Posted by Eugene Volokh:
On a Roll:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_30-2009_09_05.shtml#1251755918
I'm proud to report that my appellate colleagues at Mayer Brown (where
I'm a [1]part-part-part-time academic affiliate) have had a remarkable
string of victories, five in the nine days from Aug. 19 to Aug. 27:
1. [2]Movsesian v. Victoria Versicherung AG (9th Cir.), holding that
a California statute that "extends the statute of limitations
until 2010 for claims arising out of life insurance policies
issued to 'Armenian Genocide victim[s]'" is preempted because it
"interferes with the national government's conduct of foreign
relations."
2. [3]Salmeron v. Enterprise Recovery Systems, Inc. (7th Cir.),
affirming dismissal of a False Claims Act suit against Sallie Mae
and other defendants as a sanction for leaks of confidential
material by the plaintiff's attorney to wikileaks.com.
3. [4]CSX Transportation, Inc. v. Bickerstaff (Md. Ct. Spec. App.),
vacating damages awards totaling over $15 million, on the grounds
that the trial court erroneously failed to instruct the jury to
apportion damages to factors other than CSX's or the plaintiffs'
negligence (such as the plaintiffs' age, obesity, or pre-existing
medical conditions).
4. [5]Hensley v. CSX Transportation, Inc. (Tenn. Ct. App.),
concluding that an erroneous failure to instruct the jury on the
requirements to recover damages for fear of cancer was not
harmless, and therefore required reversal of the $5 million
verdict.
5. [6]Udac v. Takata Corp., reversing a $12.5 million product
liability punitive damages award for lack of sufficient evidence
of the punishable mental state, and vacating the remaining $4.5
million compensatory damages awards because of evidentiary and
instructional errors committed by the trial court.
It's such a pleasure working with top-notch lawyers like this; with
luck, I'll learn something from them.
References
1.
http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_01_22-2006_01_28.shtml#1138390682
2. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0756722p.pdf
3. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/7th/083375p.pdf
4. http://mdcourts.gov/opinions/cosa/2009/770s07.pdf
5.
http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/OPINIONS/TCA/PDF/093/Thurston%20Hensley%20v%20CSX%20Transportation%20OPN.pdf
6. http://www.state.hi.us/jud/opinions/ica/2009/ica28328.pdf
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