Minnesota Litigator
News & Commentary
Do not consider the blog to be a substitute for obtaining legal advice from a qualified attorney licensed in your state.
Another post on the lighter side…
A faithful reader directed Minnesota Litigator to a puzzling Minnesota statute passed in 1992 and adopting state-wide zero tolerance for violence. [H/T: AG] This is one of many odd statutes where one has to wonder what prompted it. Minnesota’s “zero-tolerance-for-violence” statute is located in Chapter 1 of Minnesota Statutes. Chapter 1 seems to include some […]
Who Objects to Letting Boys Dance?
Update (March 8, 2019): Stop the presses! The U.S. Court of Appeals has knocked a Minnesota Litigator prediction out of the prediction loss column and into the prediction win column in the case discussed below. Update (October 2, 2018): Our original post below is not exactly a prediction so it is not, exactly, a failed […]
Drewitz v. Motorwerks, Inc.: The Mother of All Zombie Cases?
Update (March 7, 2018): There’s protracted litigation and then there is PROTRACTED litigation and the case of Mr. John Drewitz, described below, falls in the ALLCAPS camp. The duration of this civil lawsuit is particularly unsettling because it is not complex or massive multi-party litigation. Even worse, it probably qualifies as a “zombie case,” which […]
More on the Threat that Computers Pose to Lawyers (or Not)
A business called LawGeex is promoting its study that purports to show that their software performed better than real lawyers in the review of several non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). As we understand the test, “Twenty US-trained lawyers, with decades of legal experience ranging from law firms to corporations, were asked to issue-spot legal issues in five standard […]
More On Gender & Judging
Update (March 2, 2018): A man cannot seem to keep his distance from an ex-spouse (and the mother of his daughter), notwithstanding a court’s “no contact” orders. The district court, undoubtedly aware of the serious threat to the ex-wife by the man’s inability to stay away, noting his “alarming behavior,” extended the “no contact order,” […]
On the lighter side…
U.S. courts often seem reluctant to award attorneys’ fees and, when they do, they often cut the lawyers’ fees claimed — the proverbial haircut, discussed here repeatedly. But it is exceedingly rare for a trial to include lawyers literally trying to cut their own hair during the trial. Nevertheless, we learned recently that this too has […]
LLC LOL…
For years, we have pointed out how many times trial lawyers slip up on pleading diversity jurisdiction in federal courts for limited liability companies. The citizenship of an LLC is the citizenship of each of its members. It can be difficult to find out who the members are in an LLC, much less find out […]
A Receivership Law Puzzle
Update (February 22, 2018): It did not take the Judge very long to vacate the order of dismissal in the case described below. It seems not so simple for an Ohio receiver to settle a Minnesota $1.7 million lawsuit for $70,000… Original post (February 19, 2018): A Minnesota company (we’ll call it MinnCo) sued an […]
“I do that job [(Minnesota Supreme Court Justice)], but I’m still Anne McKeig from Federal Dam.”
From our recent interview with Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Anne McKeig, a few things stand out. First, family means a very great deal to Justice McKeig. We’re tempted to say that family might mean everything to her — not only her own family but all of our families (and, more broadly, our communities). Second, Minnesotans […]
More on the Intractable Disaster of U.S. Immigration Policy
Update (February 14, 2018): In the posts below, we consider the case of Anibal Sanchez vs. Dahlke Trailer Sales. The case embodies violent collision of current U.S. immigration policy. Federal law prohibits the hiring of illegal immigrants. Employers routinely knowingly ignore the law. But when a worker/illegal immigrant invokes employment rights under state law, employers […]