You are unsure of your rights, so you retain a lawyer. Do so at your own risk and detriment, one judge has concluded in the context of a FLSA claim for overtime. Patraker v. The Council on the Environment of New York City, 2003 WL 22336829 (S.D.N.Y. 10/14/03) (Kaplan D.J.)
In the context of electronic discovery but with implications beyond that setting, Judge Shira Scheindlin issued a further ruling in the hotly contested Zubulake v. UBS Warburg litigation outlining a defendant's obligation to preserve discovery following notice of a possible litigation. 2003 WL 22410619 (S.D.N.Y. 10/22/03) (Zubulake IV). In doing so, Judge Scheindlin has once again mapped the landscape and advanced the jurisprudence relating to the preservation, production, and payment of the costs of electronic discovery.
Your ethics questions answered by the expert.
Earlier this year, the US Department of Labor (DOL) published proposed regulations updating the notice and disclosure requirements applicable to health care continuation coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). These proposed regulations update model notices, give disclosure guidance, and establish two new required COBRA notices.
Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.
A recent decision, Boggs v. Die Fliedermaus, d/b/a Le Bar Bat, 2003 WL 22299315 (S.D.N.Y. 10/07/03) (Sweet, D. J.), offers many lessons for employers about what to do, and not to do, to position themselves for a successful summary judgment motion in a hostile work environment case.
The few months before trial of a complex products liability case is without a doubt the busiest time in the life cycle of the case. Typically this time is spent working with witnesses, drafting trial briefs and trial motions, preparing opening statements, jury questions, and demonstrative exhibits, and drafting direct and cross examinations of the witnesses you anticipate will testify. The latter of these critical pretrial preparations can take a substantial amount of time, especially when preparing cross or direct examination for expert witnesses where the science in support of — or in contravention of — the opinions expressed is complex. Although it's not wise to begin to prepare cross or direct in the frenzied days or weeks before trial, it is often difficult to focus on trial examination of a specific witness earlier in the litigation.
Continuing the trend of informing readers about helpful online services (See October PLLS Online for a description of CourtLink and November PLLS Online for EDOCKET), this month's column describes an electronic discovery service that may be useful in complicated product liability litigation. We are not recommending the service; we merely inform our readers of its existence and its claims.
Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.
According to Professors Henderson and Twerksi, the Reporters for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, "... post-sale warnings are probably the most expansive area in the law of products liability." The authors go on to say that "[I]f you want to see people turn ashen white quickly, we recommend that you gather representatives from industry in a room and then flash the words 'post-sale warnings' on a screen." They further describe post-sale warnings as "timeless" and a "monster duty."
