The Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure permit a Tennessee personal injury or wrongful death plaintiff to serve discovery with a complaint. Ordinarily, responses to interrogatories, requests for production of documents, and requests for admissions are due 30 days after service. However, if they are served with the complaint the defendant…
A compensatory damages personal injury award, by settlement or judgment, is not taxable under federal law if the case arises out of personal physical injury or sickness. This is true even if the award includes monies for pain and suffering and lost wages. The support for this view is Section…
The second edition of Tennessee Law of Civil Trial is now available for purchase. The new edition updates the first edition of the text published five years ago. The 500-page book is designed to help lawyers prepare for the procedural issues that arise from jury selection through post-trial motions. It also…
Medicare makes conditional payments to health care providers on behalf of its beneficiaries who are injured or killed and later assert personal injury or wrongful death claims. Federal law requires that the monies advanced by Medicare be paid back subject to a formula that allows for the reduction of the…
Tennessee’s personal injury and wrongful death jury trials and judgment amounts continue at historic lows. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, only 396 personal injury and wrongful death cases went to trial. Of those 396 trials, only 190 were jury trials – the rest (206) were non-jury trials.…
Tennessee law requires that personal injury cases for minors be approved by the court. Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-34-105 provides: (a) Notwithstanding any other law or rule to the contrary, a judge or chancellor may sign an order approving any tort claim settlement involving a minor that is less than…
In case you have been living under a rock and have not heard, there are at least 121 confirmed cases of the measles traced from an outbreak at Disneyland in California in December. The outbreak is significant for a number of reasons: 1. Last year, the U.S. had a record…
Each one of us has, from time to time, picked up a brief written by an opponent and felt a sharp pain in the chest – our opponent has landed what seems to be a mortal blow. This article – "The Best Lawyers Demonstrate the Best Ways to Attack Adverse…
A dispute between a Tennessee plaintiffs’ firm and a Maryland plaintiffs’ firm over responsibility for litigation expenses will be resolved in Tennessee, says the Tennessee Court of Appeals. The Wolff Ardis firm in Memphis and the Law Offices of Jonathan Dailey in Washington, D.C. teamed up together to work on…
About eight years ago I wrote a guest post for Legal Underground that addressed the importance of case selection by plaintiff’s lawyers. The post got lots of discussion, and in fact I ended up doing a series of speeches about the topic at seminars sponsored by various state lawyer associations…