Last month, we noted a lawsuit over technology in the sugar industry, “reclaimers” built inside sugar silos, to illustrate a basic point about the complexity of legal damages (Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative (“SMBC”) v. Agri Systems (“ASI”). Unsophisticated litigants think “the sky’s the limit” and one can argue any amount of damages one feels […]
A few months ago, we had a post on the subject of post-accident insurance company investigations and when the attorney work-product doctrine is triggered to protect investigation materials from discovery in civil litigation. We predicted that the defendant’s privilege claims, by and large, would prevail. The underlying case relates to fumigation of a food-packaging facility […]
The right to free speech ‘includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read,’ and ‘freedom of inquiry and freedom of thought.’ Karsjens v. Jesson, 6 F. Supp. 3d 916, 938–39 (D. Minn. 2014) (quoting Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, […]
Mr. Timothy Wodarck sued his former employer, Lakota, Inc. for wrongful termination. A jury agreed with Mr. Wodarck and awarded him $31,236.26 in past wage loss, $145,600 in future lost earning capacity, no compensatory damages, and no compensation for unlawful deduction from wages due or earned. On a post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter […]
Last October, we posted about the case of Ms. Meagan Abel. Ms. Abel alleges that she suffered employment discrimination, education discrimination, public-accommodations discrimination, reprisal, and negligence at the hands of Dr. Jeffrey Gottlieb, PhD, a clinical psychologist and training director. Among others, Ms. Abel sued the hospital (Allina Health System b/b/a Abbott Northwestern Hospital and […]
Update (12/20/2019): A reminder: Amendments to Minnesota court rules go into effect on January 1, 2020. There are amendments to the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure, the Minnesota Rules of Civil Appellate Practice, and the Minnesota General Rules of Practice. The amendments change the deadlines for many court filings. Generally, the rules change the deadlines […]
Minnesota Litigator will be taking the balance of the year off and will come back in 2020 with a radical face-lift. As regular readers know, 2019 has been a bit of a rough ride for LEVENTHAL pllc, personally and professionally. It should stand as a reminder to all that each second, minute, hour, day, night, […]
One of the most nauseating parts of the life of a trial lawyer, in this trial lawyer’s opinion, is the issue of waiver as applied to the work of the trial lawyer (as distinguished from waiver in other contexts like contractual waiver). To have a Court of Appeal hold that one’s argument may or may […]
As the Minneapolis/St. Paul legal community already knows, if not the entire state and the national legal community, the Minnesota law firm of Briggs & Morgan is being devoured by another midwest law firm (without a previous presence in Minnesota): Taft Stettinius & Hollister. Of course, the law firms do not characterize the transaction as […]
We recently highlighted that unsophisticated litigants sometimes have unrealistic understandings of their potential financial recoveries (or potential financial risk, if they are defendants), i.e., their likely damages. This phenomenon, in turn, can be a recipe for disaster for plaintiffs’ lawyers. The lawyers might, for example, work for more than two years on a hard-fought contingent […]