Feb

3

The Court of Appeals Speaks in the Recall Case

Posted by: | February 3, 2012 | 10 Comments

Today, the District IV Court of Appeals issued an opinion that reverses a ruling by the Waukesha County Circuit Court denying a motion to intervene in the case of Friends of Scott Walker v. Brennan.  The practical impact of today’s Court of Appeals decision is that the committees seeking the recall of Governor Walker and other [...]

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Jul

7

Arbitrator’s Social Life Overturns Award

Posted by: | July 7, 2011 | 4 Comments

In Dallas last week, a court overturned a $22 million (!) arbitration decision because the arbitrator had failed to disclose that he had socialized with one of the lawyers.  As the Wall Street Journal law blog reported: Arbitration awards, as most litigators know, are very difficult to overturn on appeal. That’s why a Dallas appellate court’s [...]

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Apr

20

Springtime for Daubert: Insights From the EDWBA Panel

Posted by: | April 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment

In late January the “tort reform” package imposed the staid Daubert rules on the Wisconsin Rules of Evidence. Now it’s spring, although the weather feels a lot like January, and we must get serious about what to do with this gift that the judiciary did not want. The new rules require that expert testimony be [...]

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Dec

14

Debating Discovery

Posted by: | December 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment

As I noted last week, I recently had the privilege of participating in a panel on the need for further amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure related to E-discovery. A video of the event can be found here. (It actually took place at the National Press Club and not the Mayflower Hotel.) For [...]

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Oct

19

Certiorari Granted in Material Witness Detention Case That Concerns the Iqbal Pleading Standard

Posted by: | October 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Yesterday the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, the petition in which the United States Department of Justice seeks to establish, on behalf of former Attorney General John Ashcroft,  that government officials have immunity from liability for claims that they used the material witness statute to detain a U.S. citizen, not, in reality, [...]

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Sep

28

Can You Be Forced to Turn Over Your Social Network Passwords in a Civil Case?

Posted by: | September 28, 2010 | 5 Comments

Let’s say you’re the plaintiff in a civil case against a neighbor, an employer, or a company you’ve done business with. One of the many pains of litigation is the discovery process–the process whereby each side collects information that it believes will help it win the case. Discovery can come in many forms, such as [...]

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Aug

1

Best of the Blogs

Posted by: | August 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Is American law too complex?  PrawfsBlawg featured an interesting exchange on this question last week.  Eric Johnson initiated the exchange with this post, in which he observed: There is a huge, obvious problem with the law. The bar studiously ignores it. Even the legal academy generally pretends it’s not there. It’s so large as to be [...]

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May

1

Challenging Wisconsin’s Proposed Windows Legislation

Posted by: | May 1, 2010 | 3 Comments

The deeply unsettling and appalling nature of the Catholic priest abuse scandal is difficult to express in hyperbole.  More and more cases continue to come out of the woodwork, and stories abound of allegations of cover-ups and throwing around hush money to abuse victims, all incited by those charged with the sanctified duty to guide, [...]

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Mar

12

To Iqbal or Not to Iqbal?

Posted by: | March 12, 2010 | 1 Comment

One of the recent challenges for Civil Procedure profs has been to explain the Twombly/Iqbal event to students already struggling to understand what often seems to be an arcane and highly contrived subject. I begin by lowering expectations, showing a slide of a local federal judge with a caption depicting his reaction to Twombly – [...]

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Mar

3

Supreme Court Takes Jurisdiction Over “Jurisdiction”

Posted by: | March 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment

A bit overshadowed by all the hubbub over the oral argument in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court yesterday handed down an important copyright opinion in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick. (But see Howard Wasserman, Marcia Coyle.) The court held that Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act, which requires registration of a copyright as [...]

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Feb

23

A Broadening of Diversity Jurisdiction

Posted by: | February 23, 2010 | 3 Comments

Students of civil procedure—which should mean just about everybody interested in using the formal processes of the law to vindicate rights—will be interested in a decision today by the United States Supreme Court. The opinion concerned the provision in the statutory grant of diversity jurisdiction that deems a corporation “to be a citizen of any [...]

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Jan

23

Civil Procedure Fun for the Weekend

Posted by: | January 23, 2010 | 4 Comments

I like to begin the first day of Civil Procedure with a review of a civil action and I like to start each class with a brief recap of the last one. This year – for my review of my review - I found a musical recap – apparently made by students at that law school [...]

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