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Now that the New York State Legislature has overridden Governor Pataki's veto of the bill increasing compensation rates for court-appointed attorneys under Article 18-b of the County Law, a long-fought battle to drag state-funded attorney fees up to 21st-century levels may have come to a close. The increase will affect attorneys working on behalf of indigent criminal defendants, children in custody matters, and victims of domestic abuse.
American gay couples have a new place to get married. In a landmark ruling last month in Ontario, Canada, the Court of Appeal held that it was unconstitutional to prohibit homosexuals from entering into same-sex marriages, thus opening the way for the first full-fledged same-sex marriage right anywhere outside of Europe. (The Netherlands has permitted same-sex marriage since December 2000, but only to Dutch parties. Belgium has allowed such marriages since January of this year.) The ruling has sent some gay American couples over the border to get marriage licenses and legalize their unions.
Features
Highlights of the latest equipment leasing news from around the country.
Features
There are more than 500 nationally recognized Indian tribes in the United States, and as a general rule, state civil laws do not apply to transactions in which they are involved (whether on reservations or not).
Confused about when a real property landlord or equipment lessor can commence charging post-petition rental payments? Does a debtor's obligation under Section 365(d)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code, (hereinafter, the 'Code') to timely perform all obligations arising after the order for relief (or under Section 365(d)(10), 60 days after the order of relief), mean those obligations that 'arise' by virtue of actual post-petition use of the property as opposed to obligations that arise by virtue of the 'due date' of the rental payment by contract or invoice?
In counseling clients on whether to structure a transaction as a lease or a loan, there are several financial considerations. The first is the potential that the client's customer could file for bankruptcy, and its impact upon recovering rent payments as a priority administrative expense. In that case, attorneys' fees are a factor as well. The Bankruptcy Code provisions that govern the rights and remedies of an equipment lessor in comparison to the rights and remedies of a secured lender differ significantly — they may be considered more favorable to an equipment lessor than a secured lender for the reasons discussed later in this article, although certain provisions of the Code that address the remedies of a secured lender are applied to an equipment lessor as well.
Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.
A recent state supreme court decision may have nationwide impact on tire litigation. On May 22 the Texas Supreme Court held that plaintiffs seeking trade secret information from a tire manufacturer must show specifically how the lack of the information could derail a case. The court's decision in <i>In Re Bridgestone/Firestone Inc.</i> gives no guidelines. Justice Nathan Hecht wrote for the majority that the test established in 1998 by the court in <i>In Re Continental General Tire Inc.</i> for discovery of trade secret information 'cannot be satisfied merely by general assertions of unfairness,' According to Judge Hecht's opinion, the plaintiffs in about 150 cases alleging Firestone tire-tread separations and Ford Explorer rollover accidents failed to show how access to the skim-stock formulas used by the tire company is necessary for a 'fair adjudication' of their claims.
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In a complex product liability case where medical causation is at issue, defendants may want to consider moving to bifurcate the trial so that medical causation issues are tried before any liability or damages issues. If the plaintiff fails to convince the jury that the product caused the alleged injury, the case will terminate. If the jury does find causation, the trial continues with the same jury and focuses on liability and damages issues.
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When products liability defense counsel first heard of the new privacy regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA Privacy Regulations), most counsel probably thought that only their regulatory healthcare colleagues would be affected by these detailed and complicated laws. How great an impact the HIPAA Privacy Regulations will have on product liability litigation in general is yet to be seen, but it is clear that these regulations will have an immediate effect on discovery of medical records. Under the statutory or common law of most states, when a plaintiff files a suit that puts his/her medical or health condition at issue, the plaintiff waives his/her right to privacy, to at least some extent, in his/her medical records. When the HIPAA Privacy Regulations became enforceable on April 14, 2003, this was no longer the case. Because the HIPAA Privacy Regulations provide strict privacy protection for a patient's medical information, even if the patient filed a lawsuit with his/her health at issue, discovery of the patient's medical records could become more difficult for product liability defense counsel. However, defense counsel still will have several options to obtain discovery of a plaintiff's medical records under the HIPAA Privacy Regulations.