Personal Injury Law

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 10

Posted on August 14, 2009
Post 10 addresses changes to the Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984, codified at TCA Title 47, Chapter 25, Part 11. Here is a summary of the new law: Under present law, the Personal Rights Protection Act specifies that an individual is entitled to recover the actual damages suffered as a result of the knowing use or infringement of such individual's rights and any profits that are attributable to such use or infringement which are not taken into account in computing the actual damages...

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 9

Posted on August 13, 2009
Post 9 in our ongoing series of legislation of interest to tort lawyers addresses a new act that clarifies the responsibility of cemetary operators when they learn that a body has been interred in the wrong burial plot at the cemetery.  If the cemetary operator complies with the statute no damages can be awarded against the cemetery unless the cemetery acted intentionally or with malice...

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 8

Posted on August 12, 2009
This is Post 8 in my review of the legislation of interest to tort lawyers that was passed by the General Assembly in 2009.   Want to see more?  Look at the Legislation 2009 category. This legislation is of interest to those who bring or defend dram shop cases...

Thank You

Posted on August 12, 2009
Last week I received a letter informing me that I had been selected  for inclusion in the 2010 edition of Best Lawyers in America.   I have been fortunate to have been included among this distinguished group of lawyers since 1993...

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New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 7

Posted on August 11, 2009
Here is Post 7 of recent changes to statutory law in Tennessee that I think will be of interest to tort lawyers.  As I have said in the last six posts,  you can read about additional changes in the law under the Legislation 2009 category. Public Chapter 206  changed the Governmental Tort Liability Act to include Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 29-20-101  et seq, to   specifically include "community action agenc[ies] [and] nonprofit corporation[s] which administer[] the Head Start or Community Service Block Grant programs" as entities covered under the Act...

Tips for Managing Email

Posted on August 11, 2009
LIke you, I get a lot of emails every day.  All too often, I permit emails to control my work schedule - a big mistake. Here is a nice article that gives suggestions for managing the mass of emails that enter our lives every day.   The writer, Stever Robbins, accurately points out the reason for the problem: Before e-mail, senders shouldered the burden of mail...

Dead By Mistake

Posted on August 11, 2009
The "Dead By Mistake" website, hosted by the San Francisco Chronicle, contains chilling stories of deficiencies in our health care system that result in injury and death.  This alone brings the point home:  more people die each month from preventable medical errors than died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11...

Dog Bite Case Website

Posted on August 10, 2009
I admire people who have the foresight and courage to pick a practice area and learn it, inside out.  I greatly admire those who share the knowledge they have to help other lawyers and the public. Here is a fine example: Dog Bite Law by Kenneth Phillips...

Blore's Razor

Posted on August 08, 2009
Those of us who do medical malpractice work are familiar with Occam's Razor, the common understanding of which (as stated on Wikipedia) is that "of several acceptable explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is preferable, provided that it takes all circumstances into account...

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 6

Posted on August 07, 2009
This is the sixth in a series of posts concerning changes in Tennessee statutory law that I believe to be of interest to tort lawyers.  For more changes click on the Legislation 2009 category of this blog. Public Chapter 201 prohibits, subject to certain exceptions,  the reading or sending of text messages while operating a motor vehicle and while the vehicle is in motion...

Objections to Form of the Question at Depositions (With a Discussion About Objections to Leading Questions)

Posted on August 06, 2009
"All objections, except those as to the form of the question, are reserved."  This sentence, or one substantially similar to it, may be found at the beginning of every deposition.  But what are objections to the form of the question? Evan Shaeffer at The Trial Practice Tips Weblog shared a list of objections to form in a recent post...

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 5

Posted on August 05, 2009
This is the fifth in a series of posts about changes in Tennessee statutory law of interest to tort lawyers.   For other changes click on the Legislation 2009 category. Tennessee has a "Ski Area Safety and Liability Act" codified at TCA Section 68-114-101 et seq...

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 4

Posted on August 04, 2009
This is the fourth in a series of posts that addresses new laws of interest to Tennessee tort lawyers.  For other changes go to the Legislation 2009 category of this blog. Those of us who keep an eye on the Tennessee General Assembly know that there is an ongoing battle over whether hospitals will be permitted to employ physicians...

Critical Self-Evaluation Privilege

Posted on August 03, 2009
Tim Edwards of Memphis has shared an opinion from the federal court in Memphis that refused to recognize the existence of the so-called "critical self-examination privilege." The products case concerns the HiRes 90k cochlear implant, a Class ITI medical device that provides a sense of sound by direct stimulation of the auditory nerves...

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 3

Posted on August 03, 2009
Many lawyers think that the law concerning depositions is set out only in the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure and the case law interpreting those rules.  That is not correct. Public Chapter 55 creates a new subsection  to TCA Section 24-9-101, which  allows court to award attorney fees and expenses if motion to quash subpoena is granted when the witness is exempt from subpoena to trial...

Implementation of "Red Flags" Rule Delayed

Posted on July 31, 2009
On July 20 I warned you about new federal regulations known as the "Red Flag" rules, which require businesses, including lawyers and law firms, to take pro-active measures to detect and prevent identity theft.  The rules were scheduled to go into effect on August 1...

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 2

Posted on July 30, 2009
The second post in this series reports on a new law that confers immunity from civil action upon victims of crime for testimony given at offender's parole hearing unless testimony is intentionally or maliciously false and defamatory. Here is the full text of the new statute: T...

Memphis BBQ Causes Salmonella Infections

Posted on July 30, 2009
For the last five or six years my friend Bill Marler, food poisoning lawyer extraordinaire, and I have worked together on food poisoning cases.   Bill knows this area like the back of his hand and is widely understood to be the lawyer with the greatest expertise in this field...

Suing Drug Dealers

Posted on July 29, 2009
As you would expect, the Tennessee General Assembly is not particularly fond of drug dealers.  But did you know that the General Assemby had passed what they call the "Drug Dealer Liability Act?" The Act, codified at TCA 29-38-101 et seq, permits the recovery of damages caused by drug dealers...

A National Medical Safety Board?

Posted on July 29, 2009
That is what Tennessee's own Jim Hall called for in today's New York Times.  An excerpt from Jim's op-ed piece:  Because American medicine accepts error as an inevitable consequence of treatment, our hospitals, insurers and government do little to respond to unnecessary deaths...

New Tennessee Legislation of Interest to Tort Lawyers - Post 1

Posted on July 28, 2009
This post is a first in a series of posts that will address new laws passed by the 106th General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Bredesen.  The posts will run two or three days per week over the next several weeks. The first post is a change to the Tennessee Peer Review Law of 1967...

Dangers Caused By Truck Drivers Who Text While Driving.

Posted on July 28, 2009
Texting while driving is now illegal in Tennessee, and a study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute reaffirms why the law is necessary. For truck drivers, the risk of a crash or near-crash event increases by a 23.2 times as compared with non-distracted driving...

Tennessee Motor Vehicle Deaths Decrease But Still Higher Than National Average

Posted on July 27, 2009
Deaths on Tennessee roads continued to decrease in 2008.  A total of 1035 people were killed on Tennessee roads in 2008, down from 1211 in 2007and 1339 in 2004.  Nationally, 37,261 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2008. Tennessee deaths were 16...

Does Error of Counsel Justify Setting Aside a Default Judgment?

Posted on July 24, 2009
Not in the Seventh Circuit, it doesn't.   In Bakery Machinery & Fabrication, Inc. v. Traditional Baking, Inc.,  No 08-1967 (7th Cir. June 29, 2009) the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit refused to vacate a default judgment under Rule 60(b)(6)...

Laying A Foundation to Admit a Photograph into Evidence

Posted on July 23, 2009
The trial of virtually every personal injury or wrongful death case involves the use of one or more photographs.  The recent decision in Zerega Ave. Realty Corp. v. Hornbeck Offshore Transp., LLC, __ F.3d __ (2d Cir. July 6, 2009) (No. 08-0639-CV) reminds us that the failure to lay a proper foundation will result in exclusion of photographs at trial...

SVMIC - 2008 Financial Results - Part 4

Posted on July 22, 2009
I have released three prior posts on the financial condition of State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company - click here to read them:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. The bottom line is that conservative financial management at SVMIC has permitted the company to accumulate a quarter of a billion dollars in net worth, even as the number of policyholders has declined 4% of the last year...

Justice Programs 2009

Posted on July 21, 2009
Penny White, Joe Riley and I are on the road again this Fall for the 2009 Justice Programs seminars.  This two-day,  15-hour is designed for Tennessee lawyers who do civil litigation.  We will be in Nashville November 19 and 20, Chattanooga on December 3 and 4,  Memphis on December 10 and 11, and Knoxville on December 17 and 18...

Red Flag Rules for Law Firms

Posted on July 20, 2009
The agent who sells us our professional liability insurance coverage sent me this last Wednesday: On August 1, 2009, new federal regulations enforced by the FTC will go into effect; the so-called Red Flag rules, which require businesses, including lawyers and law firms, to take pro-active measures to detect and prevent identity theft...

Consent Provisions in Professional Liability Insurance Policies

Posted on July 17, 2009
Last Friday a Memphis jury awarded almost $24M to a woman and her husband in a civil suit arising out of what the jury found to be medical negligence arising from the  failure to promptly diagnose breast cancer.  The woman is in the last weeks of her shortened life...

For Sale

Posted on July 17, 2009
The American Conservative Union, the nation's oldest conservative lobbying organization, has firmly held core beliefs.  Those core beliefs are apparently for sale to the highest bidder, even if the highest bidder is on the opposite side of the issue than the other potential bidder...

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