Legal scholars continue to explore the frontier of constitutional interpretation, with recent books by Ilan Wurman (The Second Founding; A Debt Against the Living), Kurt Lash (The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities of American Citizenship; The Reconstruction Amendments), Randy Barnett (The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment; Our Republican Constitution), and many others.
The return of nuclear verdicts to Texas courts (and attorney television advertising) and the recently launched efforts of the medical malpractice plaintiff’s bar to convince the federal courts to strike down Texas’ cap on noneconomic damages in medical liability cases (which is likely to play out over several years) could potentially raise an issue for state lawmakers: is it time to consider codifying at least some objective standards and levels of proof for mental anguish damages?
We all do it: self-diagnose. Before we go to the doctor, we try to figure out on our own what condition we have and what may have caused it. Then we go to the doctor and share our findings. He asks us why we bothered coming to see him if we already knew what we had, and we tell him that we wanted a second opinion.
It’s been going on for more than a decade: the lobbying to let lawyers filing contingency-based lawsuits deduct fees and expenses immediately from tax returns. Such expenses have long been treated as loans to clients, recoverable at settlement – or, in case of a loss in court, deducted from tax returns at the conclusion of a case.
Over the last several years, there has been an intellectual property lawsuit bouncing around the Texas court system and while not exactly on par with a riveting “Law & Order” episode, it is worth Texans’ time to tune in to the next installment of Title Source v. HouseCanary set to happen in early December.
Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” is the tale of a clerk in a lawyer’s office who suddenly decides to stop working. He continues to show up at the office every morning on time and put in a full day, but he doesn’t do any work. Whenever the boss asks him to take on a particular assignment, Bartleby responds, “I would prefer not to.”
HOUSTON – Kurt Arnold is a Texas Monthly Super Lawyer who failed to follow one of the most elementary rules of law – something even a first year law student would follow, according to a legal malpractice lawsuit brought against the attorney yesterday.
On Monday morning, the FDA gave full approval to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. This is an even faster approval than Pfizer has hoped for, as the most optimistic date had been early September.
HOUSTON – A motion to compel production of documents was denied earlier this week in a suit accusing Boeing and Southwest Airlines of colluding to cover up fatal defects in an aircraft.
We got a great decision this morning in vet speech. This is the case we originally filed in 2013 about Dr. Ron Hines, a Texas veterinarian who gives advice to pet owners around the world via internet.
AUSTIN – Attorney General Paxton has joined a multistate coalition demanding that congressional leaders include the Hyde Amendment in this year’s budget.
NEW BRAUNFELS - A Comal County judge approved a request to fund prepaid funeral benefits for a New Braunfels woman under court-appointed guardianship who is still alive.
It came to light this week that after the 2020 election, Bill Barr‘s Department of Justice was looking into a Twitter account named after a politician’s fictitious cow. Or was the faux cow the other very popular parody account named after the same politician?
