Medical Malpractice: Another Summary Judgment for Defendants Reveresed on Appeal

The Eastern Section of the Tennessee Court of Appeals just issued its opinion in Lane v. McCartney, No. E2008-02640-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 30, 2009). The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's ruling, which held that the plaintiff's expert had not demonstrated that the community he practiced in when the alleged tort occurred and the defendants' community were similar (which is required under the locality rule).

The opinion offers a good analysis of what is sufficient to qualify an expert under the locality rule. The Court of Appeals also mentions how similar this case is to Nabors v. Adams, which is the subject of my July 23, 2009 post. See infra.

Here's a link to the opinion:

http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/OPINIONS/TCA/PDF/093/Nancy%20L%20Lane%20v%20Jodi%20D%20McCartney%20MD%20et%20al%20OPN.pdf

Civil Procedure: The Motion to Revise

Q: How do you go about making changes to an interlocutory order in a Tennessee state court civil action?

A: File a motion to revise. Tenn. R. Civ. P. 54.02 (stating that interlocutory orders are subject to revision at any time prior to entry of judgment).

Please note that final orders are subject to revision under different rules. Tenn. R. Civ. P. 59 & 60.

Here's a link to the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure:

http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/OPINIONS/TSC/RULES/TNRulesOfCourt/civlproindex.htm

Medical Malpractice: Summary Judgment for Defendants Reversed on Appeal

The Western Section of the Tennessee Court of Appeals just released its opinion in Nabors v. Adams, No. W2008-02418-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 23, 2009). The trial court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment due to the plaintiff's expert's unfamiliarity with the Memphis, Tennessee medical community (as was required by the locality rule) during his deposition. The plaintiff moved to amend the trial court's judgment under Rule 59.04 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure with a curative affidavit from her expert, which was denied by the trial court. The appeal followed.

The Court of Appeals held that the affidavit cured the problems with the plaintiff's expert's testimony and that the trial court abused its discretion in not reversing the grant of summary judgment to the defendants.

Here's a link to the opinion:

http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/OPINIONS/TCA/PDF/093/Samantha%20Nabors%20v%20William%20M%20Adams,%20MD%20OPN.pdf

Walter Cronkite

This post has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with a kid who grew up in the '70s and '80s watching Walter Cronkite on television (i.e., me). He was THE news for my family and me.

I once heard someone say, "If Walter didn't say it happened, it didn't happen!" He would come into our living room every night and talk to us about the news and we took what he said as dead-on accurate --- because it was! After all, he was "the most trusted man in America."

Good bye, Mr. Cronkite. You'll be missed. I wish there were more out there like you.

More on Out-of-state Depositions

http://www.abanet.org/yld/litigation/lit101pdf/Wilkins.pdf

Out-of-State Depositions

Here's an interesting article that I found while doing some research over the weekend, to wit:

Victoria C. Fitlow, How to Take an Out-of-State Deposition, Utah B.J., Feb./Mar. 2001.

I apologize for the cite not being complete in that there's no page number for the first page of the article. I couldn't find one in the online version; nor could I find one in PDF or another version that had been scanned and placed online from the actual magazine (which would have shown a beginning page number).

While it's written from the perspective of a Utah lawyer, there's some good information in there (even though it might be a little dated because it was written in 2001). Even if you don't practice in Utah, it can help point you in the right direction.

Here's the link to the article:

http://www.utahbar.org/sites/litigation/how_to_take_out_of_state_depositions.html

The Declaration of Independence

I watch this every year at this time, to wit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMaAtNHAtNI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxTvS-kyHzs

Turn the volume up and have a great Fourth!

Medical Malpractice: New Legislation III

The new medical malpractice legislation goes into effect today. Here's an article from the Tennessee Bar Journal, which is authored by John Day, that explains the ins and outs of the new law. The article is a must-read for the medical malpractice practitioner.

Here's the link:
http://www.tba.org/journal_new/index.php/component/content/article/300?ed=20