In October 2004, I wrote a column for The New York Law Journal outlining the status of "no fault" divorce in the State of New York (Lee Rosenberg, Outside Counsel, "Is the Time Ripe for No-Fault Divorce?" NYLJ 10/20/04 at 4, col 4). In the interim between then and now, we still await consideration of the proposed legislation submitted by the Family Law Section of the New York State Bar Association urging the enactment of a long-overdue no fault statute.
Recently, the Associated Press reported the story of a New Hampshire couple with an unusual problem. After being married for a few years, the husband, with his wife's assent, underwent a sex-change operation. The husband, a naturalized U.S. citizen with a foreign birth certificate, is now seeking to have the name on that birth certificate changed from Michael to Mikayla, something the federal government is not necessarily going to allow.
Although banks and financial institutions are currently paying interest on savings at about 4% per year, the statutory rate of interest on judgments is 9% per year, except where otherwise provided by statute. Civil Practice Law and Rules (CPLR) ' 5004. In today's economy, with financial institutions paying low interest rates, the 9% statutory rate on the payment of a distributive award is a good investment for the recipient spouse, if he or she can get it, and an incentive for the obligor spouse to pay the award promptly.
Many states make an exception to the time limitation in which a medical malpractice action may be brought if the cause of action is based on a foreign object left behind in the plaintiff's body. But what if the defendant was not the one who placed the foreign object in the patient? Will the foreign-object exception leave the doctor, nurse or hospital vulnerable to suit years after the patient was treated?
Clinical trial agreements can almost always be negotiated. Most part-time investigators, however, do not have the necessary legal expertise or time to interpret the agreement and conduct an effective negotiation. Proper legal representation at present requires an attorney who is expert in this very specialized field. Because sponsor negotiators often have huge backlogs of contracts in process, and over half of part-time investigators do not negotiate (or even read) the clinical trial agreement, an investigator who opens a negotiation may never emerge from the queue.
In recent years, during voir dire, plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases have sought to ask jurors about their attitudes regarding "tort reform" and the so-called "medical malpractice crisis." These efforts have increased as those issues have moved to the political front burner, receiving considerable media coverage. Only a few courts have considered the validity of such questions, but of those that have, plaintiffs generally have been permitted to inquire as to a potential juror's views on those issues, though some courts have limited the line of questioning.
In product liability, toxic tort, and even medical malpractice litigation, the science in the relevant field is often a crucial battleground, and expert witnesses will do battle over treatises, journal articles, and the like. As every law student knows, scientific publications are inadmissible hearsay. Under the learned treatise rule, an expert witness may testify about scientific publications that have been qualified as learned treatises, but they do not come into evidence and so may not be published to the jury.
Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.
