A trio of federal district court decisions issued last month in the district of Minnesota should remind Minnesota civil litigators of the high bar required to obtain a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction. Denial of a party’s motion for an injunction is not generally noteworthy because an injunction “is an extraordinary remedy never […]
One of the great pleasures of solo/small law firm life is the flexibility and freedom that allows one to do things like blogging. Large or medium-sized law firm lawyers are constrained by firm bureaucracies and also by one of the most, if not the single most, conservative/cautious workplace environments around. (Heaven help Partner A (let […]
Lawyers are given wide latitude to advocate for their clients but, fortunately, there are limits. Our professional ethics require some adherence, some “buy-in,” to widely agreed-upon truths. None of us want to spend tax-payer money, not to speak of “person hours” arguing dead-end arguments repeatedly ad infinitum. Life is too short. (Eternity is too short, for […]
People will steal food out of a shared fridge quite readily but if you put a $5 bill in there, people will be far more reluctant to nab it (although eventually I expect you’ll find a taker). Money plays a subtle and unique role in morality. If you swipe a tip off of a table at […]
In an October post, “Those Affidavit Blues” (linked here), I praised the Supreme Court for letting stand a Court of Appeals decision that overturned one of those unfortunate “expert affidavit” dismissals. Last week a Court of Appeals unpublished decision, Tollefson v. Keck, rejected another attempt to preclude a plaintiff from a trial due to an allegedly deficient expert […]
In a recent per curiam decision, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped a bit away from Twombly and Iqbal. Twombly and Iqbal tightened pleading standards for federal court cases. Taken together, Twombly and Iqbal rejected the Conley v. Gibson standard, which said that a complaint was viable unless it appeared beyond doubt that the plaintiff […]
Regular readers of Minnesota Litigator will note some themes in posts. One is that we are in the midst of a digital data revolution that is radically changing the practice of law along with our entire society (here’s a sampling of posts along these lines). Another theme that might get a little short-changed in comparison […]
The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution provides that, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” What is “involuntary servitude”? ‘Involuntary servitude’ consists of two terms. ‘Involuntary’ means ‘done contrary […]
If devices are collecting data about us all, all of the time, forever onward — data that we knowingly create (text messages, for example), data we passively allow to be collected (geo-location, for example), data that is collected about us constantly without our knowledge — it is not an extreme leap to suggest that other […]
For a long time now, commercial airplanes have been the most dedicated autobiographers on earth. They obsessively record every mood swing, their petty issues with wind speed, engine function, cockpit chit-chat, and so on… (We call the airplane’s diaries “black boxes” but, of course, that would hardly be convenient when rummaging through the wreckage at crash sites.) […]