I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
“The ‘Hot News’ Tort and the New Media” — It’s Too Late For Copyright To Sink Blogs
The New York Law Journal has an excellent, detailed article by Stephen M. Kramarsky on a recent 2nd Circuit opinion: An overly narrow view of the scope of copyright protection risks harming the commercial market for entire classes of works; an overly broad view risks chilling creativity and creating impermissible monopolies on facts. Courts examining the line between fact and expression must keep these concerns in mind, particularly when considering cases that lie entirely outside of the traditional scope of copyright protection, as the court did recently in Associated Press v. All Headline News Corp. ... The [Associated Press] asserts that ... Continue Reading
E-Mail Snooping Under the Stored Communications Act; 4th Circuit Requires “Actual Damages” For Compensatory Damages, But Not For Punitive Damages or Attorney’s Fees
At The National Law Journal (via How Appealing): In a case stemming from an employer's theft of e-mails from the personal account of an employee who had sued him for sexual harassment, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently became the first circuit to hold that plaintiffs must prove actual damages in order to be eligible for an award of statutory damages under the federal Stored Communications Act. But the unanimous panel, led by Chief Judge Karen Williams, also ruled that a showing of actual damages is not required for awards of punitive damages or attorney ... Continue Reading
“Busting the Multipass Erasure Myth” — Don’t Forget Encryption And Hacking Myths, Too
Craig Ball tells it how it is: Ambling along the back roads of listservs and blogs, I often come upon a flea-bitten claim that, "Top notch computer forensic examiners have special tools and techniques enabling them to recover overwritten data from a wiped hard drive so long as the drive was wiped less than 3 or 7 or 35 times." Nonsense! ... You only need one complete pass to eviscerate the data (unless your work requires slavish compliance with obsolete parts of Department of Defense Directive 5220.22-M and you make two more passes for good measure). No tool and no ... Continue Reading
Why Not Place Delayed BigLaw Associates In Cash-Strapped Government Offices?
I know, it's a long-shot, but when I see this: Above the Law has been able to confirm that Ballard Spahr has officially pushed back start dates for its incoming first year associates. A tipster summarizes the details: On Friday Ballard Spahr told its incoming class that it is delaying start dates until September 2010. There will be a $45,000 stipend offered.... The firm claims it will try to help the incoming associates find these jobs.... Getting the money is contingent upon finding a job, but the firm is not limiting the work to public interest legal work. Incoming first ... Continue Reading
Third Circuit Predicts Pennsylvania Supreme Court Would Require Independently Actionable Conduct To Prove Tortious Interference With Contractual Relationships
Fresh off the presses is Acumed LLC v. Advanced Surgical Servs., 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 5854 (3d Cir., March 20, 2009), a charming setup in the insanely hostile and competitive world of medical devices: Acumed is a manufacturer of surgical implants and related devices, and appellant [Morris] and [Advanced Surgical Services] are in the business of distributing surgical implants and other medical devices for various manufacturers, including Acumed, to hospitals and surgeons. ... At the trial, Ryan Crognale, a sales representative for appellant, explained his view of the events that Casey described at Nazareth Hospital. Crognale testified that Morris directed him ... Continue Reading
How To Commit Financial Fraud: Gollum and the Treasury’s New Public Private Partnership
In law school, financial fraud is so simple -- Gollum tells Frodo something that isn't true, Frodo relies on the false statement, then Gollum steals the precious and runs away. The reality is a little more complicated. Take, for example, what New Line Cinema did to Peter Jackson for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, prompting Jackson to sue: The suit charges that the company used pre-emptive bidding (meaning a process closed to external parties) rather than open bidding for subsidiary rights to such things as "Lord of the Rings" books, DVD's and merchandise. Therefore, New Line received far less than ... Continue Reading
“Wolf Block to Take Dissolution Vote to Partnership” — Is It “Sad” When A Huge Firm Dissolves?
At The Legal Intelligencer: The Philadelphia legal community is abuzz with talk this weekend about the future of Wolf Block. Several sources have said members of the executive committee met Saturday to discuss a possible dissolution of the firm. The matter is said to be set for a full partnership vote as early as Monday. A decision to dissolve the firm would need to be approved by at least 75 percent of the partnership, one source said. ... The potential disappearance of Wolf Block and its storied name was described by many in the community as a “sad” turn of events. ... Continue Reading
How AIG Shareholders (Like the US Gov’t) Can Sue to Get Back The Bonuses
The top officials at Treasury have already set aside all of the broad governmental powers available (claiming we are a "nation of laws"), so let's look at the United States purely as an angel investor which saw a large company faltering and swooped in with an 80% equity investment. Uncle Sam has just learned about the following (AIGFP is the “Financial Products” division of AIG, the morons responsible for wiring the global economy to explode by writing trillions of dollars in undercapitalized “credit default swap” policies): In the first quarter of 2008 [a few months prior to the equity purchase], AIGFP ... Continue Reading
More Social Media Law Misunderstanding – Sermo, A Forum for Physicians, Not Immune From Discovery
Fresh off of my juror twittering post yesterday, KevinMD points us to a Newsweek story: What might you overhear if you got 100,000 doctors together in one virtual room? You could find out if you had access to the social network Sermo. It's just one of a growing cadre of sites designed for the nation's practicing physicians. Here, doctors from across the country can consult each other about the ordinary and the weird (or "zebras" in the lingo). There are queries about treatments for everything from plantar warts to photographs of mystifying rashes and even questions about an unfortunate fellow with ... Continue Reading
American College of Trial Lawyers Report Encourages Frivolous Civil Discovery Objections
At the National Law Journal: The American College of Trial Lawyers and a legal think tank have called for a sweeping overhaul of civil discovery rules to curtail expensive, time-consuming battles for documents, in a study released on March 11. The most radical of the changes would impose strict limits on discovery after initial up-front disclosure by both sides. ... The 30-page report contains more than two dozen proposals and general principles for overhauling the discovery rules used in both federal and state courts. It was an 18-month joint project of the ACTL and the Institute for the Advancement of ... Continue Reading
