Litigation

Recent high-profile cases of interest to you and your practice.

In the recently decided AWG Leasing Trust case, No. 1:07-CV-857 (N.D. Ohio 2008), a federal district court found against a taxpayer that engaged in a cross-border sale-leaseback of a waste-to-energy facility located in Germany. Herein is a discussion of the case and its aftermath.

Accustomed to manning the ramparts in defense of its landlord client's form of lease, it is always a bit unsettling for a landlord's lawyer to be advised by its client that "for this national tenant, we must work from the tenant's form of lease." Suddenly, instead of engaging in the familiar determination of which of the tenant's requested lease revisions are acceptable to the landlord, the lawyer is faced with determining which essential provisions of a lease from landlord's perspective are either entirely or substantially missing from the tenant's form of lease and then negotiating to include such provisions.

Both Labor Law '240(1) and '241(6) impose a nondelegable duty on property owners to provide specified protections to workers. This duty exists regardless of whether or not the owner controlled, directed, or supervised the work. As the courts have repeatedly observed, the imposition of this duty protects workers, by placing ultimate responsibility for their safety upon owners and contractors, instead of on the workers themselves.

Substantial portions of commercial space are commonly available via sublease. In comparison with a direct lease (which customarily becomes effective upon execution and delivery by the Landlord and the Tenant), a sublease usually only becomes effective if and when the Sublandlord and Subtenant execute and deliver the Sublease and the Master Landlord executes and delivers a Consent to Sublease.

On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, a ruling likely to fortify the view that an award of punitive damages should not exceed the amount of the compensatory award. To be sure, some will argue that there are, may be, or ought to be, exceptions; some will argue that the Court was only deciding federal common law in a maritime case and not the limits of state common law; and some may say there is still support for accepting punitive awards that exceed a 1:1 ratio.

Product liability litigation is waged through battles of the experts. Hotly contested disputes over expert testimony arise early and often, from discovery through trial and even appeal. Disputes intensify when parties use their own employees as experts because the law governing employee expert disclosure remains undeveloped.

Analysis of recent rulings.