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Judge: 'Heads Will Roll' over Withheld e-Mail - September 18, 2008

A discovery disaster threatens to derail the government's stock options prosecution against McAfee's former general counsel. Opening arguments had been slated for the morning of Sept. 17 in the Kent Roberts case. Instead, federal prosecutors and defense lawyers stunned the court with news that the company had just turned over highly relevant e-mails to the government the night before. Those documents should have been produced in response to a two-year old grand jury subpoena, Assistant U.S....
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Challenging Postjudgment Garnishment Actions Against Insurers - (Found September 18, 2008 )

After resolving a case against an insured defendant through settlement or trial and obtaining a judgment for money damages, plaintiff's attorneys sometimes seek to collect the judgment directly from the defendant's insurer. The strategy involves the postjudgment garnishment of insurance policies of the insured (as the judgment debtor) by the claimant (as a judgment creditor) through a proceeding against the insurer (as a garnishee). What is a garnishment Part One of this two-part series...
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Yogi and Casey and Due Diligence - (Found September 18, 2008 )

Yogi Berra and Casey Stengel remain icons in the lore of baseball. As attorneys, little did the authros realize that Yogi and Casey, in making their baseball remarks, were actually intending to guide us through the due diligence process that counsel deals with on a regular basis.
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null: Gaillard v. Jim's Water Service, Inc. - (Found September 18, 2008 )

Tort plaintiff's post-accident supplemental tax returns, which indicated that plaintiff had been fraudulently under-reporting income, were admissible as highly relevant to loss of income claim, and as probative of plaintiff's character for untruthfulness for purposes of arriving at reasonable and fair damage award.
http://www.law.com/jsp/LawDecision.jsp?id=1202423635708&rss=null

null: Polski v. Quigley Corp. - (Found September 18, 2008 )

Expert's theory that nasal cold medicine caused plaintiffs' loss of sense of smell was scientifically untested and thus too speculative to be admissible; although plaintiffs claimed that theory, which depended upon nasal spray reaching olfactory nerves, could not be ethically tested on live humans, test easily could have been performed with similar but non-toxic substance.
http://www.law.com/jsp/LawDecision.jsp?id=1202423826514&rss=null

null: Auto Services Company, Inc. v. KPMG, LLP - (Found September 18, 2008 )

District court abused discretion by denying, as untimely under local rule, party's motion for reconsideration of dismissal order pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), governing motions to alter or amend judgment; while local rule might apply to motions for reconsideration of court's interlocutory rulings, local rule would not encompass post-judgment motions timely filed under Rule 59(e).
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Former Anthrax Suspect Fights Journalist's Appeal, May Request Attorney Fees - (Found September 18, 2008 )

Just when you thought the case of former anthrax suspect Steven Hatfill was over, it carries on. Lawyers for Hatfill returned to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Sept. 11 seeking dismissal of journalist Toni Locy's appeal of the contempt citation slapped on her for refusing to reveal her sources for stories in relating to the Hatfill case. Hatfill's lawyer argued that the dispute with the Justice Department over being unfairly implicated in the anthrax case was settled, and as.
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New York Hospital to Pay $89 Million to Settle Fraud Claims - (Found September 18, 2008 )

New York's Staten Island University Hospital will pay $88.9 million to settle allegations it had defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and an insurance program covering the military, authorities announced on Sept. 15. The settlement reflects, in part, whistleblower suits brought under the federal and New York False Claims Acts. Two proponents of those suits will receive a total of $9.9 million.
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Appeal in Defamation Case Against N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg Argued Before Eleventh Circuit - (Found September 18, 2008 )

One current presidential candidate and one would-be candidate had links to a gun case argued before the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 16. Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr represented gun store owners who allege they were defamed by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who frequently was mentioned as a possible independent presidential candidate before announcing in February in a New York Times op-ed that he wouldn't be a candidate for the White House.
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New Push For Civil-Case Interpreters - (Found September 18, 2008 )

Two years after a measure to make interpreters broadly available in civil courtrooms failed to win state funding, some in the Chinese-American legal community are drawing attention to a new, scaled-down effort on the issue. San Francisco Superior Court Judges Lillian Sing and Julie Tang have thrown their support behind AB 3050, a bill awaiting the signature of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would establish a pilot program to provide increased access to interpreters in civil litigation.
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