Defense Counsel Journal articles from October 2004

Defense Counsel Journal archives from October 2004

Celebrating the IADC's 85th anniversary.(International Association of Defense Counsel)(President's Page)
October 1, 2004... Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States. Red Sox and Cubs fans were celebrating their team's most recent World Series triumphs. The Model T was the transportation of choice for the few who could afford such opulence. It was 1920 and...

Bytes, bits and bucks: cost shifting and sanctions in e-discovery: in the electronic forest where sanctions can abound, good faith of the part of counsel in meeting requests can go a long way in avoiding trouble.
October 1, 2004... ELECTRONIC discovery, known as e-discovery, is a hot-button litigation topic. Cost shifting and sanctions dominate the case law. The current landscape of cost shifting is dominated by the Zubulake test, which redefined the cost-shifting debate...

Practical considerations for national coordinating counsel in complex litigation: the role of national coordinating counsel in complex litigation is multifaceted, with an approach to keep everyone of the same page from the beginning to end.
October 1, 2004... CORPORATIONS increasingly face lawsuits by groups of claimants, rather than cases pursued by individuals. Group claims are typically filed either as class actions or in clusters of individual filings or multi-plaintiff single cases in which a...

An overview of Lone Pine orders in toxic tort litigation: by requiring plaintiffs to produce early in discovery the specifics of their claims, judicial resources are preserved and contentions sharpened.
October 1, 2004... LONE PINE orders are a type of case management order requiring plaintiffs in toxic tort lawsuits to produce early in the discovery process basic evidence supporting a prima facie case. Cases in which defendants can persuade a court to enter a...

Publican in England uses EC competition law to recover in English Court: Crehan upstages Courage by challenging a tie arrangement with a brewing giant and comes off with a European Community law victory.
October 1, 2004... LAST MAY, the English Court of Appeal gave judgment in a landmark European Union competition law case, Crehan v Inntrepreneur Pub Company (CPC), (1) in which Bernard Crehan, a pub operator, became the first person in the United Kingdom to win...

Is the economic loss rule in peril? Courts, negligence and the economic loss wolves: the economic loss rule has withstood the test of time, and departures from it fail to understand adjudication problems in the non-personal injury context.
October 1, 2004... CONSIDER these incidents: * A subcontractor working for a telephone company negligently disrupts the flow of water to a community. Residents must boil their water, and local businesses lose income as they are forced to close or curtail...

Uncertainty in federal removal procedure: the riddle of the "other paper": litigants are in a linguistic quandary about what triggers the 30-day period for removal, but the problem could be fixed by statutory amendment.
October 1, 2004... IMAGINE that Defense Counsel X is assigned to a state court suit in the United States with no federal question issues but with diversity and a plaintiff seeking only $45,000 in his initial complaint filed on November 1. Under these...

International arbitration and punitive damages: delocalization and mandatory rules: now that non-state parties are using international law, the question whether punitive damages arbitration awards can be enforced has become more important.
October 1, 2004... THE TREND toward non-state parties being the subjects of international law and the employment of the body of law known as lex mercatoria have come together with the worldwide acceptance of international commercial arbitration, creating a viable...

Annual survey of fidelity and surety law, 2003, part II: this roundup of recent cases covers public and private construction bonds, financial institution bonds and sureties' remedies.
October 1, 2004... I. PUBLIC CONSTRUCTION BONDS A. Bonds under Federal Laws 1. Procedural Miller Act's limitations barred suit by subcontractor that failed to bring action within one year after it last performed labor or supplied materials or...