But doesn't the pharmaceutical company ultimately save billions of dollars and avoid a significant amount of exposure because of this? Are you saying that Beasley Allen and other major mass tort firms are fighting it just for optics?
From what I understand, they are fighting whether these claims risk insolvency and therefore whether bankruptcy is even appropriate. There are a whole host of decisions on that issue in the asbestos context. Ironically, most of them involve a debtor working collusively with the asbestos plaintiffs bar in a prepackaged bankruptcy, which is a specific type of Chapter 11 procedure for asbestos cases. If the company is not in danger of insolvency, then they get booted from bankruptcy court, and no separate run off company is allowed. Any corporate transaction to create a runoff that occurs outside of bankruptcy confirmation is treated like any other fraudulent conveyance to avoid creditors.
I know I've talked before about Washington's mandatory arbitration system, whereby if a Plaintiff stipulates his damages are capped at X, the case gets placed into Arb, fast-tracked thru discovery, and a hearing within 3-4 months. There's a right to appeal trial de novo, so it's not a final order. In 2019, WA increased the Arb amount from $50K to $100K -- so now you have private arbitrators deciding six-figure soft-tissue cases with no regard for the rules of evidence. It's a shitshow. But, with the $100K increase, that now means an Arb case with diverse Parties can be removable -- even though it's getting fast-tracked thru Arb. We try to get Pltf Counsel to stipulate their damages are below $75K/they will not be seeking the full Arb limit, otherwise we're going to remove. It's always radio-silence until we actually remove the case, then they can't sign the stipulation fast enough. I am about to file my 5th removal this year, and the instant we file, Pltf Counsel will come back and stipulate his damages don't exceed the federal diversity threshold, and agree to cap them at $75K. It's all so fucking stupid. Then, when I tell my partner it's fucking stupid/frustrating, "well, it's just part of your job. We're creating leverage." GTFO
Exactly. 90% of the time, removing a case is filling in forms, but it's a lot of paperwork that you need to be fucking perfect before filing in Federal Court. So it's boring and tedious. And I have a lot of other substantive shit to do. I hate this fucking job.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a state court filing that did not name at least one nondiverse defendant.
Just had a federal judge make my argument for me to remand a case back to state court because they had no interest in hearing a 1st party property case.
I just filed my first one in forever because of this recent georgia Supreme Court decision that lets us avoid apportionment in cases brought against a single defendant. I’m interested to see if they actually remove me or not.
I defended some shitty general liability case a few years ago where the client asked me to remove the matter to federal court. I begrudgingly attempted to because I fucking hate federal court. I receive a sua sponte order from the judge indicating that there was a defect in my petition for removal and giving me like 12 hours to fix it. The judge doesn’t tell me what the defect was, mind you. So I went over to my then-partner at the time who did more federal work than I did and asked to borrow a template for a successful removal petition he had used. I spent the rest of the night and next morning dotting every i and crossing every t to make sure my petition matches exactly the way my partner’s previous successful petition did, and I file it timely. A day later I get a 12-page order denying my petition for removal. The basis? I used the word “resident” instead of “citizen” when explaining why there was diversity. The order was unappealable. Fucking asshole.
I was honestly glad to be bounced out of federal court, but at the time was shitting myself over potentially losing the client over it.
Just shitty plaintiff lawyering in my opinion. I'd rather be in federal court. Judges are more responsive and get opinions out faster, quicker trial dates, the judges are smarter most of the time, more law clerks pushing out opinions/rulings, less bull shit politics. I'm all about it. Not as big on the requirement for unanimous juries though. But I can live with that.
90% of Plaintiff's lawyers I deal with don't like to "work." I have multiple Pltf lawyers that use their client's depositions to learn about their case.
And this case just settled for my biggest settlement yet. I may need to send this judge a gift basket.
Saw this all the time in AL. A few years before my time, but I believe Cunningham Bounds tried to make the argument that a wrongful death case doesn't "automatically" exceed $75K, went to the AL Supreme Court and they said as a matter of law, a wrongful death case meets $75K.
Its been a while, but I have successfully argued that judicial estoppel precludes a plaintiff from claiming more if plaintiff opposes removal on amount in controversy.
Had another rail road case come in and I'm reading through federal cases in MS regarding preemption and FRSA. I could be wrong, but I didn't think preemption is the same thing as immunity. I thought preemption just means that federal law supersedes state law. I understand that if the crossing has been federally funded , preemption will apply, regardless of whether the funded crossing met certain standards of care for maintenance/design etc. But I'm not seeing a federal statute or case law that says defendants operating grade crossing are immune from negligence claims based upon failure to maintain and properly operate the crossing. I understand that state law negligence claims will be dismissed if preemption applies. But aren't there federal statutes requiring a standard of care for maintaining crossings? We are a pure comparative fault state, so even if there is a duty on the plaintiff to stop and look both ways etc , federal district courts have found that the engineer still has a duty to avoid the collision, and have ruled that is a jury issue precluding summary judgment. Variables not subsumed within warning signal requirements and train speed limits, such as an overgrowth of vegetation, may be considered by a jury to determine a defendant's negligence under state law.
They got into the med mal game for awhile and hired an adjuster I used to work with at a different company. That adjuster tried to get me on panel and they wouldn’t do it. So I guess I should now consider that a compliment.
Look at CSX v. Easterwood and Shanklin v. NS for an explanation of preemption. It's not the same as immunity, but if it's subject to the FRSA, then your state law claim does not exist. Your only shot, really, is to fall outside of the scope of federal preemption. Vegetation, crossing surface/design, (sometimes) signal and signage maintenance, private crossings, and train crew failures (i.e., failure to keep a proper lookout) are where you can all outside of it.
I'll take a look at it , but are there no federal laws or regulations requiring a standard of care ? Why not just proceed on federal negligence claims?
You can, if you can prove that the railroad failed to meet a specific FRSA regulation. Those are just harder to prove when they can show that the specific crossing was inspected by federal agent weeks before and/or immediately after.
How much you think it costs to take one of these bad boys to trial with experts and all the depos. $100k?
https://californiahealthline.org/ne...company-owner-charged-in-kickback-scheme/amp/ Sammy Meatballs this stupid mf’er
I was relieved to see that it wasn’t a certain well known former client of mine, though I can’t rule out that he was one of the 7 surgeons listed on the indictment as having received kickback money.
Two vehicles were at fault for wrecking into my client. One of them wants to tender limits and get released. The other disputes liability. Can you take the money from one of them and release them ? My instinct is not to because if you can't get the other at fault party to play ball then you need to sue them all and have them all as parties. If you release one of them then you can't get them to participate as readily in the litigation in terms of depositions or showing up for trial. Right? They'd still be subject to subpoena I suppose.
I'd take the money now. You'll have an empty chair at trial, but you'd have a bird in the hand and a shot at another in the bush.
It's actually a weird scenario. 80 something year old lady is in one car and her son is in the other. My client says 80 something year old lady isn't paying attention, sees my client stopped at a light, slams on her breaks, tires squeel, skid marks etc and hits her. Then her son who also isn't paying attention slams into his moms car which causes her to hit my client again. Mom and son are both insured by USAA. Son's adjuster wants to tender limits. Mom's adjuster says mom stopped in time and isn't at fault at all.
Yeah, take that money and tee up the case against the mom. What are they going to do? Put the mom on the stand to put everything on her son when your client testifies that there were two impacts? That'll be very endearing to the jury.
I have PTSD from a case years ago where I let a party get released and I later really needed said party and their attorney wasn't cooperative in producing them (said party was a 19 year old kid that decided to go into military service and there is some act/law saying military service members are exempt from subpoena under certain circumstances or something). But I think you're right.
Do they have the same policy limits? Also, if the son doesn't cooperate in his mom's case that probably helps you.
And I'll pay you $100 if show me in a trial transcript where you say "Negligence runs in the family."
I'm not sure. USAA actually closed the claim against the mom in March thinking that the mom was totally exempt from liability. Then the USAA adjuster for mom left USAA. None of that was communicated to me and I sent a demand in August that was lost in the system and never processed. Called today and was like yo I'm gonna need yall to pay some money on behalf of mom. New adjuster assigned and we'll see what they say.
I've been fighting over indemnity in a really bad leg off case for the year since we were amended in as a defendant. The company who should be indemnifying us has just flat out refused to accept or deny our tender for a year. Earlier this week, I got the news that they were making a settlement offer to plaintiff that would include us if we'd punt on the defense costs. My client agreed, and I got the news today that the case settled. My client got out of the case for my relatively minor bill. It's not often that I get surprisingly good news like that, but I'll take it.
Just catching up here We’ve had like 5 cases removed to federal court over the last couple of years. We worked up the first one and after that decided to never do that ever again. we referred out a Walmart case on Wednesday this week that was removed last Friday
Heading into a mediation on Monday. Getting low balled by the insurance company. Had a pre-mediation conference with the mediator today who was shocked that they hadn’t settled yet because I have video of the leak on day of loss, water spraying everywhere and their denial is based on nonsense. Probably buttering me up, but I’m in good shape here.
MVA client threatened to fire me earlier because I said I couldn't turn over the $ for her medicaid lien to her for her to pay at her own discretion. Still might fire me.