Table saws are dangerous – but they don’t have to be. Stephen Gass developed technology called "Saw Stop" that prevents cuts and amputations when using table saws and other types of saws.
Read this white paper to see how the Saw Stop system works. This video describes the system and shows a demonstration using Gass’ hand. This video shows how the saw works using a hot dog rather than a human finger.
Interesting stuff, if you do woodworking. But why would I mention this subject on a torts blog?
A man with a student pilot’s license crashed into a home, killing himself and his minor daughter. The deceased child’s mother brought suit against the local aviation board and others for permitting him to take off in the plane despite the absence of a pilot’s license, seeking damages for the death of her daughter.
The defendants moved for summary judgment, saying that the father had intentionally crashed the plane into his mother-in-law’s house with the intent to kill his daughter and himself. The father and his wife were in the process of a divorce, and the father was upset that his wife was dating another man. Among other damning facts, the evidence showed that
Eric [the father] attempted to contact Beth [the mother] on her cell phone, and he made angry and threatening statements when he reached Beth on the third attempt. At some point during the conversation, Eric told Beth that she would never see Emily again. Just before the plane crashed into Pace’s house, two bystanders witnessed the airplane abruptly angle downward and throttle its engines toward the ground, without taking the normal steps to prepare for landing, such as deploying flaps, reducing speed, and shallowing descent. Eric crashed the airplane into the house shortly thereafter. As noted above, [his mother-in-law’s] residence was one of 18,500 houses in Lawrence County. [Citations omitted.]
Herman Cain has been accused of sexual harassment. He denies the allegations.
What about the women who asserted the claims? The ones who allegedly received money from the National Restaurant Association, Mr. Cain’s employer at the time? What do they say?
Apparently, they aren’t saying anything because as a condition of the settlements they were required to sign confidentiality agreements. In other words, they agreed not to discuss the settlement or the allegations as a condition of the settlement.
Yesterday I posted my 2000th entry on this blog. 2000 posts in 78 months – this blog started in the Spring of 2005.
I celebrated by writing five posts for the coming week.
Thanks for reading.
You have to give the Republican Party credit – they are working hard to create jobs for those who are out of work.
In Tennessee, for example, the right to trial by jury was limited for every Tennessean so that somebody somewhere could get a job.
The right that citizens had to sue those who design and build dangerous roads and bridges was severely limited with the promise of more jobs.
PowerPoint is a useful tool at the trial of personal injury and wrongful death cases. However, there is a right way and wrong way to use it.
This video by Don McMillian points out some of the errors one can make in the use of PowerPoint.
Does this video bring home errors you have made with this software? I must plead guilty to several errors described on this video.
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I received this announcement from LexisNexis on Friday the 28th of October::
Each year, LexisNexis honors a select group of blogs that set the online standard for a given industry. I’m pleased to notify you that your blog is one of the nominated candidates for the LexisNexis Top 25 Tort Blogs of 2011, featured on the Litigation Resource Community.
We are inviting tort law practitioners to comment on our list of nominees. If you’d like to request that readers support your nomination, please ask them to comment on the announcement post on our Litigation Resource Community.
The defendant and his law firm was hired to bring a wrongful death action for decendent’s (Anderson’s) estate and to assert loss of consortium action by Anderson’s wife. The case was dismissed, arguably after the experts in the case were thrown out after a Daubert challenge.. Lawyer did not timely appeal the dismissal of the case. Several years later, Anderson’s two children – one still a minor – sued Atty for malpractice. They asserted the statute of limitations for malpractice was tolled by their infancy. Atty resisted discovery and quickly moved for summary judgment, asserting he had no attorney-client relationship with the children.
Notably, Pete had not asserted a claim for damages for the children
The trial judge dismissed the case, saying that did not have privity with Pete, and thus did not enjoy an attorney-client relationship with Pete and lacked standing to sue for professional negligence.
Associate’s Mind is a fine blog that is well worth adding to your RSS feed list. Today’s post, Becoming a Good Lawyer Requires Failure, is an exceptional piece. Do not be mislead by the headline, which I suspect was selected to grab attention (and it does. Readers will be happy to see that the piece makes it very clear that failure should not come at the expense of clients.
Keith Lee, the blog’s author, reminds us that blogging, social media campaigns, etc. do not make one a good lawyer. What does? Here is an excerpt of his post:
Becoming a good lawyer requires failure. It requires screwing up a motion and having to re-draft the entire thing. 3 hours of research down the hole only discover a new case that destroys your argument – then writing off that time from your billing and not charging the client because it’s your fault. It’s mis-communication between lawyer/client/opposing counsel/third-party counsel/doctor/court reporter throwing everyone’s schedule out of whack.
The Court of Appeals of Mississippi has ruled that a plaintiff injured when her vehicle collided with a horse on a dark roadway must prove that the horse owner was negligent is allowing the horse to be on the road. In other words, the mere fact that the fence did not hold the animal on the owner’s property was not, in an of itself, proof of negligence of the owner.
Defendant landowner proved that he had appropriately fenced in the horses and they had been secure in the fence for over two years. He had no explanation for how or why the horses had knocked down the fence and escaped. The Court of Appeals said his proof entitled him to summary judgment, since plaintiff
did not produce any evidence, such as testimony, exhibits, expert opinions, product warnings, or recognized industry standards, to rebut Hester’s evidence that the field fence was adequate for containing horses under the circumstances. The "[nonmoving] party’s claim must be supported by more than a mere scintilla of colorable evidence; it must be evidence upon which a fair-minded jury could return a favorable verdict."
