Day on Torts

November 2, 2005

Source for Government Documents

The Government Printing Office has a host of information for you. Government Printing Office which provides electronic access to Federal Government documents. The site gives you access to official, published versions of legislative, executive and judicial documents, including the Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, and Presidential Materials.

For example, do you need an analysis of cases interpreting the U. S. Constitution? There is a publication on point. There is even a Cybercemetary, where old government websites are maintained.

Happy surfing.

November 2, 2005

Yet Another Study On the “Crisis”

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Insurance Journal reports this: “There is no credible evidence to link the tort system either to the economic ills its critics claim or to the benefits they argue would be produced by altering it, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute.”

The article goes on to say that “the EPI report, The Frivolous Case for Tort Law Change, examines reports prepared by Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, a consulting firm whose clients include many of the world’s largest insurance companies. TTP’s reports are cited by President George Bush and his Council of Economic Advisors in arguing for tort reforms. The insurance consultants have spun a few high-profile but unrepresentative incidents into a horror story that is almost entirely unsupported by the facts,” said Chimerine. “It is cobbled together out of gross exaggerations, shreds of fact plucked out of context, and ‘secret’ data that cannot be examined by anyone but them. The result is a mishmash that bears little resemblance to actual research.”

Read the entire article here.

November 1, 2005

New Decision on Opinion Evidence

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has decided Brown v. Crown Equipment Co., a case that asked the Court to give us a further understanding of the McDaniel opinion on expert testimony that it released a few years ago. Brown involves an injury related to a forklift; the trial judge excluded two of the experts offered by the plaintiff and directed a verdict in favor of the defendant. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed and remanded for trial. The Court said:

“In McDaniel, we listed several nonexclusive factors that courts could consider in determining the reliability of scientific testimony, including

November 1, 2005

Vioxx Case Has Gone to the Jury

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

The jury in the NJ Vioxx case retired for deliberations at short time ago (it is now 2:35 CDT). Here is a summary of Chris’ closing argument.

October 31, 2005

“Corporate Negligence”

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

A friend who is getting ready to file a medical negligence case told me that his medical consultant said this about the case: “It took a whole group of doctors to kill this woman.”

The consultant was not suggesting that the doctors conspired to hurt, much less “kill”, the patient. His point was that in a hospital setting the cause of an injury or death is often not the fault of one person. In the ordinary course, one person makes an error and someone else catchs it before harm is done. No, where things really get messed up is when a group of people is having a bad time of it, where balls are flying all over the place and nobody has a catcher’s mitt or is even aware that the balls are flying around. Simply put, awareness is off, communication breaks down and people get hurt.

The adoption of proper systems can usually prevent these situations from occurring. Indeed, this is one of the reasons behind Vanderbilt’s Evidence-Based Medicine Program that I talked about recently.

October 31, 2005

Status of the New Jersey Vioxx Case

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Closing arguments are today – read this article from Bloomberg for the latest summary of recent events and thoughts of other lawyers about the case.

October 28, 2005

Vioxx Trial At End

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Closing arguments in the New Jersey Vioxx trial are expected to begin on Monday, according to news reports. The lawyers are working with the trial judge on jury instructions today. The trial has lasted seven weeks.

Predictably, there has not been as much press about this case as the one in Texas, although that will change next week. This case is a “must win” for Merck.

October 28, 2005

A Blue-Chipper for Friday

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

I have not posted any blue-chip tort cases lately. There is no particular reason for my failure to do so; there has just been a good deal of other information out there to post.

(For those of you who are new to this blog you can read about “blue-chippers” here.)

Today I have a special treat for you – two blue-chippers. Why? Because they really need to be considered together to understand the full impact on them in Tennessee law.

October 28, 2005

How is your Math?

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Do you what $146,604 represents?

It is the amount of money both Exxon and Shell made every minute of every hour of every day last quarter.

Or $2443 every second.

October 26, 2005

Rule 9 Granted in Medical Negligence Case

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has just granted a Rule 9 application in a medical negligence case, even though the Tennessee Court of Appeals refused to do so.

The plaintiff had an abdominal operation several years ago and learned more than three years later that a clip was left on one of her ureters, resulting in the death of one kidney. She brought suit and the defendants asserted the three-year statute of repose. The plaintiff raised the foreign objection exception to the statute of repose. The defendants then asserted because the clip was of the type that is often left in the body it was not a “foreign object” within the meaning of the statute and therefore the suit was untimely.

Plaintiff asserts that even though the clip is of the type often left in the body it is not supposed to be left on a ureter. Essentially, the plaintiff argues that an object can become a “foreign object” if it was left in the body for an unintended use.