A recent medical malpractice case from the bought-yourself-an-appeal department: Citing multiple trial errors, a New Jersey appeals court has reversed an $18.9 million verdict against an obstetrician whose delay in ordering a Caesarean delivery a jury found to have caused cerebral palsy in the child. The panel found that Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Louis Locascio failed to limit the testimony of a labor-and-delivery nurse, to issue the jury a contemporaneous limiting instruction on the nurse's testimony and to allow the defendant to admit into evidence a report that had exculpatory value for the obstetrician. ... Zeh, the nurse on duty ... Continue Reading

Norm Pattis has some advice for trial lawyers: A friend recommended several films as classics about trial, so my wife and watched one of them over the weekend, Otto Preminger's, Anatomy of a Murder. ... What makes the film worth watching, however, was the manner in which both sides asked patently improper questions designed and intended to anchor themes in the minds of the jurors. Once such a question was asked, the other side predictably objected, and in the course of the objection reframed the issue at hand in the manner intended by the party asking the question. Here's an ... Continue Reading

I've posted many times before about the economic realities of medical malpractice liability. Via The Pop Tort, a new study commissioned by the the Society of Actuaries has revealed the economic cost of medical malpractice in America: SCHAUMBURG, Ill., (Aug. 9, 2010)–Findings from a new study released today estimate that measurable medical errors cost the U.S. economy $19.5 billion in 2008. Commissioned by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) and completed by consultants with Milliman, Inc., the report used claims data to provide an actuarially sound measurement of costs for avoidable medical injuries. Of the approximately $80 billion in costs associated ... Continue Reading

Modern society has two means by which it assesses truth or falsity: science and law. Just as Einstein recognized "there is no logical path to the [elemental laws of the universe]; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them," Holmes taught "the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience." Scientists and lawyers have learned to value pragmatic experimentation over logical deduction; call it the victory of Aristotle over Plato. (Scientists and lawyers also share a love of semicolons.) But they don't always reach the same conclusions, particularly not on matters of the mind. ... Continue Reading

Via the WSJ Law Blog, the Ninth Circuit, in a significant published opinion with ramifications for copyright litigators, vacated the $10 million verdict — and, more importantly, the constructive trust and injunction — that Mattel won against MGA. Unusually, the panel summed up its own findings at the end: [Carter] Bryant’s employment agreement may not have assigned his ideas for the names “Bratz” and “Jade” to Mattel at all, and the district court erred by holding that it did so unambiguously. Even if Bryant did assign his ideas, the district court abused its discretion in transferring the entire Bratz trademark portfolio ... Continue Reading