For our second profile of an interesting Minnesota trial lawyer (our first, Elliot Olsen, can be found here), we had the chance to sit down recently with Jim Behrenbrinker to talk about his diverse practice and the big excessive force/wrongful death claim he brought against the City of Minneapolis. Behrenbrinker was formerly at Robins Kaplan […]
Yesterday, highlighting a recent decision from the U.S. District Court (D. Minn.), Minnesota Litigator commented on the challenges of debt collection under the FDCPA but also mentioned the factual backdrop of all debt collection efforts: getting money from people who do no have it, or who have only a little money, or who simply do […]
Minnesota Litigator recently stumbled onto a website, “The Robing Room,” which purports to judge judges. It is worse than worthless.
In the experience of Minnesota Litigator, what is very often called the “broad scope” of discovery in U.S. civil litigation is truly broad. In fact, it is overwhelmingly and unbelievably broad in the view of litigants from outside the United States who get a taste of our judicial system. (It is possible that this different […]
On the lighter side and not of a legal nature, Art Director Nicole’s Meyer’s project to design a logo for all the lakes in Minnesota — one a day so it should take about 27 years — is too cool to ignore. If Minnesota Litigator had more time or had a trademark contributor to contrive […]
Civil litigation, when you think about it, is, in a sense, the re-telling of stories. Whether it is a car accident, a patented invention, a business transaction gone bad, or what have you, the job of trial lawyers, you might say, is to make sense of the events, to explain to a judge or jury […]
All sophisticated businesses, litigants, and litigators, know that litigation, more often than not, is an extremely costly and inefficient problem-solving procedure, often far more fun to threaten than to actually participate in. (Some cases highlighted last week seemed to make that point quite clearly (here and here)). That said, when an adversary threatens litigation, this […]
Two different FMLA plaintiffs fared very differently in cases decided last week. In the first, Fries v. TRI Marketing Corp., U.S. District Court Judge Judge Joan Ericksen (D. Minn.) denied TRI’s motion for summary judgment and allowed Ms. Fries’ FMLA interference and retaliation claims to be heard by a jury. In the second, Ballato v. Comcast […]
Update (April 26, 2012): “The findings of the Court are against British [Confectionary Company, Ltd.,] and in no way directly or indirectly impugn the integrity, reputation or actions of British’s counsel.” (Report & Recommendation (“R&R”) at p.47) With clients like these, who needs enemies? U.S. Mag. Judge Tony N. Leung (D. Minn.) concludes the R&R, […]
Sr. U.S. District Court Judge David S. Doty (D. Minn.) is no more pleased with Minnesota attorney William Butler than his colleague, U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz (D. Minn.).