Sometimes a lawyer representing a patient in a medical malpractice trial may want to introduce evidence of "bad acts" of a health care provider or a provider’s expert witness. This article from the Medical Malpractice Newsletter published by the Hinshaw & Culbertson tells us how the defense is going to attempt to keep that information from the jury.
Study on Impact of Chrysler and GM Bankruptcy on Future Wreck Victims
A report from Safety Research & Strategies called "Public Safety at Risk: Bankruptcies Leave Legacy of Defects, Injuries and Deaths" projects what will happen now that there will be 30 million GM and 10 million Chrysler products still on the road after bankruptcy agreements cancel the ability for accident victims to seek compensation by suing the companies.
The verdict? "More than 3,400 U.S. citizens could be killed or injured in the next 12 months by defective cars that are immune from lawsuits." The estimate is based on the number of claims against the manufacturers between the 3rd quarter of 2003 and the 4th quarter of 2008.
Read the report here.
Luvera on Direct Examination
Paul Luvera does it again, this time with a nice post on conducting direct examinations on his blog. Plaintiff Trial Lawyer Tips
An excerpt:
Evidence is like an iceberg. The bottom below the surface may be enormous, but only the tip is can be seen above the water line. That’s how your examination should be framed. Only a small amount of the facts are really significant or persuasive. Concentrate on that twenty percent this is significant and ignore all the rest. Focus your case. Identify the issues that count. Stick with those issues. ignore the rest that is not highly relevant. Use a rifle not a shot gun approach in your examination of witnesses.
ACOG Changes FHR Monitoring Guidelines
From ACOG’s Press Release:
Refinements of the definitions, classifications, and interpretations of fetal heart rate (FHR) monitoring methods were issued today in new guidelines released by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). The objective of the guidelines is to reduce the inconsistent use of common terminology and the wide variability that sometimes occurs in FHR interpretations. ACOG’s Practice Bulletin, published in the July 2009 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, supports the recommendations of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child and Health Development workshop* on electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) held in April 2008.
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Depositions of Expert Witnesses
What is your opponent going to do to prepare for your expert’s deposition? This article, "The Opponent’s Expert: Preparing for the Most Important Deposition in the Case," 59 Fed’n Def. & Corp. Couns. Q.145 (2008), answers that question.
A Wonderful Way to Spend A Saturday
It doesn’t sound particularly appealing.
Leave Memphis Friday afternoon. Drive to Nashville. Pack a new bag. Catch a flight to Charlotte. Race through the airport from Gate E35 to B3. Catch a flight to Mrytle Beach. Catch a 45-minute long shuttle to a North Carolina resort. Carry your bag up the steps to a second floor room at 12:30 in the morning. Get a few hours sleep and go to a windowless ballroom. Hang around a few hours to give a speech to a room full of people who had a similar ordeal to get there. All the while knowing that you have to reverse the process the next day in an effort to get home for a meal with the family on Father’s Day.
But the drudgery evaporated when I heard Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch, USMC, speak at Saturday’s luncheon of the North Carolina Advocates of Justice Annual Meeting. Who is Col. Couch? He was the Gitmo prosecutor – a career prosecutor – who refused to prosecute a terrorist who had been subjected to torture. Read more here.
Covenants Not to Compete
Here is a link to a blog on covenants not to compete – a fascinating area of litigation.
Tennessee has a lot of law in this area, and a recent Tennessee Supreme Court case on the subject was essentially reversed by a new statute.
If you do this type of work you may find this blog of assistance to you.
New Business Tort Blog
B2B tort litigation is a growing phenomena, as big firm lawyers start to think outside of the box. Here is a new blog dedicated to the subject –Unfair Business Practices.
The blog focuses on unfair business and trade practices such as business conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of trade secrets and other proprietary information, fraud, tortious interference with contracts and other unfair business practices that are not neatly defined."
The blog is published by the Williams Mullen firm in Virginia.
Bloomberg Article on Medical Liability Reform
"Malpractice Lawsuits Are ‘Red Herring’ in Obama Health Plan" is the title of this article from Bloomberg.
Am excerpt:
While Obama vowed to address physicians’ malpractice worries in a speech yesterday, the annual jury awards and legal settlements involving doctors amounts to “a drop in the bucket” in a country that spends $2.3 trillion annually on health care, said Amitabh Chandra, an economist at Harvard University, in a telephone interview. Chandra estimated the cost at $12 per person in the U.S., or about $3.6 billion, in a 2005 study. Insurer WellPoint Inc. said in a report last month that liability wasn’t driving up health premiums.
More On Products Claims Against Chrysler and GM
The National Law Journal has this article on the future of products liability claims against Chrysler and GM. The United States Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the petition of consumers and plaintiffs’ lawyers concerning the Chrysler bankruptcy.
Chrysler has 160 pending cases and GM has about 300.