David Mills, appellate lawyer and cartoonist from Ohio, supplied the cartoon. A reader supplied the caption. In fact, lots of readers suggested captions, and David choose this one.
I must admit that I was a fan of a caption suggested by Kpawss ("Surprisingly, a lineal descendant appeared during probate.") but I certainly cannot disagree with David’s choice written by J. Whitney.
Thanks, David, for sharing your work with us. See more of David’s work at Courtoons.
For lawyers, time is money. For lawyers who charge hourly rates, inefficiency may result in more fees on the front end but will result in a clients over time.
For contingent fee lawyers, efficient practice increases profitability. This blog post from Litigation Cost Control reminds us of the efficiencies that come from the use of forms and checklists.
The post is geared toward hourly rate lawyers working on complex litigation matters, but hose of us who work on a contingent fee can benefit from these words.
Torts Prof lets us know that the elected representatives in Arizona believe that ER doctors should not be held responsible for their negligence unless the patient can prove his case by clear and convincing evidence.
Or at least move in that direction? Here is a great post from a lawyer who has figured out how to do it.
An an excerpt:
In the three years that I’ve been practicing as a solo lawyer I have been completely paperless. Before that, when I worked in a large firm, I kept the files that I worked on by myself in a completely paperless form. So, when I hear people say that it’s impossible to be completely paperless I know that’s not true. In addition to my own personal experience, I know several lawyers who have completely paperless law practices.
The current Brooklyn Law Review contains this article by Ken Ross and J. David Prince provides an overview of the post-sale duty sections of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability.
The article
provides an overview of the Restatement (Third)’s post-sale duty sections. In addition, it discusses relevant case law and the impact of the Restatement (Third) on developing case law. Part II provides a background of the post-sale duty sections of the Restatement (Third). Parts III-IX look back to case law prior to the Restatement (Third) and analyze how courts at that time dealt with post-sale duty issues including negligence standards, post-sale knowledge, defect timing questions, identification of product users, the duty to inform of safety improvements, and the duty to recall. Part X examines case law decisions that post-date the Restatement (Third)’s drafting, divided according to whether the court accepted, rejected, or adopted some variation of the Restatement sections. And lastly, Part XI provides a brief discussion of regulatory post-sale duties.
You read the title correctly. Apparently Bill Bone in Florida believes that his adversary "wears shoes with holes in the soles when he is in trial." He believed that defense counsel did so "as a ruse to impress the jury and make them believe that [his adversary] is humble and simple without sophistication."
Relief sought? The Court was asked to require defense counsel without holes in the soles of his shoes at trial.
Download file
The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia has ruled that a products liability claim was preempted by FMVSS 205, a safety standard that it says permits vehicle manufacturers to make a choice between tempered glass and laminated glass in side windows.
The court felt compelled to rely on Geier v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc., 529 U.S. 861 (2000), "the guiding law of the land," even though it felt that the decision was "flawed because it requires courts to look beyond the properly-enacted federal statute or law and divine an agency’s intent from extraneous materials to determine the preemptive effect of a regulation."
The bottom line: "the NHTSA gave manufacturers the option to choose to install either tempered glass or laminated glass in side windows of vehicles in FMVSS 205, permitting the plaintiff to proceed with a state tort action would foreclose that choice and would interfere with federal policy."
Here is a list of medical sites created by from Exposing Deceptive Defense Doctors by Dorothy Sims as posted here.
This is the National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health, with a great search site.
Georgia has a pattern jury instruction called the "hindsight" instruction. It provides as follows:
In a medical malpractice action, a defendant cannot be found negligent on the basis of an assessment of a patient’s condition that only later, in hindsight, proves to be incorrect as long as the initial assessment was made in accordance with reasonable standards of medical care. In other words, the concept of negligence does not include hindsight. Negligence consists of not foreseeing and guarding against that which is probable and likely to happen, not against that which is only remotely and slightly possible.
In Smith v. Finch , S08G1845 (Ga. June 29, 2009) the Georgia Supreme Court reversed a jury verdict for the defense and held that this instruction should not have been given. The court said as follows:
Here is a copy of the court order in the GM bankruptcy that makes tort victims stand in line with other general creditors of the company.
The discussion of successor liability issues begins on Page 50. Here is key language from Page 60 and 61:
This Court fully understands the circumstances of tort victims, and the fact that if they prevail in litigation and cannot look to New GM as an additional source of recovery, they may recover only modest amounts on any allowed claims—if, as is possible, they do not have other defendants who can also pay. But the law in this Circuit and District is clear; the Court will permit GM’s assets to pass to the purchaser free and clear of successor liability claims, and in that connection, will issue the requested findings and associated injunction. [Footnotes omitted.]
