A side-by-side comparison of the amendments to the discovery rules in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, effective December 2015.
Guidelines for the discoverability of parties’ social media content in civil litigation.
My recent article “Parsing Pell to Provide Context: What Constitutes an Unusual Obstacle or Obstruction?”, can be found in the Fall 2015 edition of the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association Journal. I have provided an excerpt below, but the full article can be accessed at the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association website, here. In a matter of first impression, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals held in Pell v. Tidwell that a signaling motorist could not be held liable for the negligent actions of another motorist who fails to independently ensure that it is safe to cross an intersection, especially under normal driving conditions. The...
In Alabama, law enforcement personnel are not required in all circumstances to record or document by audio or video their interactions with the public; however, if a law enforcement officer does create a video or audio recording that documents an interaction between an officer and the public, the officer is required to maintain the recording. The sources of any such recording may include in-dash cameras, body cameras, surveillance cameras, and audio recordings (without video). As of October 21, 2015, if any video or audio recording becomes part of a law enforcement case file, an officer must retain the recording until...
My recent article, “Alabama’s Anti-Miscegenation Statutes”, can be found in the October 2015 issue of the Alabama Review. I have provided an excerpt below, but the full article can be read online with a subscription to Project MUSE, here. “In the immediate aftermath of the civil war and, more specifically, the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, various southern states began passing laws to preserve a now-fragile social structure. Beginning with President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, which liberated all slaves residing in rebel states or territories, the southern states’ social ecology had begun to unravel, and southern whites...
Ipse Dixit testimony comprises a statement of fact by a proponent (i.e., the condition particular equipment prior to an incident occurring) that can be neither proved nor disproved by any other evidence. A trial court is well within its purview to rule as inadmissible ipse dixit evidence, because admitting ipse dixit opinion testimony that would require the court to “take a leap of faith” to rely on the proponent’s “naked assurances” that his testimony is based in fact.[1] For example, Tom has left a piece of construction equipment on Sam’s property. Tom was not present when his employees used the equipment to...
When determining whether a cross-claim can be asserted after the time of the running of the statute of limitations for the underlying matter, it is likely that such a cross claim can be made, so long as the cross claim did not arise after the filing of the original pleading in the matter and it relates back to the time the Plaintiff’s claim arose. Alabama Rule of Civil Procedure 13(c) allows that “all counterclaims other than those maturing or acquired after pleading shall relate back to the time the original plaintiff’s claim arose.” This premise is also found in Alabama...
Where a will had been in the testator’s possession and cannot be found after his death, there is a rebuttable presumption that the will was destroyed with the intent to revoke. The burden is on the will proponent(s) to overcome the presumption. Where no duplicate originals of the will can be found, a copy can be introduced into evidence to show the intentions of the testator and the contents of the will. Where there is conflicting evidence as to whether the will was revoked, it will be decided by the trier of fact, based on the weight of the evidence....
John Shovlin argues in “The Cultural Politics of Luxury in Eighteenth-Century France” that reconsideration of the relationship between the economic developments of eighteenth-century France and the French revolution must be undertaken. Cultural history and economic dynamics must be re-weighed into the factors contributing to the French Revolution. His argument hinges on the cultural problems created by “luxury” and “representation,” which helped to undermine the Old Regime. Attitudes toward both luxury and representation changed rapidly due to increasing economic activity, especially among the non-nobility. Prior to the mid-eighteenth century, luxury in France was used to distinguish between the nobility and everyone...
Jeanne Boydston’s book Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic (Amazon) discusses the lives of New England women from the colonial period to post-modernization. Attitudes toward women’s labor in the home saw several distinct shifts within this period, which it is Boydston’s primary objective to reveal. Within the introduction, Boydston claims her work “is a history of women’s unpaid domestic labor as a central force in the emergence of an industrialized society in the northeastern United States.” Throughout much of the period, the attitude toward women’s labor revolved around the Marxian principle that unpaid...
Being a lawyer doesn’t mean doing business as usual.
