We will all agree that a lawyer or her client should be punished if they bring a case without any basis in law or fact — a complaint in which either the facts or the law are “simply made up.”   There is no social value of such cases, they inflict needless cost on a […]

As reported this week by the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press, the Minnesota Board of Judicial Standards (“BJS”), the board that provides oversight on the state’s judges, has filed a complaint against the Chief Judge of the Minnesota Tax Court, George Perez for misconduct. According to the complaint, Chief Judge Perez falsely certified that he had […]

In the United States, traditional dance is a dying (nearly dead) past-time.  In fact, it is hard for me to get my mind around the fact that it was common some decades ago for a man to sidle up to a woman whom he did not know well or whom he had never even met, […]

Why is there an “adult bookstore” (a misnomer if ever there was one) in Brainerd, Minnesota?  Are computer access, internet access, or internet speeds in Northern Minnesota so bad that the pornographically inclined population cannot go on-line to meet its voyeuristic needs?  Maybe it is like movie theaters and there a the social aspect that keeps […]

If you are a law student or are thinking about being one, you are probably thinking that you will need to choose between a criminal practice or a civil practice, either public interest/non-profit work, a government job, academia, or a private law firm, large, small, or solo.  But even within each of these subsets of […]

Scott Finnegan was a registered nurse with sleep deprivation and depression for which he sought medical treatment and was prescribed Celexa and Trazodone, both of which warn that people need to be “careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be awake and alert.” One week later (11/11/2009 at 4:30 pm), he lost […]

The Huffington Post headline was, “Support Jack Shepard, The Arsonist, For Congress.”  Shepard takes the position that it was defamatory for the “HuffPo,” as the Huffington Post is sometimes called, to label him an arsonist when, in fact, he was merely charged with arson rather than convicted (he fled to Italy before trial). (The article […]

Minnesota Litigator recently queried what the next big wave of litigation might be: Obesity? Food packaging? Liability for injuries in professional sports?  Legal trends are impossible to predict.  In fact, they are even difficult to perceive when they are happening.  It is only after data is (or “are” if you are a pedant) collected and […]

Schwegman Lundberg Woessner (“SLW”) is a highly respected Twin Cities intellectual property law firm, which, ironically, is being sued for allegedly infringing on the intellectual property rights of the American Institute of Physics and published John Wiley & Sons, Inc. An excellent write-up of the case and a companion case can be found here. Minnesota Litigator has […]