The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled that all material given to testifying expert witnesses must be disclosed, including attorney opinion work product materials. The circuits have been split on this issue. In Regional Airport Authority of Louisville and Jefferson County v. LFG, LLC, Case…
Remember Newt Gingrich? Of course you do. Former Speaker of the House. Author of the Contract on America. And now, the author of a new list of issues for Republicans to focus on during the coming months, which he titles "11 Ways to Say: "We’re Not Nancy Pelosi." His introduction: …
The Judicial Selection Commission has selected three people for the open position on the Tennessee Supreme Court: Hon. Bill Koch (Judge on the Court of Appeals, Nashville), Hon. D’Army Bailey (Circuit Judge, Memphis) and Houston Gordon (lawyer, Covington). None of the appointees was from East Tennessee because there are already…
I know that this article is off-topic, but I could not let it pass. It seems that claim severity is down in the worker’s compensation market. This article reports that "[o]verall injury rates have dropped by an average of 3.9% per year since 1996 including an estimated 4.5% decline in…
Everyone knows that auto death rates are decreasing. But why? This study tells us that the reason is safer autos. Issued by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the study says that "an increasingly dangerous traffic environment has been offset since 1994 only because people are driving vehicles that are…
I hope each of you had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend. My wife and I spent the weekend at the lake. Saturday and Sunday I did no work whatsoever, the first time in months I have taken two days off in a row with absolutely no work. Monday I was…
Judge Fallon has thrown out the $50M compensatory damage award and a $1M punitive damage award in the recent New Orleans Vioxx trial. He ordered a new trial on damages. No surprise here. The compensatory award obviously had a significant punitive component. Here is the Order.
Wennesday was an 18+ day and today gives rise to hearings in Clarksville in the morning and an important deposition in Brentwood in the afternoon. Pardon me, folks, but I am taking a day off.
Hmm. Summary judgment for a drug manufacturer is reversed? In the 21st Century? In Federal Court? Now, that is something worth writing about. In McNeil v. Wyeth, No. 05-10509 (August 22, 2006) the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals faced an appeal after summary judgment was granted in favor of the manufacturer…
The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued an extremely important decision in the field of bad faith law. In Johnson v. Tennessee Farmers Mutual Insurance Company, No. E2004-00250-SC-R11-CV (August 28, 2006), Justice Holder, writing for an unanimous court, reversed the Court of Appeals and upheld a bad faith verdict against Tennessee…