Articles Posted in Miscellaneous

The March 2009 edition of the Tennessee Trial Law Report is in the mail.

This edition includes a summary of 20 different cases addressing various aspects of the law of torts, civil procedure, evidence and trial as decided by Tennessee appellate courts between January 15 and February 15, 2009.   The newsletter totals 47 pages, including 22 pages containing the full-text (in addition to our summary) of the three most important cases of the last month.  We add the full-text of selected decisions because we think that they are significant enough that lawyers who seek to stay on top of tort law will want to read them in full.

The newsletter also includes (a) Part 3 of my three-part article of the law of motions In limine;  and (b) a summary of the status of 22 cases of interest to tort lawyers that are pending before the  Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Tennessee. 

Here is an animation of the crash of US Airways 1549 landing in the Hudson River prepared by Scene Systems.  The simulation includes the audio from the pilot and air traffic control.

Scene Systems creates animations for litigation of all types.

Tort lawyers have been carefully watching the tobacco lawsuit against Phillip Morris which arose out of the death of 55-year old Stuart Hess.  The Florida jury imposed liability several days ago and earlier today awarded $3M in compensatory damages and $5M in punitive damages.  Read more here.

Today’s  USA TODAY includes an interesting article titled "How much ‘truth’ is too much?" written by Rod Dreher.  The article addresses the impact of the Roman Catholic Church’s sex abuse sandal on the life of the author, who investigated and wrote about it.

Readers who know me know that our firm filed the two successful cases against the Nashville Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.  We were associated in the cases by John Hollins, Jr.   I will not go into details, but suffice it to say that these two cases changed my life, and not in a positive way.  I continue to struggle with conduct of the Church in those cases, actions that I did not believe would be even possible from those affillated with any respectable church.  Perhaps I was naive, but unlike most times in my life the education I received has had more negative consequences than positive.

Like the author, I disagree with the concept expressed by Father Richard John Neuhaus, who is reported as having  said "[t]here are things [Catholics] really don’t want to know about their church."   Like the author, there are times I wish I had not looked under the rock.  And, like the author, I sometimes wonder "[h]ow much reality must we choose to ignore for the greater good of our own souls, and society?"  

 Jeffrey surreptitiously installed video equipment in the bedroom of the marital home (where Jeffrey may or may not have been living, depending on whom one believed), including a motion sensing optical eye in the headboard of the bed and a camera concealed in an alarm clock.   His wife Cathy learned of the activities and sued her husband  for invasion of privacy.

The tape that Cathy was able to get her hands on contained nothing of a demeaning nature.  She could not prove that Jeffrey shared the results of his taping activities with anyone else.

In the divorce action filed by Jeffrey Cathy  was awarded damages ($22,500) for invasion of privacy.

The February 2009 edition of the Tennessee Trial Law Report is at the printer  and will be mailed to subscribers in the next day or two.

This edition includes a summary of 24 different cases addressing various aspects of the law of torts, civil procedure, evidence and trial as decided by Tennessee appellate courts between December 15 and January 15. 

The newsletter also includes (a) Part 2 of my three-part article of the law of motions In limine;  and (b) a summary of the status of 25 cases of interest to tort lawyers that are pending before the  Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Tennessee. 

Jack Weisberg kept up with George W. Bush’s verbal slip-ups during the past 8 years.

It was a full-time job.

This article contain’s Weisberg’s  list of the top 25 Bushisms.

I know – this is the third posting about  the 2007-08 Annual Report of the Tennessee Judiciary.  I can’t help myself – I am fascinated by this kind of data.

This falls in the "can you believe this" category?

1. There were about the same number of  DUI charges filed in circuits court in Tennessee last year as there  were tort damage lawsuits (11,000).   There were more divorces  and more burglary charges filed than tort lawsuits ,
2. Williamson County did not have a single medical malpractice lawsuit filing during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008.
3. Montgomery County (Clarksville) had only 7 medical malpractice filings and Wilson County (Lebanon) had only 3.    Hamilton County (Chattanooga) had a mere 17 med mal complaints filed and Madison County (Jackson) had but 5 filed.
4. As mentioned in an earlier post, there were 537 med mal cases filed in the entire state.  There are 6,000,000 people in Tennessee.  Statistically, about 2000 people died from medical malpractice in Tennessee during that period, and many more were injured.
5. Believe it or not, there were more  kidnapping filings (735) than there were medical malpractice filings (537).

Here is the report.

The 2007-08 Annual Report of the Tennessee Judiciary also has some interesting statistics on appeals.   Here are some of the highlights:

1. There were 793 Rule 11 applications filed during the fiscal year.  ( A Rule 11 application is a request for the Tennessee Supreme Court to hear a discretionary appeal.)  How many were granted?  48. 
2. Number of certified questions accepted by the Court in the fiscal year?    3
3. Total number of Court of Appeals opinions released during the fiscal year?  753 (more than one per week per judge).
4. Petitions to rehear filed in the Court of Appeals?  101  Number granted?  15
5. Total number of Rule 9 (interlocutory appeal) and Rule 10 (extraordinary appeal) applications filed in the Court of Appeals?  106    Number granted?  22
6. Total number of Rule 9 and Rule 10 applications filed in the Supreme Court?  50   Number granted?  6

The Tennessee Supreme Court has just released the 2007-08 “Annual Report of the Tennessee Judiciary.”   It includes data for the 2007-08 fiscal year.  Here is some of the information revealed in the report:

1. There were 537 medical malpractice cases filed during the fiscal year.  That is down almost 10%  from the 584 filed during the previous fiscal year.   There were dispositions of 462 of those cases but only 20 of them actually went to trial.
2. There were 11,171 personal injury and wrongful death cases filed.
3. There were 506 personal injury and wrongful death cases tried in fiscal 2007-08.  Of those, there were 246 jury trial and 260 non-jury trials.  Last year there were 590 such trials, and 289 of them were jury trials.  Thus, jury trials were down about 15%.
4. In those 506 trials, there were damage awards in 237 ( a little over 45%).  Of course, the mere fact that there was a damage award does not mean that the plaintiff "won" the case because the plaintiff may have had an offer greater than the judgment awarded.
5. The total damages awarded in the state increased over the previous fiscal year by over 25% to slightly over $58,000,000.  (Included in that amount is a judgment of over $17,000,000 awarded in a non-jury trial in Putnam County against 2 individuals.  If that judgment is collectible I will eat the Nashville phone directory.)
6. There were 13 judgments totaling $1,000,000 or more in the entire stated ruing the entire fiscal year.  No county had more than one $1,000,000 verdict. 
7. There were 191 judgments for the plaintiff less than $100,000.
8. Shelby County had 36 jury trials in personal injury and wrongful death cases during the fiscal year.  Davidson County had 33, Hamilton County had 22, Madison County had 10 and Montgomery County had only 5  jury trials.  Knox County had the highest number at 44.    District 17 (Bedford, Lincoln, Marshall and Moore counties) did not have a single personal injury or wrongful death jury trial (and they had only 3 non-jury trials).
9. The "average" amount awarded to a successful plaintiff was about $242,000.   This is the arithmetical mean, greatly influenced by what I am quite confident is the $17,000,000 Putnam County judgment that cannot be collected.  If one throws out that high verdict and the lowest verdict (assume the low verdict is $10,000 – the exact number is unknown) the arithmetical mean drops below $200,000.   The median award would be somewhere under $100,000 (because about 80% of the awards were under $100,000) but we do not have enough data to determine the exact number.