Yep. That is what Richard Fields is doing. He is the chief executive of Juridica Capital Management, an organization which runs a fund that invests in one side of a lawsuit in exchange for a share of any winnings. The company invests in commercial litigation.
This article in the New York Times reports that a unit of Credit Suisse and Juris Capital have a similar business model, as do several unnamed hedge funds.
Juridica has $200 Million available, with an average investment of $7.5 million.
There is a new blog in town – the Tennessee Insurance Litigation Blog. The blog is authored by Parks Chastain and Brandon McWherter. Parks typically represents insurance companies and Brandon typically represents policyholders.
Great idea, gentlemen. Good luck.
The Tennessee Bar Association is sponsoring a seminar to educate lawyers on the new medical malpractice statute passed by the Senate on June 4, 2008. If signed by the Governor, and there is no reason to believe that he will not sign the bill, the legislation makes major changes in medical malpractice procedural law. The TBA has selected me as the speaker for this program.
The seminar will be webcast at 11:00 CDT on Monday, June 15, 2009.
A portion of the legislation is effective July 1, 2009 , but the transitional issues will be discussed in the seminar. Each provision of the legislation will be discussed in detail. I participated in all of the negotiations concerning this legislation and will provide a history of how the legislation developed.
The Tennessee Bar Association has filed proposed changes to the ethics rules governing the conduct of Tennessee lawyers. The project represents the first effect to change the rules since tan entire new code was adopted in 2002.
Read the petition of the TBA here.
Read the a red-line version here.
Ken Shigley from Atlanta offers an interesting post concerning his research into and thoughts about some of the lawyers who advertise in his community.
He starts his post with these words:
As a serious personal injury attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, I am frankly embarrassed by the inundation of billboards and TV ads for personal injury lawyers who have little respect within the profession and seldom if ever set foot in a courtroom.
The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court should have recused himself in a case involving the company of a man who ran $3,000,000 of ads in favor of the judge’s election. Read the opinions here.
The Tennessee Bar Association is sponsoring a seminar to educate lawyers on the new medical malpractice statute passed by the Senate earlier today. If signed by the Governor, and there is no reason to believe that he will not sign the bill, the legislation makes major changes in medical malpractice procedural law. The TBA has selected me as the speaker for this program.
The seminar will be webcast at 11:00 CDT on Monday, June 15, 2009.
A portion of the legislation is effective July 1, 2009 , but the transitional issues will be discussed in the seminar. Each provision of the legislation will be discussed in detail. I participated in all of the negotiations concerning this legislation and will provide a history of how the legislation developed.
Walter Olson at Point of Law shares a study from the Pacific Research Institute on the effect of various tort reforms. The study, was authored by Nicole V. Crain, W. Mark Crain, Lawrence J. McQuillan, and Hovannes Abramyan, and is titled "Tort Law Tally: How State Tort reforms affect Tort Losses and Tort Insurance Premiums".
Here is an excerpt from the executive summary:
Of the 25 tort reforms that we examine, the statistical analysis identifies 18 reforms to state civil-justice systems that significantly reduced tort losses and tort insurance premiums from 1996 through 2006. For some categories of tort cases, specific reforms cut payouts by more than 50 percent. The cumulative effect of reforms across all tort categories is a 47-percent reduction in losses and a 16-percent reduction in insurance premiums for consumers. Some tort reforms are highly effective at reducing costs in certain tort categories, but are ineffective in other tort categories. It is important that reformers pick the right tool for each problem. If we order the tort reforms according to each reform’s ability to reduce aggregate tort losses, the top eight reforms are: attorney-retention sunshine (12 percent), Daubert/Frye (10 percent), frivolous lawsuits (7 percent), jury service (6 percent), appeal-bond caps (4 percent), negligence standard (3 percent), non-economic-damage caps (2 percent), and medical-malpractice damage caps (1 percent).
The requirement of pre-notice and a certificate of good faith (T.C.A. Sec. 29-26-121 and 122) has had a significant effect on filings of medical malpractice cases.
From October 1, 2008 (when the new law came into effect) until April 30, 2009 there were only 111 medical malpractice cases filed in the entire state. During the same seven-month period a year earlier there were 314 filings.
Here is the data for the some of the larger counties in the state:
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a Tennessee Court of Appeals case on the proper instruction to the jury in an FELA case when the plaintiff is seeking damages for fear of developing lung cancer. The worker alleged that his work exposed him to asbestos, which caused asbestosis. He sought pain and suffering damages for fear of developing lung cancer.
The railroad asked that the jury be instructed that the fear must be "serious and genuine" to be compensable. The Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld the trial judge’s refusal to give such an instruction. The High Court reversed, saying "the volume of pending asbestos claims and also because the nature of those claims enhances the danger that a jury, without proper instructions, could award emotional distress damages based on slight evidence of a plaintiff’s fear of contracting cancer." (Interesting rationale, isn’t it? There are so many people who have been hurt and killed by asbestos that we need to set the bar high on the issue of damages. The worse the product, the higher the standard, I guess.)
Doesn’t the gatekeeper function of the court in evaluating expert testimony already address this issue? Not according to the Supreme Court;
