, as you probably have heard, a woman who participated in a "Hold your wee for a Wii" contest died of water intoxication. According to the Sacramento Bee, "the contestants were given two minutes to drink an 8 ounce bottles of water every ten minutes. The winner was the last…
More From Freud 99
In a recent post I set out in their entirety the comments of a doctor who told us of the fear he has testifying on behalf of plaintiffs in medical negligence cases. He has written back – and here it is: NOTE: there are a bunch of unusal characters…
Supreme Court Politics – Michigan-Style
Most of us know judges who from time to time have disagreements with their colleagues and know other judges who simply don’t like a judge they have to work with every day. There is nothing unusual about this – judges are people and it is unrealistic for anyone to expect that the…
Release Did Not Cover Loss of Consortium Claim
The Nebraska Supreme Court has held that a husband of a personal injury claimant who did not sign a release of his claim could maintain an action for loss of consortium arising from the injury even though his wife released her claim. The Court said that the claim for loss…
“The Great Medical Malpractice Hoax”
That’s the name of a new report issued by Public Citizen. From the press release: "Public Citizen reviewed publicly available information from 1990 to 2005 from the federal government’s National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), which contains data on malpractice payments made on behalf of doctors as well as disciplinary actions…