When deposing the defendant in a case, or a representative of a corporate defendant, you’ll find it useful to cross-examine about the defendant’s answer including the affirmative defenses.

May 27, 2023 Read Time: 2 min

In this excerpt, I’m continuing to question Maelstrom’s manager about the decision to use an acetylene torch to remove the storage tanks, instead of the safer saw method.

May 26, 2023 Read Time: 3 min

In the first cross-examination series, I suggested ways of inquiring into a witness’s state-of-mind, i.e., the witness’s reasons, intentions, or motivations.

January 16, 2023 Read Time: 2 min

Maelstrom’s manager-in-charge of the renovation project had set the stage. The manufacturing process used solvents and those solvents were volatile. The manager knew about the volatile solvents.

December 28, 2022 Read Time: 3 min

Short questions are more effective in both settings, as are small steps in a sequence or logical progression. Listening attentively to the witness’s answers is always essential.

December 10, 2022 Read Time: 5 min

The duty element and proximate cause are interrelated, in that they both depend on “foreseeability.”

September 28, 2022 Read Time: 5 min

In a previous post, I suggested that both the duty element and proximate cause depend on “foreseeability.” In the course of the research, I discovered that some courts take a different approach.

September 12, 2022 Read Time: 5 min

This is the first of three posts on the element of “duty” in a negligence case.  The “basic elements of negligence” are “duty, breach, proximate cause, and damages.”

May 10, 2022 Read Time: 8 min

The civil rules allow “service by publication” when a defendant’s residence address is not known.  The rule is seldom-used but the necessary conditions are reasonably easy to meet.

April 14, 2022 Read Time: 7 min

Case management often means establishing a schedule for the case.  The pleadings, fact discovery, identification of experts, expert discovery, dispositive motions.

April 11, 2022 Read Time: 9 min

The question in medical malpractice cases is whether the affidavit may be filed with an amended complaint, if it was omitted from the plaintiff’s initial filing.

April 11, 2022 Read Time: 5 min

As of 2021, “[t]wenty-eight states ha[d] requirements for filing an affidavit or certificate of merit in order for a medical liability and malpractice claim to move forward.”

April 1, 2022 Read Time: 5 min