Aren’t you sick and tired of these jerks who attack your clients and your profession? I have been jerked around at Little League games, my kids’ basketball games, cocktail parties, church – it never stops.
Here is some ammo you can use to fight back – unless you think that the better course of action is to simply walk away.
The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices is available, free of charge, online at the Federal Highway Administration website. The site not only has the latest 2003 edition, but goes back as far as the 1993 revisions. You should be able to find the right edition to address any pending or potential claim for a roadway that is dangerously unmarked. Compliance with the MUTCD is necessary, but not always sufficient. The MUTCD and the law still require reasonableness by a contractor or highway planner.
The MUTCD is incorporated by reference into the regulations of the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Therefore, violation of the MUTCD is negligence per se.
Any lawyer can benefit by reading a good closing argument in any case. Of course, it is better to see it live – the paper cannot capture the emotion of an argument. But if you don’t have time to sit around in courtrooms all day a transcript is the way to go.
Here is the transcript of the argument of Thomas Mesereau, the attorney for the King of Pop.
Thanks to New Orleans lawyer A.J. Levy for letting me know how to find it. I met A.J. 12 or 15 years ago at an ATLA meeting; he was and is ahead of the technology curve. His blog is Out of the Box Lawyering.
Consumers and trial lawyers have been saying for years that if doctors would do a better job establishing standards and policing their own there would be less injuries and death and therefore less malpractice claims and (maybe) lower malpractice insurance.
The anesthesiologists figured this out and today, in constant dollars, they pay less for malpractice insurance than they did 20 years ago.
More importantly deaths have have dropped from 1 in 5000 cases to 1 in 200,000 to 300,000 cases.
The good news is that the FDA has recalled Guidant defibrillators. Here is the press release that discusses the recall and lists the models that are being recalled. Somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 people are affected by the recall.
It is known that two people have died because of a malfunction in the device.
The bad news is that Guidant has not yet indicated that it will pay for the full cost of the replacement (including surgeon and hospital fees). Reportedly, it is only going to pay (i.e.not charge) for the cost of a new device. A hospital charges about $2000 for a device like this; the cost to Guidant is a fraction of this amount.
As a lawyer who has done medical malpractice work for 24 years I am embarrassed to say this, but I came across this little tidbit a couple weeks ago while preparing for an argument in the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Do we have the discovery rule for med mal cases? “Yes.” What is the test? “Plaintiff must file suit within one year of the date that plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known about the injury.” Right? Wrong. (Well, it might be wrong.)
The statute (T.C.A. Sec. 29-26-116(a)(2)) says “In the event that the injury is not discovered within such one (1) year period, the period of limitation shall be one (1) year from the date of such discovery.” The test appears to be subjective, not objective.
Ok – this article is not about the trial of a personal injury or wrongful death case. But it is about trial. And it is about the benefits of the use of technology at trial.
We have used Powerpoint in trial for over five years. We first used digital video clips to impeach over three years ago. It is time-consuming to prepare. It is expensive.
It is also very effective.
The California Supreme Court has handed down two puntive damages cases that interpret State Farm v. Campbell.
One case is Johnson v. Ford Motor Corp., a case in which the plaintiff purchasers of a used vehicle proved that Ford had concealed a history of repairs to the vehicle. They also proved that Ford routinely committed such acts of fraud and earned significant profit from the conduct. The jury awarded $17,000+ in comnpensatory damages and $10 Million in punitive damages. The intermediate court cut the punitive award to $53,000+, saying that Ford could only be punished for what it did to the plaintiffs.
The Cal. Supreme Court reversed and remanded, saying that “California law has long endorsed the use of punitive damages to deter continuation or imitation of a corporation’s course of wrongful conduct, and hence allowed consideration of that conduct’s scale and profitability in determining the size of award that will vindicate the state’s legitimate interests (footnote omitted). We do not read the high court’s decisions, which specifically acknowledge that states may use punitive damages for punishment and deterrence, as mandating the abandonment of that principle.” The Court also said that “[t]o the extent the evidence shows the defendant had a practice of engaging in, and profiting from, wrongful conduct similar to that which injured the plaintiff, such evidence may be considered on the question of how large a punitive damages award due process permits. Although the lower court discussed Ford’s policies in addressing reprehensibility Äï noting “it is reprehensible for a regulated manufacturer to implement a scheme that intentionally undermines the protections granted consumers by state law” Äï the court gave no express weight, in its assessment of the constitutional maximum, to the profitability of that scheme to Ford or the scale at which Ford pursued it.” On remand, the court of appeals was directed to weigh these and other factors.
Filing negligence and other personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits is not only about proving fault, causation and damages but also about being able to collect a judgment. You have done your client no good whatsoever if you obtain a judgment that you cannot collect. One potential source of satisfying a judgment is real prperty.
In Davidson County, Tennessee you can get learn alot about what property your opponent owns from Tax Assessor’s website. You can see a map of the property and the surrounding property by visiting this site.
Finally, you can get some information on properties across the state from this site (although it is not as user friendly).
You tort and negligence law junkies may have been wondering where I have been the past few days.
Well, I went to Knoxville on Tuesday for a committee meeting to work on the Tennessee Pattern Jury Instructions. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I was at the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association Annual Convention, and last night I went to the Annual Dinner of the American College of Trial Lawyers at Cherokee Country Club.
I came back to work today in an effort to catch up on what appears to be a big pile of work.
I had trouble getting access to the Internet to blog. The computer access in my room went down. There were some “public” computers available. Unfortunately, access to them was hogged by people who saw nothing wrong with using them for hours on end to look for clothes, plan their next vacation, etc. I have learned a lesson.
