Articles Posted in Miscellaneous

AAJ has released a report titled "The Ten Worst Insurance Companies in America."  Read it here.

The list: 

1.  Allstate

This post has nothing to do with torts.

How is it possible that the White House, which has direct access to and hopefully control  over the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA, the NSA, and  host of other agencies, possibly rely on a Web site called Encyclopedia of World Biography to prepare a biography on a world leader?   Want to know more?  Read this article in the Washington Post.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070802652.html

BTW, read this for George W. Bush’s bio on the same site.  A teaser: 

I spent the last week at Rosemary Beach, Florida with my family.  I took a week off from blogging and virtually everything else and did nothing.

Let the blogging begin!  Here is a Tort Law Tibit from June of 2005:

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.

Harris Interactive conducted a online poll about  jury service in December 2007.  The findings include the following:

* "Two-thirds (65%) of Americans have been called to serve jury duty, two-thirds of that (68%) actually attended, leaving one-third (32%) who did not.

* Of those who have attended jury duty, just over half (55%) have actually served on a jury.

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 thong.    Oh sure, I knew that a thong could cause financial loss, usually in the form of alimony paid by the married man dating a woman who wore one.  And I could certainly image some degree of discomfort when wearing a thong in a foreseeable manner- clearly an assumed risk.  But actionable personal injury?  Nope, never crossed my mind.

Well, it has happened.  Or at least Macrida Patterson, a 52 year old woman from California, says it happened.  Her lawyer told The Smoking Gun that "a "design problem" caused [a] decorative piece [on the thong] to come loose and strike Patterson in the eye, causing damage to her cornea."    The offending piece of merchandise was  reportedly  a "’low-rise v-string’ from the Victoria’s Secret ‘Sexy Little Thing’ line."  Read the article and complaint here.

TSG also tells us that   "v-strings" are an undergarment that serves as  the Victoria’s Secret variant on the "g-string," " which has long been favored in the battle against visible panty lines" (also known as "vpls").  (Aren’t you men glad TSG saved us hours of time paging through the latest VS catalog trying to figure this out?  For those of you who don’t trust TSG, go here and conduct your own research.)

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 indeed the opinion mistakenly refers to it as such.  Rule 35 exams usually have the same degree of objectivity as a mother opining on  the character and physical appearance of her only son. 

But on to substance.  Very few civil procedure cases find their way to the Tennessee Supreme Court (exception:  Rule 56) and when one does get there we need to read it.  This is true even in this case where the plaintiff was pursuing a worker’s compensation claim and the issue is primarily covered by the Worker’s Compensation Act.

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 benefit from knowledge of it when they have to do discovery in other states that also have the Act

The legislation also repeals on portion of the current chapter, T.C.A. Section 24-9-103.

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 result in resolution of the case.  Either the employer or the employee may file a worker’s compensation complaint.  When the employee and employer reside in two different judicial circuits and one or both lawyers perceive that one forum is more favorable than the other there is a literal race to see who can file first where after an unsuccessful BRC.  If both file on the same day which action is permitted to proceed?

The Court said that "a lawsuit becomes “pending” when the complaint is filed. Although the filing of the complaint initiates the pendency of the case, a subsequent case will be subject to dismissal under the prior suit pending doctrine only if the court in the prior case has acquired personal jurisdiction over the parties." 

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 Justice Ginsberg Monday morning; the rest of the day was left to a debate on a tentative draft of certain aspects of the law of aggregate litigation.  On Tuesday we dealt with the law of nonprofit organizations and unjust enrichment. 

There were no  pure tort projects on the agenda for this meeting.  I belong to the Members Consultative Group for two projects, Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm and Economic Torts and Related Wrongs.  Here is a description of the drafting process.