Features
Bankruptcy Court Demolishes Baseless Lender Liability Complaint
A Delaware bankruptcy court held on Nov. 16 that a secured lender with a $128 million claim could credit bid at a judicial sale of a Chapter 11 debtor's assets, after dismissing the expansive complaint filed against the lender by the creditors' committee in the debtor's case (claims for recharacterization of debt as equity; equitable subordination; breach of fiduciary duty; invalid loans; voidable liens; and preference liability).
Features
A Financial Expert's View on e-Discovery and Financial Expert Challenges
In this edition, we offer you the first of a two-part article on the challenge of financial experts as witnesses in cases in which e-discovery is relevant. This month, our expert author from PricewaterhouseCoopers provides an overview of how a financial expert can help counsel in e-discovery and litigation strategy.
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The Use of Market and Industry Data in Patent Damages: The Two Approaches under Federal Rule of Evidence 703
Whether calculating lost profits or performing a 'reasonable royalty' analysis under the <i>Georgia-Pacific</i> factors, a damages expert in a patent case is required to consider a large variety of data ' not just data from the plaintiff or the defendant, but also data from third-party sources, such as trade industry publications or market analyst reports. The admissibility of an opinion based on third-party information, however, has been a source of conflict since 1993, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided <i>Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc.</i>
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Litigating Reduction to Practice: Traps for the Unwary
Part One of this series discussed the two types of reduction to practice: constructive and actual. This installment continues the discussion of satisfying the second prong of the actual reduction to practice test.
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Upgrading Litigation Support Technology
Dorsey & Whitney LLP is a firm of more than 600 lawyers with a litigation and arbitration practice in 15 locations in the United States and in London, Hong Kong and Shanghai. I joined the firm's New York office in the fall of 2005 and assumed, among other duties, the task of advising on the litigation department's deployment of discovery technology for large and complex matters. <br>In part due to the management of the electronic evidence in this dispute, Dorsey's client obtained an order in September 2006 denying class certification and strongly pointing toward the ultimate disposal of the matter. As discussed below, our implementation of the Ringtail Legal 2005 hosted ASP solution ' and the support by FTI Consulting ' was important in this very favorable outcome.
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<b>Practice Tip: </b> A Balanced Approach to Evidence Collection
The plethora of tools designed to make quick work of searching digital files appear to make most data collection tasks trivial. Products such as Google Desktop Search, DTSearch, Microsoft's Lookout and X1's eponymous set of search tools index digital files and e-mail, while providing fast and accurate search results. Of course, the promise of these tools stands in direct contrast to the warnings that litter industry trade publications, admonishing that anything less than a 'forensic' collection could be considered indefensible ' at best leading to a ruling for adverse inference, and at worst resulting in sanctions.
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Case Notes
Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.
Features
Prescription Drug Litigation Pre-emption: A Continuing Status Report From the Defense Perspective
Since the Food and Drug Administration ('FDA') set forth its pre-emption analysis in the preamble to its Jan. 24, 2006 drug-labeling rule, there has been a flood of judicial opinions analyzing the scope and applicability of the pre-emption defense in prescription drug litigation. The cases have been sharply divided, and the defense now appears likely to be a key issue that will be addressed in all cases going forward. In this continuing coverage, I summarize the pre-emption opinions that have been handed down since my last article in the November 2006 issue of this newsletter. For an analysis of the legal arguments in support of pre-emption and the FDA preamble, <i>see</i> Eric G. Lasker, <i>Prescription Drug Litigation Pre-emption Following the FDA Preamble</i>, LJN's Product Liability Law & Strategy, Vol. 25, No. 4 (October 2006).
Features
Exploring the Broader Application Of the Delaware Court's 'Daubert' Decision
The first part of this article discussed the Delaware court's decision in <i>In re Asbestos Litigation</i>, the role of epidemiology in proving causation, and the interpretation of the <i>Daubert</i> decision by several courts. The conclusion examines the role of courts as gatekeepers.
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<b><i>Commentary: </b></i>Just Looking: Should Internet Ignorance Be a Defense to Child Porn Charges?
Two appellate courts recently ruled that an individual who intentionally visited Web sites to view child pornography, but who did not intentionally save those images to his computer's hard drive, could not be convicted or punished for possessing images that were automatically saved due to the Web browser's cache functions. These rulings strike me as badly mistaken, for reasons that I shall explain further below.
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