Kelo v. City of New London: Takings, 'Public Use,' Urban Waterfront Redevelopment, and the Likely Survival of the Republic
In June, the Supreme Court affirmed the power of municipal redevelopment agencies to take property by eminent domain in order to assemble large parcels for economic development. <i>Kelo v. City of New London</i>, No. 04-108 (U.S. June 23, 2005) held that a municipality may take private homes in good condition to transfer them to a private developer as a part of an integrated plan to redevelop an area of New London. This use of eminent domain did not violate the "public use" requirement of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment that, at its core, prohibits the government from taking private property solely to transfer it to another private person to serve a private interest. Kelo follows the Court's decision in <i>Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc.</i>, 125 S. Ct. 2074 (2005), where the Court ruled that a state statute that was not reasonably calculated to achieve its stated goal was not, by virtue of that irrationality, an unconstitutional taking. (In that case, the statute imposed a cap on the rent that oil companies could charge service station owners in Hawaii in order to achieve the stated goal of lower gasoline prices.)
Federal Preemption and Tort Claims
For medical device manufacturers, federal preemption can be a powerful defense to state tort claims. Although there is some split of authority, most federal courts of appeals that have addressed the issue have held that when a medical device reaches the market via the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) rigorous "premarket approval" (PMA) process, many state common law claims are expressly preempted by the Medical Device Amendments (MDA) of 1976.
Experts on Juries
As blanket occupational exemptions for jury duty become a relic, litigators are split on whether there is a need for specific jury instructions to keep jurors from relying on their expertise in evidentiary matters. This issue tends to be particularly troubling for medical malpractice attorneys, as the pool of potential jurors with knowledge of medical issues -- doctors, nurses, physical therapists, etc. -- is so large. One court system -- New York's - instructs professionals to keep their expertise outside of the jury room. No other court currently singles out professional jury-deliberation conduct in jury instructions.
<b>Practice Tip:</b> Taking Conceptual Search to the Next Level
Conceptual search is widely regarded as a technological Rosetta stone enabling faster, more comprehensive, and more revealing evidence review, but its use in the legal community to date has been limited primarily to a handful of outsourced electronic discovery services. At Foley & Lardner LLP, we realized early on that we could take full advantage of this advanced search technology only by bringing it in-house.
Deadlines On Demand Simplifies Calendaring Juggling Act
Practicing law has never been a problem for me or for the other attorneys at my firm; we're very confident of our skills as lawyers and our ability to properly serve clients. But keeping up with the administrative details of creating a solid, reliable calendaring system had become particularly labor intensive in our rapidly growing practice.
Employee Blogging: What Employers Don't Know Could Hurt Them
According to an American Management Association 2005 survey of 536 employers, 84% of companies have established policies relating to personal e-mail use, and 81% have established policies relating to personal Internet use, but only 23% have policies on personal postings on corporate blogs. <br>This article discusses blogging and the potential for employer liability that employee blogging presents. It recommends that employers establish blogging policies so that such liability hopefully may be avoided.
Leading Questions and Child Witnesses
Lawyers involved in product liability cases are occasionally involved with child witnesses, either as plaintiffs or as percipient witnesses to the critical events in the lawsuit. As in other types of litigation, child witnesses present a number of difficult challenges in product liability cases.
