In January, 2008, the Walter J. McCarthy, a barge, sunk at a dock in Duluth.  Now, coming up on the fourth anniversary of the accident, lawyers are still hotly litigating financial responsibility for the disaster (covered previously here). In many if not most large industrial accidents in our society in this day and age, among […]

As covered previously on Minnesota Litigator, plaintiff Elliott Kaplan had the misfortune of undergoing pancreatic cancer surgery at the Mayo Clinic (a “Whipple procedure”) but it turned out he never had pancreatic cancer.   The applicable standard imposed on doctors and other professionals, thankfully, is not perfection.  So, although with 20/20 hindsight we can suggest […]

From the distance of an outsider, a loan promoted as a “pick a payment” loan seems problematic from the inception.  Borrowers get to pick their payments?  Wouldn’t more than a few borrowers pick zero? Borrowing money and not paying it back was not one of the options, of course, for an “option ARM,” (that is, […]

It is a story of missing ESI (electronically stored information) apparently sold untraceably in Mexico, an inconveniently timed operating system replacement, and other potential misconduct — too many details that, independently, might not raise suspicion but collectively suggest intentional destruction of evidence.  (The case was previously covered by Minnesota Litigator here.)

The recent New York Times piece written by Judge Zimmerman (Hennepin County District Court Judge) will surprise no one with even a passing knowledge of Judge Zimmerman.   His dedication to his work, to the Twin Cities community, and his capacity for empathy are extraordinary by any measure.

A critical aspect of a great deal of U.S. civil litigation is the role of insurance.  In a huge number of cases, there’s at least one “case-within-a-case,” two or more nested layers of litigation, with the plaintiff’s liability case against the defendant at the core and, orbiting, a defendant’s claim for insurance coverage.  (Some times […]

A borrows $415,000 from B.  B goes bankrupt.  A defaults on the debt.  The obligation of A to pay does not vanish when the lender goes under.  It simply gets transferred. But to where?

Yesterday, Minnesota Litigator covered a crusade against Fruit Roll Ups.  Such public interest litigation is generally associated with the left wing of U.S. politics.  The spirit animating left-wing causes is often that the government is not doing enough.  In the case of Fruit Roll Ups, an implicit point is that government food-labeling regulation, for example, […]

Minnesota Litigator, covering news and commentary related to Minnesota civil litigation, is authored 100% by Minnesota litigators. Not every case (and sometimes, it seems, not any of our cases) is particularly “newsworthy,” situations arise from time to time in our cases of some interest (to litigators, probably, in particular), even if they do not forge new […]

Anyone with a passing familiarity with the priority of mortgages Minnesota is well aware of the general rule that “first of record is ordinarily first of right.”  This week, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, adhering to this rule, reversed Chisago County District Judge John R. McBride, who had ruled in favor of property sellers (who were parties […]