U.S. courts often seem reluctant to award attorneys’ fees and, when they do, they often cut the lawyers’ fees claimed — the proverbial haircut, discussed here repeatedly. But it is exceedingly rare for a trial to include lawyers literally trying to cut their own hair during the trial. Nevertheless, we learned recently that this too has […]

For years, we have pointed out how many times trial lawyers slip up on pleading diversity jurisdiction in federal courts for limited liability companies. The citizenship of an LLC is the citizenship of each of its members. It can be difficult to find out who the members are in an LLC, much less find out […]

Update (February 22, 2018): It did not take the Judge very long to vacate the order of dismissal in the case described below. It seems not so simple for an Ohio receiver to settle a Minnesota $1.7 million lawsuit for $70,000… Original post (February 19, 2018): A Minnesota company (we’ll call it MinnCo) sued an […]

From our recent interview with Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Anne McKeig, a few things stand out. First, family means a very great deal to Justice McKeig. We’re tempted to say that family might mean everything to her — not only her own family but all of our families (and, more broadly, our communities). Second, Minnesotans […]

Update (February 14, 2018): In the posts below, we consider the case of Anibal Sanchez vs. Dahlke Trailer Sales. The case embodies violent collision of current U.S. immigration policy. Federal law prohibits the hiring of illegal immigrants. Employers routinely knowingly ignore the law. But when a worker/illegal immigrant invokes employment rights under state law, employers […]

Pacific Union v. Dingman is a generic example of “brain raid” litigation that we have covered several times. What makes this case different is the alleged breadth of the exodus. This was not a small number of employees. It appears to have been an entire region of Pacific Union’s mortgage lending business de-camping and pitching their […]

Update (February 10, 2018): In the face of Edina High School’s motion to dismiss, it looks as if the Edina High School Young Conservatives Club, having made its publicity splash with their lawsuit, will now quietly slink away in a quick settlement. Original post (January 26, 2018): Following up on Monday’s post, we got Edina High […]

Update (February 9, 2018): We have covered Naca v. Macalester at some length and the conduct of Plaintiff’s attorney, Mr. Peter Nickitas. The way this case has been prosecuted might yield many useful practice pointers in how NOT to practice law in U.S. District Court. The Court [(U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, D. Minn.)]…finds […]

Update (February 9, 2018): If you are late to the game, you (and all of us) must confront the painful truth: the “world-wide web” is a world-wide fetid cesspool of information, misinformation, distortion, and propaganda. Lawyers and all people are vulnerable to unjustified and unfair personal attacks. The cost of disseminating defamation has never been […]

In a recent post, we lamented the existence of “zombie cases” — cases where there seem to be no genuine disagreements either as to the facts or the law but the cases persist anyhow for one reason or another (often because a litigant is simply delaying the inevitable). One solution, we suggested, is the more liberal […]