The Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled that a jury may consider a defendant’s three convictions for drunk driving in deciding the punitive damages issue in a personal injury case arising out of yet another drunk driving episode.
The opinion has great language about why the evidence of the prior convictions is probative.
The opinion is Yeakley v. Doss, 06-851 (Ark. S.C. May 31, 2007). Read the opinion here.
This article from the Washington Post tells a fascinating tale about a lawyer for Best Buy who altered documents and then produced them to the plaintiffs in a class action case.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association recently released a Large Truck Crash Causation Study in response to a federal law that required the organization "to determine the causes of, and contributing factors to, crashes involving commercial motor vehicles."
From the Executive Summary:
"A nationally representative sample of large truck fatal and injury crashes was investigated during 2001 to 2003 at 24 sites in 17 States. Each crash involved at least one large truck and resulted in at least one fatality or injury. Data were collected on up to 1,000 elements in each crash. The total sample involved 967 crashes, which included 1,127 large trucks, 959 non-truck motor vehicles, 251 fatalities, and 1,408 injuries.
An action or inaction by the drivers of the truck or the other vehicles involved were important reasons leading to crashes in a large majority of the cases. Driver recognition and decision errors were the type of driver mistakes coded by crash investigators or law enforcement officials most often for the trucks and passenger vehicles. Truck drivers, however, were coded less frequently for both driving performance errors and non-performance problems (e.g., asleep, sick, incapacitated) than passenger vehicle drivers. In crashes between trucks and passenger vehicles, driving too fast for conditions and fatigue were important factors cited for both drivers. However, fatigue was coded twice as often for passenger vehicle drivers and speeding more often for truck drivers.
Brake problems were coded for almost 30 percent of the trucks but only 5 percent of the passenger vehicles. Roadway problems were present in 16 percent of the two-vehicle cases, and adverse weather conditions were present in approximately 13 percent of the crashes. Interruption in the traffic flow (previous crash, work zone, rush hour congestion, etc.) was coded in almost 25 percent of the two-vehicle crashes."
Man sues claiming that an energy drink gave him an erection that would not subside.
The drink is called "Boost Plus."
For a list of dealers near you, please call 1-800-4StickUp.
Can a motorcycle dealer be held liable for selling a motorcycle to a person who did not have a motorcycle license?
Not in Mississippi. The Mississippi Supreme Court recently considered a case where a dealer sold a motorcycle to an 18-year who it knew was not a licensed operator. A representative of the dealer who knew the buyer was not licensed allowed him to leave the dealership on the bike and saw him operating it in town. The buyer died in a motorcycle wreck three days later.
The Court first rejected a claim for negligent entrustment, saying that it did not exist in the context of a sales transaction. It also found no duty under the common law for selling the motorcycle to an unlicensed driver.
The California Supreme Court has ruled that a court may issue an order prohibiting a defendant in a defamation case from repeating statements about the plaintiff that were deemed defamatory at trial.
The concern about such a ruling is that an injunction is a "prior restraint" and would be a violation of the right of free speech. But the California Court thought to the contrary, and said that "preventing a person from speaking or publishing something that, allegedly, would constitute a libel if spoken or published is far different from issuing a posttrial injunction after a statement that already has been uttered has been found to constitute defamation. Prohibiting a person from making a statement or publishing a writing before that statement is spoken or the writing is published is far different from prohibiting a defendant from repeating a statement or republishing a writing that has been determined at trial to be defamatory and, thus, unlawful."
The opinion has a nice collection of law around the country that reaches a similar result. The dissent does a fine job collecting opinions to the contrary.
A professional liability insurer has posted this information on fetal monitoring for doctors.
The opening paragraph: "Initially, the fetal monitor was developed for the intrapartum period to better evaluate the status of the fetus during labor. Earlier identification of pending acidosis and hypoxia would alert the obstetric team, leading to more timely intervention and thus a significant reduction in the incidence of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Though clinical trials have failed to demonstrate a significant impact on morbidity and mortality, fetal monitoring is now essentially universal."
This is interesting:
Never tell a judge that she is "a few fries short of a Happy Meal."
The Tennessee Supreme Court has a reversed its previous position and determined that it will permit juries to hear evidence from qualified experts on the reliability of eyewitness identification. The Court had ruled that such testimony was not admissible in 2000.
Now, in State v. Copeland, the Court has reached a different result. After reviewing advances in the field over the last few years, the Court said:
"In our view, it is far more likely for the jury to accredit the eyewitness than the expert. If eyewitness identification is a cornerstone of the criminal justice system, the jury is its foundation. It is also our view that the test in McDaniel is sufficient to allow the trial court to properly evaluate the admissibility of expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification. To the extent that Coley holds otherwise, it is overruled. The essential role of the judge, as the neutral arbiter in the trial, is to govern the admission of the evidence within the rules, permitting only that expert testimony which substantially assists the jury in its consideration of the issue. The McDaniel test provides the trial judge with the necessary guidelines to properly exercise his or her discretion."
Good news for all concerned. SVMIC, the doctor-owned professional liability insurer, has announced a rate reduction. You probably won’t read about falling medical liability insurance rates in the newspaper, but you can tell your friends and neighbors that rates are dropping even though the Legislature has not placed caps on damages in medical malpractice cases.
Here are the rate changes, by specialty:
Anesthesiology – 14.1%
Cardiac Surgery – 14.1%
Gynecological Surgery – 14/1%
Family Practice – non-procedural – 9.3%
Orthopedic Surgery – 9.3%
Pediatrics – 9.3%
Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine – 5.2%
Internal Medicine + 3.3%
Infectious Disease, Hospitalists + 3.3%
Gastroenterology + 5.0%
Interventional Cardiology + 5.8%
Pathology +10.0%
Emergency Medicine +15.0%
Most other specialties – 4.5%
