Day on Torts

Day on Torts:  A Handbook for Tennessee Tort Lawyers 2008 is at the printer.  The printing date is October 18 and the books should be delivered to Brentwood on October 23, 2007.

You may recall that the book will be updated during the year via a website called "dayontortsbook.com."  I have seen the mock-up of that site – the folks at Justia did a great job on it.  (Justia also developed our firm’s website – www.dayblair.com.  These folks are extremely competent and I really enjoy working with them.) It will be available for public viewing by the end of the month.

Part I of the book is called "Leading Tennessee Tort Cases by Subject."  It contains detailed summaries of 233 cases on 233 tort law subjects.  It also contains citations to well over 1000 additional cases.  Here is the table of contents to this section of the book.

Yesterday afternoon I attended the funeral of Judge Bill Cain of Columbia.

Judge Cain served on the Court of Appeals and had served as a trial judge.  He was a lawyer who loved the law and loved to discuss the subject.  He prided himself on his ability to dive into the books and find the answer to a problem, and was justified in his pride.  We debated many tort law subjects over the years and I found him to be a worthy adversary, someone who not only knew the law but understood why the law was the way it was.  

Judge Cain despised the phrase "reasonable degree of medical certainty" and did his best to relegate it to the ash-heap of history.  He thought the "locality" rule in medical malpractice cases was assine, but applied it because he was duty-bound to do so.  He applied to plaintiffs and defendants, and in fact reversed a jury verdict for the defendant in a Clarksville case because the defendant’s experts did not know the local standard of care.

I have told you in the past that I love Blog 702.  It is a blog of substance, written by someone who knows what they are talking about and who is willing to share what they know.

The authors of Blog 702 have started a series about the concept of "reasonable degree of medical certainty."  Here are the first few paragraphs"

Quite some time ago now, we promised to respond to a Beck & Herrmann post decrying an ALI proposal to abolish any requirement that experts offer their opinions to a “reasonable degree” of medical, professional, or scientific “certainty.” (Call this the “RDC” rule for short.) The ALI proposal would abrogate any RDC requirement and demand only that the expert hold his or her opinion to be more likely true than not — at least in the context of opinions offered to prove causation in tort cases involving physical harm.

I  did not post for two days in a row and received four inquires about the state of my health.

I am alive.

I am in a middle of finishing a project that I will tell you more about next week.  Today I will be consumed with four depositions and a meeting with a new client on what looks like a great products case against an automobile manufacturer.   We are also filing two new cases today in Knoxville, a products case in federal court and a road construction / signage negligence case in state court.  It has been more than the ordinary flurry of activity at Day & Blair this week, but I am scrambling to get everything done so that I can relax at the Titans-Colts game Sunday afternoon.