One of our clients has a term for unusual or hard-to-find experts – he calls them “pink unicorns.” We became aware of this phenomenon some years ago, even before we learned that felicitous phrase, when a plaintiff’s attorney needed a dermatology expert for a complex case adverse to one of the most prominent and highly-regarded dermatologists in the United States. Dozens of experts refused the case before we found a well-qualified dermatologist (not a “professional expert”) who was willing to review it. The client was ecstatic, and obviously we were gratified to accomplish what he had be
Rule 702 of the Minnesota Rules Evidence provides that “[an expert’s] opinion must have foundational reliability.” This is the functional equivalent of Fed. R. Evid.
We’ve never blogged about a U.S. Supreme Court decision, though I did mention Feres v. United States in a post about recent legislation that created a long-overdue exception to the Feres doctrine – namely, allowing members of the armed forces to seek redress under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for negligent medical treatment at a military facility.
There is a split in the circuits on the important question of whether a medical opinion can be false within the meaning of the False Claims Act (FCA).
Yes, Vident Partners is still open for business and actually functioning quite well.
Two class actions have been brought against GOJO, the maker of Purell hand sanitizer, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
In my ongoing chronicle of sports-related litigation, https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/sports-law, I have previously had occasion to cite the work of Michael McCann, Sports Illustrated’s legal analyst and the founding director of the University of New Hampshire Law School’s Sports and Entertainment Law Institute. Professor McCann has outdone himself in a just-posted article, “U.S. Women’s National Team Challenges Use of U.S.
The importance of expert opinion (offered either by affidavit or in deposition testimony) in summary judgment practice cannot be overstated. We have previously written about this in a number of different contexts: medical malpractice (https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/2019/medical-expert’s-affidavit-opposition-summary-judgment-fails-establish-triable-issue), health insurance coverage (
During the course of our nearly 15 years in the business, we’ve provided attorneys with consulting and testifying experts in over a hundred fields of expertise for many different types of litigation. From time to time a particular litigation area gets “hot,” which leads to attorneys requesting experts in particular specialties for an unusually high number of cases. For example, there was a period of about 3 years a while back when we provided experts for dozens of asbestos cases.
Appellate opinions usually begin with a very short introductory paragraph – just enough to orient the reader to the nature of the case and the outcome of the appeal. Here’s a typical example:
