Check out this commercial.
I don’t think this type of advertising would impact the lawyer’s credibility before the average Texas jury. Do you?
Thinking About the Unexpected When Preparing for Trial
I am an optimist. Nevertheless, I attempt to have a "Plan B" in the event things go wrong.
For example, consider a case that Rebecca Blair and I tried a few years ago. We needed a computer in the courtroom. But because both of us have been around long enough to know that things can go wrong, we brought a back-up computer with the same information loaded on it that we had loaded on Computer 1.
Computer 1 died. No problem. Plug in Computer 2. It worked for a day or so. Then it died. A third computer was brought from the office with relatively little downtime (we had the info we needed on a CD) and it survived until the end of trial.
Day on Torts: A Handbook for Tennessee Tort Lawyers
Work is underway on the third edition of Day on Torts: A Handbook for Tennessee Tort Lawyers. Laura Bishop and I have already identified over 30 new sections that need to be added to the book, as well as citations to well over 200 new cases.
If you have come across a topic that you believe should be included in the next edition please send me an email at jday@dayblair.com and we will find the leading case and add it to the book.
It is our hope to have the new book available in April of 2010. Hundreds of lawyers across Tennessee are using the earlier editions of the book and we believe that the new edition will be even more valuable to our fellow lawyers.
Great Blog Posts About Findlaw’s Blogs
Some of you heard me rant about West Publishing Company during the recent Justice Programs seminar. Well, here are a couple great posts about West’s pollution of the blawgosphere.
The controversy arose when Findlaw launched "The New York Personal Injury Law Blog" years after a wonderful blog by the same name was started by Eric Turkewitz.
Here is an excerpt from The Legal Satryricon:
Ice, Snow and Premises Liability in Tennessee
Tennesseans are clearing the grocery stores of bread, milk and other essentials as the National Weather Service informs us that snow will cover the state.
The threat of bad weather gives us the opportunity to review the law of Tennessee concerning the liability of possessors of land concerning ice and snow. Here is a nice summary of that law from Bowman v. State:
Dangerous conditions caused by the natural accumulation of snow and ice are considered to be among the ‘normal hazards of life.’ Grizzell v. Foxx, 48 Tenn.App. 462, 467, 348 S.W.2d 815, 817 (1960) (citing Goodman v. Corn Exchange Nat’l Bank & Trust, 331 Pa. 587, 200 A. 642, 643 (1938)). Accordingly, the courts employ the same principles to determine the scope of a property owner’s duty with regard to natural accumulations of snow and ice that they use to establish the property owner’s duty with regard to other dangerous conditions.
Choice of Words at Trial and Deposition
Once again, Winning Trial Advocacy Tips has an excellent article for those of us who try cases.
Here is an excerpt:
There’s something strange about how our brains work. For some reason, our brains don’t seem to comprehend the word “Don’t” very well. In fact, our brains have the power to completely ignore that single word while still hearing every other word in the statement. It happens on a subconscious level. When we hear the word “Don’t,” we ignore that word and follow the rest of the command. If you’ve ever coached sports, you probably noticed the difference between telling an athlete, “Don’t miss this shot” vs. “You’re going to make this shot.” When you tell players, “Don’t miss this shot,” they’re more likely to miss. For some reason, “Don’t” gets lost in the shuffle, leaving only the command: “MISS THIS SHOT!”
Tennessee Data From the National Practioners Data Bank
The National Practioners Data Bank collects data about malpractice claims paid by health care professionals. The NPDB has a report that lists all of medical malpractice paid claims against all Tennessee health care providers between September 1, 1990 through November 29, 2009, a period one month short of 20 years. To understand what data is collected by the NPDB click here.
The total number of paid claims against all health care providers in the United States is 340,463, or about 17,000 claims per year. Recall the National Institute of Medicine said that there were 98,000 documented deaths per year in our nation’s hospitals.
After the jump I have listed the number of paid claims by type of provider in Tennessee. The data does not include hospitals or nursing homes except to the extent the payment was made by a hospital or nursing home on behalf of an individual provider after receipt of a written claim or lawsuit.
New Local Rules in Memphis
The judges in Shelby County have adopted new local rules of court. Here is a copy.
Nevada Supreme Court Restricts Lawsuits Against Pharamacies
The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that a pharmacy does not owe a duty of care to unidentified third parties who were injured by a pharmacy customer who was driving while under the influence of controlled prescription drugs.
In reaching the decision, the court rejected the arguments that pharmacies have a duty to act to prevent a pharmacy customer from injuring members of the general public and that Nevada’s pharmacy statutory and regulatory laws allow third parties to maintain a negligence per se claim for alleged violations concerning dispensation of prescription drugs and maintenance of customers’ records.
Here is the court’s summary of the facts:
Legal Malpractice Case – An Oldie But a Goodie
Legal Malpractice Law Review brought to my attention an interesting legal malpractice case from 1979 in Pennsylvania, Schenkel v. Monheit, 226 Pa. Super. 396 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1979).
The plaintiff’s lawyer in the underlying case (and now the defendant) failed to sue the original defendant’s employer in an auto accident case. Plaintiff received a jury verdict of $10,000 in the original case, but said he would have received more had the employer, a corporation, been sued. So, he sued his lawyer seeking the "extra" money.
The appellate court in the malpractice action disagreed, saying that the corporate employer’s liability was vicarious only and that joining the employer would have only enhanced collectability of the judgment. The failure to add the employer did not cause damage to the plaintiff because the original judgment was collected in full.