Articles Posted in Miscellaneous

From over at the Med Mal Blog: The Eastern Section Court of Appeals held today that Givens prevents a trial court from issuing an order that allows ex parte communications with a plaintiff’s treating physicians. The Court of Appeals rejected the argument by the defendant doctors and Tennessee Medical Association that a patient waives confidentiality by filing suit. Although there is a good chance this case is going up to the Tennessee Supreme Court, this resolves the issue for now in favor of patients.

This issue has been popping up in numerous cases across the state, so the Court of Appeals decision is an important one. Many defendants request “authorizations for medical records and information” with written discovery. Think hard before you allow your client to sign on to any medical release that might be read to allow the defendant to skirt Givens.

Branham & Day is happy to announce that our firm is now running another legal blog, medmalblog.com. Several of the attorneys at our office, as well as our nurse-paralegal, are posting entries on the new site. Rebecca Blair, a shareholder at Branham & Day, is leading it. The blog is focused on the plaintiff / patient’s side, and we are planning to provide legal forms, resources, case law summaries, and notes on the tort reform movement. Check it out (in your mythical free time).

Sometimes you need data that you can only find from the federal government. Here is a link to a site that has more statistics than you can shake a stick at. Hundreds of federal agencies have statistics on this site on even more subjects.

Here is another site than can give you public information from state governments.

Our friends in the insurance defense bar have compiled a list of helpful links to websites to do sleuthing on the Internet.

If they are going to do it, don’t you think you might want to consider doing it yourself?

I must say that this isn’t the best such list I have seen, but there are some interesting links concerning the admissibility of digital photography.

Aren’t you sick and tired of these jerks who attack your clients and your profession? I have been jerked around at Little League games, my kids’ basketball games, cocktail parties, church – it never stops.

Here is some ammo you can use to fight back – unless you think that the better course of action is to simply walk away.

You tort and negligence law junkies may have been wondering where I have been the past few days.

Well, I went to Knoxville on Tuesday for a committee meeting to work on the Tennessee Pattern Jury Instructions. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I was at the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association Annual Convention, and last night I went to the Annual Dinner of the American College of Trial Lawyers at Cherokee Country Club.
I came back to work today in an effort to catch up on what appears to be a big pile of work.

I had trouble getting access to the Internet to blog. The computer access in my room went down. There were some “public” computers available. Unfortunately, access to them was hogged by people who saw nothing wrong with using them for hours on end to look for clothes, plan their next vacation, etc. I have learned a lesson.

Client loses products liability case on summary judgment.

Client gets different law firm and sues expert and expert referral service, saying that expert was unqualified and misrepresented qualifications. Client does not sue lawyer.

Expert and expert service then sued the plaintiff’s lawyers for equitable indemnification, saying that the lawyers should pick up part of the loss. The experts said the lawyers waited too late to hire an expert, did not supply the expert with the right information, did not rehabilitate the expert after his deposition, etc. Lawyers moved to dismiss the indemnification claim, arguing a host of issues.

We can’t always talk about negligence and other tort law topics.

Here is a fascinating article by Frank Rich.

I apologize for the absence of a post yesterday. I got to the office at 7:00 a.m. and sat down to do a little fact research on the computer. I got wrapped up in that research and it gave rise to re-writing two motions on discovery issues in a pending case. Those motions turned out to be ten and five pages in length respectively, with a total of 24 exhibits. When I left the office at 6:20 p.m., already 45 minutes late for my son’s baseball game, jumping on the computer again was simply not going to happen.

But, it is now 5:00 a.m., I’m at our cabin at Tim’s Ford Lake, and I am ready to rock ‘n roll.

This should scare the hell out of every one of us who try lawsuits for a living and have to rely on or fight against “scientific studies.”

This article from the Washington Post tells us that (a) “more than 5 percent of scientists answering a confidential questionnaire admitted to having tossed out data because the information contradicted their previous research or said they had circumvented some human research protections;” (b) “ten percent admitted they had inappropriately included their names or those of others as authors on published research reports;” (c)”more than 15 percent admitted they had changed a study’s design or results to satisfy a sponsor, or ignored observations because they had a “gut feeling” they were inaccurate;” and (d)
“13.5 percent who used research designs they knew would not give accurate results.”

It is no surprise that the survey of the 3247 scientists was conducted anonymously.