Need to know the weather at a given date, time and place? Go to Weather Underground, type in the zip code or name of the location you want, and then scroll down to “History and Almanac.” Enter the date and find more data than you can imagine.
Death of the Chief Justice
Read here for an analysis of the impact of the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist.
Sort of Off Topic
But not really. Forseeability in tort law is a complicated concept, but one thing is undeniably true: for a duty to arise or legal cause to exist one need not be able to (or actually) foresee the precise type of harm that resulted. Instead, one only need be able to foresee that the risk of harm would arise. A shopping center defendant sued for negligent security in its parking lot cannot (successfully) say “well, I knew there has been and would be car thefts and car break-ins in our lot, but it never crossed my mind that someone would be raped there.”
The Bush Administration is now claiming that the government’s slow response is because it had no idea that the devestation would be so bad.
Well, read this release from the National Weather Service from Sunday, August 28, 2005:
The Definition of Product
Can a product that is not completely installed be a product? The 3-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court said “yes.”
Sprinkler systems were being contructed in a three huge warehouses for documents storage. Although the sprinkler system was “admittedly incomplete,” the sprinkler system was issuing “material and test certificates” for those portions of the buildings were the documents were actually being stored. Hence, the Court said, the sprinkler system was a “product” and strict liability law was applicable.
Read an article about the case here.
Katrina Relief Contributions
I know that you are going to contribute to a Katrina relief fund – that is the type of person who reads this blog – but I urge those of you who are lawyers to do so through Trial Lawyers Care, an ATLA affilliated organization. Go here to help.
Trial lawyers do care, and one way to demonstrate that to people who don’t think so is to show our generosity collectively. Trial Lawyers Care gave tens of millions of dollars of free legal services to 9-11 victims; the people along the Gulf Coast are now in need.
Tragedy to the South
Our hearts go out to those we know and those we don’t in our sister states to the south. I cannot imagine what those folks – and their families across the nation – are going through right now.
No substantive post today.
Getting a Jump Start
A friend of mine who is a defense lawyer told me that in 50 % of the cases he defends he is not served written discovery.
I can imagine that there might be a tactical reason not to serve written discovery in a particular case. I can also say that that situation has not arise in my 24 years of practice.
I have found it best to almost always serve written discovery with the complaint. In many cases, we also serve a notice to depose the individual defendant or a corporate representative at a date we estimate to be 60 days after service of the complaint, when we will have an answer and the discovery in hand. We will almost always modify the date to accomodate the defendant and the defendant’s lawyer, but we like to get the case moving right off the bat.
Selling Gas to a Drunk
There has been a lot of talk about the decision of the Tennessee Supreme Court in the case of West v. East Tennessee Pioneer Oil Co.; even the Tennessesan has weighed in with an editorial.
The Court held that convenience store employees owe a duty of reasonable care to persons on the roadways when the employees sell gasoline to an obviously intoxicated person and / or assist the driver in pummping gas into his vehicle.
An employee of a c-store refused to sell Tarver beer because he was too intoxicated. Then, some level of physical assistance was given to Tarver to purchase $3.00 worth of gasoline for his vehicle. Tarver left the seen, drove 2.8 miles, and hit the plaintiffs’ vehicle head on, causing both plaintiffs’ serious injuries.
Mark Lanier
Here is a great article about Mark Lanier and his recent victory in the Vioxx trial in Texas.
New Slip and Fall Opinion
This opinion by Judge Koch does a great job summarizing the “slip and fall” law as it exists in Tennessee. This decision does not include a discussion of the so-called “method of operation” theory; that particular topic is addressed in a recent decision of the Tennessee Supreme Court.
If you read these two opinions you know what you need to know about this area of the law.