Two recent federal appellate court opinions have brought my attention to an issue that is literally a matter of life and death – namely, a change in the policy for allocating donated organs among patients awaiting transplants. The cases (filed barely over a week apart) are Adventist Health System/SunBelt v. United States Department of Health and Human Services (No. 21-1589, 8th Cir., 11/8/2021), https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/21/11/211589P.pdf, and Callahan v. United Network for Organ Sharing (No.
Back in June, in a post about the first (as far as I know) case in which healthcare workers challenged a COVID-19 vaccination requirement, I wrote, “This could be the first of many cases in which employees object to their employer’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement – we’ll have to wait and see.” https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/2021/federal-judge-dismisses-lawsuit-houston-methodist-hospital-employees-who-refused-covid-19. Well, it was indeed th
This one could be headed to the Supreme Court. In Hepp v. Facebook (Nos. 20-2725 & 2885, 3d Cir., 9/23/2021), https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/202725p.pdf, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals created a split in the circuits on an important issue, the Ninth Circuit having ruled the other way in Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill LLC, 488 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir. 2007). Both cases were 2-1 decisions with vigorous dissenting opinions.
This case is must reading for any trial lawyer (plaintiff or defense) who litigates product liability cases that rely on sophisticated expert testimony. In a workmanlike 35-page opinion (I did say the case was complex), the Eighth Circuit reversed the trial court’s exclusion of the plaintiffs’ medical and engineering experts and its resulting grant of summary judgment to the defendant. In re: Bair Hugger Forced Air Warming Devices Products Liability Litigation – Amador v.
That is the startling title of a recent article in the Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/paramedics-not-just-ambulance-drivers/619395/. The subtitle is, “The misperception that paramedics are merely ambulance drivers is everyone’s problem.” Key excerpts are below, but the whole article is well worth reading. The Atlantic is paywalled, but nonsubscribers get three free articles a month, so you should be able to access it. And remember, if you need an E
This could be the first of many cases in which employees object to their employer’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement – we’ll have to wait and see. In Bridges v. Houston Methodist Hospital (S.D.
That’s an unkind title, I know. But really, when the plaintiff’s attorney submitted a pharmacist’s affidavit in opposition to a physician’s motion for summary judgment (which was supported by a physician’s affidavit), what did he think was going to happen?
Back in the Before Time, one of my clients decided that the personal presence of expert witnesses in the courtroom was rarely necessary and hence rarely worth the expense. He used to fly around the country taking video depositions of experts for trial testimony purposes, typically scheduling two, three, or even four such depositions in the course of one trip. He was perfectly comfortable presenting expert testimony to juries on a screen. Perhaps, unbeknownst to my client, his method was a harbinger of things to come. Because from March 2020 to the present, as far as I know, no expert ha
The title of this blog post is the holding of a recent Tenth Circuit case, Tanner v. McMurray, https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/19/19-2166.pdf (10th Cir. 3/2/2021). All quotations below (except the statute itself) are from Senior Circuit Judge Lucero’s outstanding opinion for a unanimous panel. Footnotes, citations and internal brackets are omitted (i.e., bracketed language is mine); most internal quotation marks are omitted.
The novel coronavirus has profoundly altered the legal landscape over the past 12 months. Courts have been forced to change their operating procedures, restrict access, amend scheduling orders (often more than once), postpone trials, and conduct almost all hearings and other routine court business via Zoom. For example, “Since the start of the pandemic, Texas courts have held more than 1 million virtual hearings, leaving [judges] often in charge of guiding others through technical difficulties.”
