In a galaxy far far away, tort victims sue their tortfeasors for the harms that the tortfeasors wrongfully inflicted on the victims. The cost to the victims to vindicate their rights against the wrongdoers is zero (because why would one short-pay or penalize tort victims, effectively charging them money for compensation and justice?). The validation […]

Regular and long-time readers of Minnesota Litigator will remember our TAAFOMFT series (“These are a few of my favorite things….”) in which we engage in the fine art of whining via irony. We complain about aspects of the practice of civil litigation that we like the least. (We view it as a good sign that we […]

Update (December 11, 2018): Speaking of the disappointment of winning one’s “costs” after a win in course, in a wholly separate case from the one described in yesterday’s post (below), Allnurses, the victororious defendant (at least pending appeal) sought “costs” of about $135,000 and was awarded only $1,092.45. Here’s why: [click link]. And how much do […]

Before commenting on the lessons learned from 12 years as a volunteer investigator for the Fourth District Ethics Committee on behalf of Minnesota’s Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, we start by urging all Minnesota lawyers (and even non-lawyers) to consider volunteering. It is not a huge commitment of time. It is, in our view, an […]

Update #8 (November 30, 2018): We have covered Unitherm v. Hormel, the so-called Bacon Battle, for some years now (see the string, below) but we only recently learned that we might more appropriately call it Pig War II, or PW II, because history already has had a Pig War. (However, we’re partial to variant names […]

Blake School facilitated a student athletic trip and a Blake student and 16 year-old recently licensed driver lost control of his car, crossed the centerline, crashed into JeanAnn and Gary Fenrich, killing Mr. Fenrich and badly injuring Ms. Fenrich. Was the accident “foreseeable” to the school? Was “the specific danger…objectively reasonable to expect, not simply […]

Updated post (November 14, 2018): The post below discusses whether a witness can change the substance of deposition testimony in a later-completed “errata sheet” (written corrections to prior oral testimony). We took the position that this is and should be permissible under normal circumstances (the right can obviously be abused), recognizing that there are some […]

In our view, very few people in our society, a tiny percentage, qualify as “evil,” which one might define as, “all things being equal, being predisposed, temperamentally inclined, or preferring to hurt other people rather than to help them.” Most of us genuinely believe ourselves to be “good people,” we want the world to believe […]

Maybe every few years, we should disinter our “Pleading Federal Diversity for Limited Liability Companies (LLCs)” string of posts. In these posts, which go back some years now, Minnesota lawyers get chided because they forgot (or never knew) how to plead federal jurisdiction when basing their jurisdictional claims on the diversity of citizenship of LLCs. […]

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you’ve been working on the railroad. All the livelong day. You’ve been working on the railroad, just to pass the time away. In Minnesota. First, that’s just sad. “Working on the railroad to pass the time away?” That’s hard work. You might consider something less arduous and safer if passing the […]