In this writer's experience, the majority of medical malpractice cases involve a primary target defendant, usually a hospital or attending physician, often joined with multiple codefendants with less potential exposure. It is not uncommon to find three or more defense firms playing active roles in the discovery process, and, for purposes of this article, we shall refer to those defendants with lesser potential exposure as 'secondary defendants.'
Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.
Jurisdiction in a matrimonial action has several statutory components requiring the repeated cross-application of the Civil Practice Law and Rules with the Domestic Relations Law (DRL). Knowledge of the statutes' interplay becomes especially essential to the matrimonial attorney when seeking to affect the status of the marriage and obtain jurisdiction over a non-resident.
Over the years, matrimonial lawyers everywhere have increasingly embraced the concept of working with experienced, credentialed professionals who specialize in the financial aspects of divorce. Originally, most of these specialists were Certified Public Accountants and the work was mainly of a forensic nature. Recently, however, we have seen an increase in the involvement of professionals whose background is in the financial planning arena. Today, among other tasks, the planner is often retained to examine the longer-term impact of settlements and answer the client's question: 'Will I be okay financially?'
Two-and-a-half years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in the remedial portion of its bifurcated decision in U.S. v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), that the system of federal Sentencing Guidelines established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 could pass constitutional muster only if the Guidelines were treated as having advisory, rather than mandatory, effect. But Booker left open the question of how much weight the now advisory Guidelines should henceforth be given in a district court's sentencing calculus. Last November, the Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in two cases ' Rita v. United States, and Claiborne v. United States, that seemed likely to resolve this question.
With its Feb. 21, 2007 holding in Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts, 127 S. Ct. 1105 (2007), the Supreme Court stepped in to resolve a Circuit Court split concerning a debtor's right to convert a Chapter 7 case to a Chapter 13 case under the Bankruptcy Code, pursuant to ' 706(a) of the Code. On its face, ' 706(a) seems clear ' a debtor has an absolute, one-time right to conversion. Such clarity is, in the Supreme Court's view, hazy at best.
Recording Agreements/Forum-Selection Clause; Royalty Claims/Letter of Inducement; TV Music Scores/Synchhornization Royalties.
The Appellate Court of Conn-ecticut affirmed that the rap group Fort Knox failed to establish that a member's brother tortiously interfered with the group's business expectancy of entering into a recording contract with rap mogul Master P.
Frequently missing from the plethora of articles on the pitfalls and potential problems in electronic discovery data for the uninitiated or unaware is practical experience and analysis from the trenches. This article addresses key EDD issues and pitfalls in a particular case involving 44 million pages of electronic records and a jury verdict of about $570 million, with a focus on the consequences of retaining too much electronic information and ways to solve problems that plague large companies involved in e-discovery.
