From a speech on March 7, 2008, to the Spring Meeting of the American College of Trial Lawyers in Tucson by Hon. Thomas W. Thrash, Jr., of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia: It may be of some interest to a group of attorneys that during this session of the Georgia General Assembly, a bill has been introduced ...

Section 1927 penalties may be imposed only on “any attorney or other person admitted to conduct cases in any court of the United States.” Law firms are not admitted to practice in the federal courts. Nonetheless, there is a split in the Circuits as to whether sanctions may be imposed on law firms pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1927. See Medtronic Navigation Inc. ...

From Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. Mid-South Drillers Supply, Inc., 2008 Tenn. App. LEXIS 39 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 25, 2008): The issue presented by this appeal is whether a trial court may exercise its discretion granted under rules 34 and 37 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure to dismiss a party's case for spoliation of evidence where th ...

In Forsythe v. Black Hills Corp., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10430 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 8, 2008), Sections 2.3 and 2.6 of the Merger Agreement required defendant Black Hills to provide the plaintiffs with "access for all work papers underlying . . . Earn-Out Period Financial Statements" and, in the event of an earn-out dispute, to provide "full access to the books, rec ...

From Paradigm Alliance, Inc. v. Celeritas Techs., LLC, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15334 (D. Kan. Feb. 28, 2008): This is the second attempt by defendants to disrupt the relationship between Paradigm and its outside counsel. In both attempts, defendants have asserted questionable arguments. Moreover, during the most recent dispute, defense ...

Some fact scenarios speak for themselves. From Williams v. Select Media Servs., LLC, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14773 (M.D. Ala. Feb. 27, 2008): Defendants move to sanction Plaintiffs' attorney ... for continuing to bring the RICO claim in this case, even though it has been dismissed by six previous federal district courts. *** In this case, ...

Greene v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12605 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 7, 2008): Primary jurisdiction is properly invoked when a claim is cognizable in federal court but requires resolution of an issue of first impression, or of a particularly complicated issue that Congress has committed to a regulatory agency. [Citation omitted].< ...

Download associated file: Senate Judiciary Committee Report S. 2450.pdf  Attached is the Senate Judiciary Committee Report for S. 2450 -- Federal Rule of Evidence 502 (Waiver of Privilege and Work Product) -- which was passed by the Senate on February 27, 2008. ...

Several years after his business was put into receivership to effect a settlement agreement he had entered into with the FTC (for deceptive trade practices), the plaintiff in Peterson v. Saperstein, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 4213 (10th Cir. Feb. 27, 2008) (unpublished), brought a civil RICO action attacking the conduct of the receivership and raising anew issues r ...

The $10 million sanction imposed in DePuy Spine, Inc. v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13759 (D. Mass. Feb. 25, 2008), a patent case, is one of the ten largest reported sanctions awards (at least, it makes the top ten list in Chapter 1 of my book). The District Judge’s summary of the misconduct: Throughout trial ...