As a 51 year old man happily married to a beautiful, intelligent 37 year old woman, I confess I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about thongs. I also confess that it never crossed my mind that a person wearing a thong could ever suffer a personal injury from…
The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued an opinion interpreting Rule 35 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 35 is the rule the permits a party to have a physician of the party’s choice examine the adverse party. Unfortunately, it is often referred to as an independent medical examination, and…
Governor Bredesen has signed the "Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act" into law. The Act is effective for discovery requests after July 1, 2008. The legislation establishes a procedure for litigants in other states to do discovery in Tennessee. However, the Act is a uniform act, so Tennessee lawyers will…
The Tennessee Supreme Court has released an opinion that settles (and changes) the law on the "prior suit pending" doctrine. The issue rises infrequently in tort cases, but is still worthy of note. In Tennessee a worker’s compensation lawsuit cannot be filed until after a benefit review conference (BRC) does not…
I have been in Washington, D.C. since Sunday attending the 85th Annual Meeting of the American Law Institute. Thanks to Howard Vogel, Judge Cissy Daughtrey, Chief Justice Mickey Barker, Bill Wagner, and Lucian Pera I was elected to membership in the ALI in the Fall of 2006. We heard from…
This article by Judge Richard Posner (7th Circuit Court of Appeals) does a fine job discussing appellate briefs and oral arguments. A sample: "The second biggest mistake that appellate advocates make—after exaggerating how much the judges know about or are willing to devote time to learning about a given appeal—is…
"From 2004 through 2006, patient safety errors resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths of U.S. Medicare patients and cost the Medicare program $8.8 billion, according to the fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study." So begins this article found on the MSN website. The article notes that (a)"of the…
The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that a defendant employer may not avoid a claim for negligent hiring, training, supervision, or entrustment by simply agreeing that it is vicariously liable for the actions of its employee. In James v. Kelly Trucking Company, the Court said that just because a…
Well, it has been a longer break than I planned. The trial started on February 25 and went to the jury shortly before lunch yesterday, March 11. The jury actually started deliberations at about 12:45 and is returning to the courthouse for further deliberations today at 8:00 a.m. Obviously, it …