Almost four years ago Tennessee adopted a requirement that health care provides were entitled to receive advance notice of the filing of Tennessee medical malpractice (now call "health care liability) lawsuits. Under the current version of the statute, notice must be given in the manner proscribed by statute before the…
The Lexis website that contains the Tennessee Code that is available through the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts is not updated with 2012 legislative changes. This despite the fact that many of those changes went into effect July 1, 2012, or even earlier. It appears that Westlaw has updated…
As regular readers know, the Tennessee Bar Association has published a regular column in the Tennessee Bar Journal called "Day on Torts" for many years. I enjoy writing for these articles and am thankful for the many calls, letters and emails I have received over the years from my fellow…
I am fortunate to receive many calls on many types of cases, some of which fall outside of my normal practice area. i decided I would seek out a lawyer to whom I could associate on a particular type of case – this lawyer enjoyed a good reputation on cases…
The Federal Evidence Review Blog has been kind enough to let us know that the federal Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management ("CACM") has issued new proposed jury instructions on the use of social media by jurors. "The overwhelming majority of judges take steps to warn jurors not to…
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a plaintiff’s verdict in a products liability case notwithstanding the defendant’s assertion that the plaintiff’s expert should have been excluded under Daubert. In Lapsley v. Xtech, Inc., No. 11-3313 (7th Cir. July 27, 2012) Industrial grease was propelled in a jet with…
Tennessee’s rules of civil procedure now permit the use of declarations in lieu of affidavits. TRCP Rule 72 provides as follows: Wherever these rules require or permit an affidavit or sworn declaration, an unsworn declaration made under penalty of perjury may be filed in lieu of an affidavit or sworn…
Yet another effort to restrict the right of jurors to award damages based on evidence has been declared unconstitutional. This time, the Supreme Court of Missouri struck down the damage caps imposed on damages for pain, suffering, disfigurement, and disability. In Deborah Watts as Next Friend for Naython Kayne Watts…
The Winter 2012 edition of the FDCC Quarterly includes an article called "Juror Misconduct in the Age of Social Networking." Written by Michael K. Kiernan and Samuel E. Cooley, the article discusses how a juror’s use of social networking tools "can result in a denial of the defendant’s due process rights…
It is not uncommon for defendants in severe brain injury, spinal cord or burn injury cases to ask that the plaintiff not be present in the courtroom. The argument goes that the injured person cannot contribute to the prosecution of the case and therefore the only purpose that they are…