LJN Newsletters

In Merscorp. v. Romaine (see page 7, infra), Suffolk County Supreme Court was faced with a clash between the traditionally local real property recording system and the increasingly national secondary mortgage market. The County Clerk's office had refused to accept for recording instruments filed in the name of MERS (Mortgage Electronic Recording Systems, Inc.), prompting a proceeding by MERS and the operating company that owns the MERS system for a writ of mandamus compelling the County Clerk to record and index MERS instruments. The case resulted in a split decision: the County Clerk is required to record MERS mortgages, but not assignments or certificates of discharge. The court's opinion, however, reveals some misunderstanding both of the MERS system and of the recording act.

The latest cases.

Recent developments in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.

Businesses of all sizes and types should not buy Web sites like a commodity.
Though it's true that many smaller firms have Web sites, good site design and coding require too much skill and creativity to risk using the lowest-cost provider.
Instead, a successful Web-site development contract requires business oversight by the proper personnel ' a team of them ' just as the negotiation of a joint venture or other complex deal does.

Legislative proposals to regulate spyware and adware have proliferated in Congress and in state legislatures in recent months. To date, only one state ' Utah ' has enacted legislation (enforcement of which as of mid-July had been temporarily enjoined on Constitutional grounds), but several other states and Congress may well do so before the end of the year.
This article describes the various legislative proposals for the regulation of spyware and adware, and their potential impact on e-commerce ' and provides a snapshot of these efforts' status as of the beginning of August.

The American Society for Quality (ASQ), www.asq.org, headquartered in Milwaukee, was formed Feb. 16, 1946. The purpose of the 104,000-member professional association is to create better workplaces and communities worldwide by advancing learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange to improve business results. ASQ makes its officers and member experts available to inform and advise Congress, government agencies, state legislatures, and other groups and individuals on quality-related topics. ASQ representatives have provided testimony on issues such as training, health care quality, education, transportation safety, quality management in the federal government, licensing for quality professionals, and more.

Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.

Imagine that you represent a manufacturer who is being sued in a putative class action alleging that one of your client's products is defective. Although some consumers who used the product were injured as a result of the defect, the class action complaint does not make any claims for personal injury. Instead, the complaint asserts claims for economic damages only (eg, refunds of the purchase price of the product). Conventional wisdom would say that you should be thankful. Economic damages usually pale in comparison to personal injury damages, so if putative class counsel has chosen to forego a potentially larger verdict, so be it. Unconventional wisdom, on the other hand, would recognize that the class plaintiffs are "splitting" their claims, and claim splitting presents a number of unique issues for defense counsel.