In Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office v. Office of the Atty General, et al., the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed the Office of the Attorney General’s (OAG) denial of the petitioner’s request for representation in a...more
In the context of a breach of contract action, one very important, often misunderstood, legal doctrine is the economic loss doctrine. In general, the purpose of this legal doctrine is to prevent a breach of contract case from...more
A letter or three per year, alerting of a data breach at a company with which you’ve interacted, is now par for the course. Hackers, and the companies whose data they seek, are engaged in a near-daily volley of attacks and...more
In Ohio Sec. Ins. Co v. Brakefire, Inc., CA. No. 5:24-cv-267, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97606 (Brakefire), the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio considered whether a subrogating plaintiff’s negligence...more
One of the more unique aspects of Louisiana law was its 1-year statute of limitations (liberative prescription) for tort claims. The one-year time period to file a lawsuit was stress-inducing for plaintiffs, particularly in...more
In City of Aspen v. Burlingame Ranch II Condo. Owners Ass’n, Inc., 2024 CO 46 (Colo. 2024), the Colorado Supreme Court case clarifies that the economic loss rule (ELR) has no part to play in determining whether the Colorado...more
The impersonation of celebrity voices is nothing new. Almost 40 years ago, Bette Midler successfully sued Ford Motor Company when it used an impersonation of her voice in a car commercial. Singer Tom Waits also won a similar...more
In a recent decision, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in the case of Sipp v. Buffalo Thunder Inc. that state courts do not have the authority to adjudicate tort claims filed by casino visitors. The unanimous decision...more
The Supreme Court came down hard on unions last month when it held that a company may bring state law tort claims against a union for property damage caused during a strike. The Court held that the federal law governing labor...more
The Justice Department’s invited amicus curiae brief in Blassingame v. Trump1 exposes another anomaly in treating the President’s scope of employment as a question of state tort law for purposes of the Westfall Act. In...more
In University of Massachusetts Building Authority v. Adams Plumbing & Heating, Inc., 2023 Mass. App. Unpub. LEXIS 28, 102 Mass. App. Ct. 1107, the Appeals Court of Massachusetts (Appeals Court) considered whether the lower...more
The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case that could make it easier for employers to sue and recover damages from labor unions that damage an employer’s property during a strike. The issue before SCOTUS in Glacier...more
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, June 16, 2022 - In this asbestos matter, the plaintiffs allege that James Becnel was exposed to asbestos at the Avondale Shipyards in 1965. Recently, several...more
The U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Medicaid Act on June 6, 2022, to permit state Medicaid programs to recover costs for future medical care that has not yet been provided and may never be provided from Medicaid...more
A chronic issue in Texas law is defining when representations made by a “seller” prior to contract execution bind the seller, notwithstanding contract language that purports to disclaim or otherwise limit the “buyer’s” right...more
Contract parties, sophisticated and unsophisticated, often attempt to limit their exposure to post-execution claims of the contract counterparty, particularly to misrepresentation claims, by the contract language. These...more
Recent federal court decisions in the Sixth and Eighth circuits affirm holdings in other circuits - The Sixth Circuit, in Matthews v. Centrus Energy Corporation, affirmed that the Price-Anderson Act broadly preempts state...more
In a recent unpublished Fourth Circuit decision, Brentzel v. Fairfax Transfer& Storage, Inc., the broad preemptive force of the Carmack Amendment was reiterated and held sufficient to preempt a plaintiff’s state law tort...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit addresses the United States’ immunity from suit for fire suppression efforts. ESQUIVEL v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - The Court held that the district court correctly dismissed plaintiffs’...more
Degliomini v. ESM Productions, Inc. and City of Philadelphia, 253 A.3d 226 (Pa. June 22, 2021) (Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that pre-injury exculpatory release granting city immunity from duty to maintain city streets...more
An unaccepted offer of judgment that contains internal inconsistencies and ambiguities as to its scope is neither enforceable nor supports an award of attorney’s fees under Georgia’s Rule 68. Reversing a trial court’s...more
March 9, 2021, was a busy day for the Fifth Circuit in the wage and hour arena when it issued two decisions that carry big implications for application of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal law that requires...more
Brownback v. King, No. 19-546: Under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”), a plaintiff is allowed to bring certain state-law tort suits against the Federal Government in federal court. An FTCA claim is actionable if it...more
The brawl over climate tort liability has returned, again, to the U.S. Supreme Court. In its first skirmish in 2011, the Court in Connecticut v. American Electric Power swept the board by declaring that the federal Clean Air...more
Imagine the following. A developer consults with an architect in 2020 about a six-building condominium project. The architect promptly produces a set of plans, which are stamped by an engineer. Over the next three years, the...more