Can you imagine sitting in your battery-powered wheelchair and having it catch on fire? That’s what the plaintiff alleged happened to her late father in this California case. It settled on the courthouse steps; the settlement is, of course, confidential. The article reports that "in 2006, said court records, the…
I got a call today from a lawyer who asked about the method by which peremptory challenges are exercised in state court. It is always a good idea to ask the trial judge at the pretrial conference or on the morning of trial how he or she handles peremptory challenges. …
I wrote two posts in the last year (here and here)about doctors who have been attacked by organized medicine for giving testimony on behalf of plaintiffs in medical malpractice lawsuits. The goal of these efforts is not only to punish the doctors for having the audacity to testify for a…
Just one segment of an op-ed piece in today’s Tennessean: "How bad is medical malpractice? According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Dr. Barbara Starfield of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, the third-leading cause of death in this country after heart problems and…
Here is an interesting article from the New York Times that discusses a recent study of whether private practice lawyers or public defenders get better outcomes for citizens accused of crimes.
We have "Metoo" motions in Nashville. They usually occur when one defendant takes the time to draft and file a motion and memorandum and the co-defendants file papers that simply say "Metoo." But a "Metoo" motion has a special meaning Up North. Or, should I say, it will from now on.…
The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that a state recreational use statute does not bar a claim by a plaintiff who was injured while crossing the defendant’s land after engaging in recreational activity on an adjacent property. The facts: "Plaintiffs and their families drove on Highway 6 to a paved…
3. A Solid Knowledge of the Law of Civil Procedure. The adoption and expansion of the discovery section in the modern-day rules of civil procedure was intended to reduce the number of trials by providing a mechanism for the flow of information between parties to litigation. The idea was that…
Last Fall I wrote several posts ( here and here) on a one portion of the causation issue in legal malpractice cases. A summary of my view: I believe that a plaintiff in a legal malpractice case arising out of a claim that a personal injury case was mis-handled must prove…
The property and casualty insurance industry has reported after-tax profits of $44.9 billion for the first nine months of 2006, up 50.1% from a year earlier. If this path continues for the last three months of the year, it "would lead insurers to their best financial performance in nearly 20 years,"…