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.
The Corporate Indemnification Statute Can Be Hard for Some to Swallow.
Imagine you are a business, a corporation, and you sell off part of your business to one of your executives. After the sale, you are convinced that the buyer, your former fellow shareholder, ripped you off to the tune of millions of dollars by concealing “the true value” of the spun-off asset. You sue him. […]
Minnesota Litigator Profile: Kenneth U. Udoboik
Mr. Kenneth Udoibok’s passions, it seems, are justice and empowerment. He’s a 20+ year solo Minnesota litigator who focuses on criminal defense, police brutality, employment cases and insurance coverage cases. He fights for “the little guy.” His story, his journey from Nigeria to the Minnesota, is extraordinary as he, himself, is. Our interview concludes with […]
Once a Lout, Always a Lout? Scarred by Data Branding
More recently than you might think, humans branded other humans’ flesh. In Canadian military prisons, officials apparently branded some prisoners with “BC,” standing for “bad character.” (We would have thought the good people of British Columbia would have strongly objected to that brand.) Obviously, we now think of ourselves as living in a far more enlightened […]
Bunny Burn: A Win for Minnesota Restaurant Servers (fka Bartenders, Waiters, and Waitresses)
Update (October 11, 2017): Oops, I did it again…got lost in this game, oh baby. (Another successful prediction, below.) Congratulations to the winning lawyer team: Andrew L. Marshall, Mark R. Bradford, and Christine E. Hinrichs, Bassford Remele, P.A., Minneapolis. Justice Gildea’s dissent (joined by Justice G. Barry Anderson) emphasizes that Minnesota is an employment-at-will state, where employers […]
An End Around “The American Rule”?
Update (October 6, 2017): We did not exactly predict that Associated Bank would lose its bid for its attorneys’ fees in the original post, below, but we came pretty close. The Bank’s attempted “end-around” the American Rule through a clever use of a request to admit failed this week. The maneuver works like this (1) Seek […]
What is a “Known and Obvious Danger” to a Small Child and Why Does it Matter?
What goes on in the mind of a four year-old? A five year-old? What dangers are “known and obvious” to four or five year-old children? A boy named Shawn went to the house of his great uncle, Peter Carlson, on the Mississippi River as part of a birthday party celebration. Everyone lost sight of Shawn […]
Minnesota Litigator Profile: Bill Tilton
It was an honor getting to know Bill Tilton a little recently. We had not met before and knew little of him, but someone recommended him for a profile. He seems legendary and inspiring. Bill Tilton describes himself like this: “I grew up in the middle of a middle-sized clan in a middle of a […]
When is the Class Action Procedure a Valuable Tool? When a Bludgeon?
Update (September 27, 2017): Some class actions are obviously appropriate because the plaintiffs’ class is uniform and each class member’s claimed damages are insufficient to justify an individual lawsuit. Some class actions are obviously inappropriate; there are individualized and specific issues for individual class members claims and class members have a realistic opportunity to vindicate […]
You’re doing it all wrong. And, if you did it right, you’d still lose…
Update (September 22, 2017): The signature style of U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz is the antithesis of the lawyer appearing before him as plaintiff’s counsel in Naca v. Macalester. Judge Schiltz is often short and to the point. And he was this week in chastising Plaintiff’s counsel, Mr. Peter Nickitas. Judge Schiltz rejected […]
Court Scam: State Courts Require a $299 (plus $5) Filing Fee To File a Notice of Removal?
It is a shame when a justice system behaves unjustly. In Minnesota, when a client is sued in state court and removes the case to federal court, the client is obligated to pay a “filing fee” to the state court for the simple filing of a one-page Notice of Filing of Removal in the state […]