Court Watch
Highlights of the latest franchising cases from around the country.
Franchise Litigation: 10 Cases That Changed the Landscape in the Past Decade
<i>Armstrong Business Services, Inc., et al., Appellants v. H & R Block, et al.,</i> Bus. Franchise Guide (CCH) '12,485, 96 S.W.3d 867 (Mo. App. 2002). The Armstrong case involved H&R Block franchisees who sued their franchisor for, among other things, encroaching upon the franchisees' territories through the franchisor's Internet business. H&R Block then filed a counterclaim, alleging that all of the franchisees' franchise agreements were terminable at will by Block.
Litigation Update: Supercharging Legacy Databases
Corporations and law firms who manage large ongoing and mission-critical litigation, such as toxic tort or products liability cases, are supercharging the databases they rely on to track and manage the facts and documents in those cases. They are adding full text and linguistic pattern searching capabilities to enable them to gain better command and mastery of the facts and the documents in the case. It is, after all, difficult to have command and mastery of facts or documents you can't find, or to see relationships or patterns in documents you've never before reviewed as a group. Not only are the new databases more effective, but the costs of supercharging them are often offset by savings from avoiding the ongoing costs of the legacy databases.
Case Notes
Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.
Recent Trends in Punitive Damages Awards
The Supreme Court's decision in <i>State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell</i>, 538 U.S. 408 (2003), addressing punitive damage awards was a culminating moment in a decade of high court jurisprudence reigning in multimillion dollar runaway awards. Following the decision, there was a flurry of activity by the Supreme Court itself, and in many lower courts, to remand, conform, and examine current cases in light of the Court's new guidance. With several exceptions where the compensatory damages are nominal or the conduct is particularly reprehensible, court after court is quoting the high court's language regarding ratios and remanding or reducing awards with double-digit ratios. The reasons vary, but include factors such as whether the plaintiff suffered physical or economic injury, the degree of the defendant's determined reprehensibility, wealth, and the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages. In general, the most successful strategies used by defendants to reduce punitive awards are: 1) under the reprehensibility guidepost, to exclude collateral evidence based on an insufficient nexus between the alleged bad conduct and the injury suffered by the plaintiff; and 2) to focus on the ratio between compensatory and punitive damages when it exceeds a single-digit ratio.
Practice Tip: Last Things First ' How Starting with Jury Instructions Can Help Trial Preparations Fall into Place
We have all been there. That settlement conference that you think is going to resolve the case does just the opposite. Opposing counsel's parting words are "we'll see what a jury has to say about that." So there you are, a few weeks before trial with a to-do list that has just increased tenfold. Motions <i>in limine</i>, witness lists, exhibit lists, jury questionnaires and trial briefs all need to be prepared in the coming weeks. The facts of your case begin to play over and over again in your mind like a waking dream (or nightmare).
Digital Images: Don't Blink or You Will Miss Them
The use of digital cameras to create and preserve images has evolved from an expensive, often specialized process to a common practice embraced by the general public. As the use of digital photography has become commonplace, so too are digital photographs being increasingly offered as evidence. Courts generally have accepted digital photographs for the same purposes as traditional photographs: to support testimony and sometimes to take its place as "pictorial testimony." Digital photographs, however, are far more easily altered and manipulated than traditional film photographs, and such changes may be more difficult, if not impossible, to detect.
Online: Everything You Need to Know About Daubert
For everything you ever wanted to know about <i>Daubert</i>, visit <i>www.daubertontheweb.com.</i> The home page will direct you to a variety of links, which include: "Source" (the <i>Daubert</i> opinion); "Progeny" (Supreme Court cases interpreting <i>Daubert</i>); "Procedure" (cases resolving challenges to <i>Daubert</i>); "Fields" (decisions by fields of expertise); "Substance" (the <i>Daubert</i> worldview); "Circuits" (more than 650 appellate decisions); "States" (selected state decisions); "Tactics" (things to try); "User Forum" (to ask a question or state a view); and a Blog.
The Wrong Box: <i>U.S. v. Martignon</i> Not a Copyright Case
A prominent court, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, has rendered what may become a prominent opinion in the copyright arena, <i>U.S. v. Martignon</i>, No. 03 Cr. 1287 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 27, 2004). Unfortunately, the analysis in the decision misses the essential point that the issue was not really one of copyright.
