The Internet Cases blog alerted me to this case. Apparently, plaintiffs counsel in a medical malpractice case began using his laptop to "Google" potential jurors to learn background information about them. The Court questioned this effort as follows:
THE COURT: Are you Googling these [potential jurors]?
[PLAINTIFFS COUNSEL]: Your Honor, there’s no code law that says I’m not allowed to do that. I-any courtroom-
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood released updated 2009 fatality and injury data showing that highway deaths fell to 33,808 for the year, the lowest number since 1950. The record-breaking decline in traffic fatalities occurred even while estimated vehicle miles traveled in 2009 increased by 0.2 percent over 2008 levels.
In addition, 2009 saw the lowest fatality and injury rates ever recorded: 1.13 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2009, compared to 1.26 deaths for 2008.
Fatalities declined in all categories of vehicles including motorcycles, which saw fatalities fall by 850 from 2008, breaking an 11-year cycle of annual increases.
Adobe has created an Online Digital Signing Service. When the document is digitally signed, no changes may be made to it. The document is also time-date stamped and certified.
Read more here.
A lawyer called me the other day and asked me if a lawyer’s communications with his or her private investigator are privileged under Tennessee law. The answer is "yes," as provided in T.C.A. § 24-1-209:
Communication between an attorney and a private detective or investigator hired by such attorney, while acting in their respective professional capacities shall be privileged communications.
This article from NPR caught my eye. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), a physician, said recently on the House Republican website America Speaking Out that the tab runs "an astounding $650 billion each year. That’s 26 percent of all money spent on health care."
As the article notes,
a series of studies published in the current issue of the policy journal Health Affairs suggests that number is not only dramatically too high, but that most of the popular proposals for addressing the medical malpractice problem — particularly capping damages for "pain and suffering" would do little to reduce the practice of defensive medicine.
Penny White, Joe Riley and I are on the road again this Fall as part of our annual Justice Programs seminar. You wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t have an interest in Tennessee tort law, and I will be doing my annual summary of changes in the law of torts as part of the two-day, 15-hour program..
Here is our schedule for this year:
The Garretson Firm Resolution Group has issued this report on the status of reporting personal injury and wrongful death claims and the need for the utilization of medical set asides.
The bottom line: starting October 1, 2010 insurers will be required to gather certain information about claimants asserting personal injury and wrongful death claims and share that information with Medicare. More importantly, there is no rule going into effect that requires parties who settle liability claims to calculate a “set aside” amount that the injured claimant must spend on injury-related care before Medicare picks up the tab again.
Here is the Garretson Firm’s recommendations for claimant’s counsel:
Tennessee has pattern jury instructions for civil and criminal cases, but our federal judicial circuit only has pattern instructions for criminal cases.
Here is a list of the federal circuits that have pattern jury instructions in civil and criminal cases, as well as a link to those instructions.
The Tennessee civil instructions are for sale for an outrageous price – $283. If you need to purchase them, go here. If you need financial assistance to buy this book (which is updated every year with the publication of a new book, not a pocket part that can be inserted into the back of the old one) learn more here.
Rule 5 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure was amended to permit papers to be served on attorneys of parties via electronic mail. Here the language added to Rule 5 to accomplish that result:
(2)(a) Service upon any attorney may also be made by sending him or her the document in Adobe PDF format to the attorney’s email address, which shall be promptly furnished on request. The sender shall include language in the subject line designed to alert the recipient that a document is being served under this rule. On the date that a document served under this rule is electronically sent to an attorney, the sender shall send by mail, facsimile or hand-delivery a certificate that advises that a document has been transmitted electronically. The certificate shall state the caption of the action; the trial court file number; the title of the transmitted document; the number of pages of the transmitted document (including all exhibits thereto); the sender’s name, address, telephone number and electronic mail address; the electronic mail address of each recipient; and the date and time of the transmission. The certificate shall also include words to this effect: "If you did not receive this document, please contact the sender immediately to receive an electronic or physical copy of this document." The certificate shall be sent to all counsel of record.
(b) An attorney who sends a document to another attorney electronically and who is notified that it was not received must promptly furnish a copy of the document to the attorney who did not receive it.
Have you subscribed to the Tennessee Trial Law Report – Tort Law Edition? Each month Brandon Bass and I summarize the recent Tennessee appellate decisions in the field of tort,civil procedure, evidence and trial law and publish those summaries in the TTLR. Importantly, we do not just regurgitate the opinion – we summarize it and give our opinion of whether the decision is consistent or inconsistent with prior law and the public policy of Tennessee.
The newsletter also includes an article by me on some aspect of the law of civil trial in Tennessee. Next month’s edition includes Part 4 of my series on the law of the use of depositions at trial.
Finally, the newsletter includes a list of all cases pending before the Tennessee Supreme Court that are of interest to tort lawyers, indicating the status of those cases before the court (as best we can tell from public data).
