Law.com has posted an interesting article about destructive testing in products liability actions. The article was written by Michael Hoenig and was originally published in the New York Law Journal. The article discussed the recent case of Mirchandani v. Home Depot, U.S.A., Inc., 235 FRD 611 (D. Md. 2006), in…
A recent study reports about the risk of lack of sleep on commercial drivers. In an article entitled "Impaired Performance in Commercial Drivers: Role of Sleep Apnea and Short Sleep Duration" researchers from the University of Pennsylvania "examined 406 truck drivers and found that those who routinely slept less than…
Under Tennessee law fault cannot be assigned to a plaintiff’s employer but the defendant is permitted to prove and argue that the employer was the cause in fact of the injury. But what if the defendant wants to ask the jury to apportion fault to an entity that is deemed…
Public Citizen has challenged an attempt by Guidant Corporation to keep secret certain papers filed in litigation in Minnesota. The Public Citizen press release says that "two subsidiaries of Guidant that produce and sell controversial cardiac rhythm management (CRM) devices sued the health care consulting company Aspen Health Care Metrics…
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled (applying Minnesota law) that a product manufacturer who is following specs supplied by its customer can be liable for defective design in the evidence shows that the manufacturer particpated in the design of the product. Of course, the general rule is that…
Next Wednesday (August 16, 2006) I will be presenting a one-hour seminar on Tennessee tort law. The seminar is called "Tennessee Tort Law: What’s Hot, What’s Next." The telephonic seminar is sponsored by M. Lee Smith & Co. and begins at 10:00 CDT. Register here.
Did Burger King have a duty to design its stand-alone restaurant in such a way to protect its in-house dining customers from being struck by a car that came through the building’s wall? The Illinois Supreme Court addressed this problem in the case of Marshall v. Burger King Corporation, Docket No.…
Author of a recent article published in Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy have taken a hard look at the 1986 article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Karin Nelson and Jonas Ellenberg that led the medical community to sing in chorus that lack of oxygen was rarely a…
Have you ever been struggling with an evidence issue and wanted to avoid standing up to grab a copy o fthe Federal Rules of Evidence? Here is a copy. And here is a copy of the Tennesse rules. Guess what I have been doing this morning.
In Pederson v. Barnes the Alaska Supreme Court was faced with the issue of the circumstances under which a guardian’s lawyer is liable to the ward for the guardian’s wrongdoing. Aiken became Barnes’ guardian after Barnes’ parents died. (Barnes was a minor at that the time of their death.) Pederson represented Aiken in…