Civil Litigation

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It is well known that when parties divorce, there will be an equitable distribution of the marital assets and debts that the parties acquired during the marriage. Many people also know that it rarely matters whose name that the asset or debt was acquired in. I cannot stress enough that the preparation of a financial statement, or a Case Information Statement, is perhaps the most important step of the entire divorce process. Getting bank balances…
The Legal Skills Prof Blog ran this post about the legal industry losing 2,400 jobs in November. This followed gains in September-October. Overall, the industry lost 100 jobs in the last 12 months. My Take: Another reason to avoid law school. I don’t know why the industry isn’t growing. My guess is technology is eliminating jobs. But the reason doesn’t matter. It’s hard enough to get a good job in growing industries. Going to professional…
Risk management is important for any business let alone a startup in a developing industry, but it takes on a whole new meaning for cannabis companies looking to make their mark on the burgeoning cannabis market. As more and more states go green and join the mounting number of sovereigns that permit, tax, and regulate medical and adult-use marijuana, the need for cannabis related banking, insurance, and real estate continues to grow. As any cannabis…
There is an interesting case before the California on the issue of whether that state’s pension benefits are guaranteed. The Sacramento Bee reports here. The State’s argument: “Neither the U.S. Constitution nor the California Constitution requires the state to mismanage its affairs and continue a broken system for decades, even after the state has concluded the program is severely (if not fatally) flawed and cannot be implemented as originally intended.” Participants disagree. The case…
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Hollywood hijacked reality in this week’s episode of “Bull.” Let’s shake things up this week and play a game of “Truth or Bull.” But first, a quick synopsis. If you watch the show, you may want to skip this column as the entire piece will be a ginormous spoiler. This week’s episode, “Separation,” had two distinct story lines. The first centered around a rich German, Geoffrey Schreiber, who was being sued by a museum for…
Over the last couple of years, defense oriented commentators have used the meme “event driven securities litigation” as part of complaining about the increasing volume of class action litigation. From my perspective, there could be merit to some complaints, but the meme is far too broad and all “event driven” cases are not equal. Why? Because the events at issue may range from allegedly causing massive fires to allegedly concealing product liability risks to allegedly…
Yes, there is medical malpractice as to genomic information. The first real study on the topic is from ASU’s Gary Marchant (PhD in genetics and lawyer/law professor) and Rachel Lindor (physician/lawyer). A brief synopsis is provided in a December 5, 2018 post at an ASU law school blog, Bits Bots and Biomarkers.  The full paper is online and open access at this page of the Food and Drug Law Journal.…
Judge Robinson boldly went where no North Carolina Judge writing published Opinions had gone before last month in the case of Wheeler v. Wheeler, 2018NCBC117.  The subject was a corporate officer’s right to the advancement of legal fees incurred in defending against a lawsuit. Judge Robinson noted that there was only “one case in which our appellate courts have dealt with the issue of advancement.”  Op. ¶1 & n.1.  That case was inapplicable to…
The Clarion-Ledger reports today on the record-breaking class of new judges taking office in January. According to the article: …40 new judges who will take the bench across the state, the largest number of new judges in modern times…. The new judges include 18 chancery judges, nine circuit judges, 10 County Court judges and three Court of Appeals judges. They will be sworn in Jan. 7. The new judges have spent this week at the…
In Delgado v. Garza, the plaintiffs sued for breach of a warranty of title, trespass to try title, and other related claims all stemming from a land transaction between an ancestor of the Salinases and an ancestor of the Garzas. No. 13-15-00344-CV, 2018 Tex. App. LEXIS 9619 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi November 27, 2018, no pet. history). After a bench trial, the court signed a judgment in favor of the Garzas on all causes of action.…