Drum roll, please.
Today the Supreme Court takes up, in a rare 90-minute session, the question of whether Exxon ought to pay half of the $5 billion punitive award that an Alaska jury ordered it to fork over in the civil trial about the Exxon Valdez crash/oil spill/disaster.
Blawgletter has described the case and asked
The Supreme Court yesterday unanimously dodged the question that many thought it would answer — whether a plaintiff alleging employment discrimination may use "me too" evidence from other workers who had "similar" experiences. The Court instead held that the trial judge may or may not have messed up in disallowing such evidence but that the
The Federal Circuit today upheld a judgment against Microsoft for infringing a patent on a "point and shoot interface" that links spreadsheets to database records. The court also vacated a post-judgment award of $0.12 per infringing unit because, it held, the lower court didn’t explain the amount in enough detail. A reasonable royalty, the court
Do character and passion count in rhetoric?
Aristotle would say that a user of rhetoric may never rely on words alone to convince his or her audience. The speaker/writer must also pay due attention to emotion — what the old Greek guy called pathos — as well as to the most powerful persuader of all
Yoda would never use his Jedi Council position to hire a lawyer on a no-bid basis.
Blawgletter just noticed an interesting parallel.
As we reported (again) yesterday, the editorial page at WSJ has a hootin’ good time taking whacks at contingent fee lawyers who provide campaign cash to state attorneys general who retain them.
This
Trolls, trolls, trolls!
The WSJ reports tonight the unmasking of he who cast unrelenting asparagus on patent trolls — Rick Frenkel, director of intellectual property at Cisco Systems. The asparagus-caster ridiculed patentholders who didn’t "practice" their inventions and instead went around suing the pants off of companies that did. Including dear Cisco.
Mr. Frenkel, in
Last Friday, the Fifth Circuit reinstated a damages award (for trademark infringement) more than 5000 times bigger than the amount the district court allowed after receiving supplemental evidence. The lower court cut the damages to $227.10 from $1,256,635 because the defendant, an agricultural cooperative, showed that its taxable profits amounted to the far smaller figure.
The WSJ seems to have always revelled in a personality split. Its excellent reporters ferret out objective facts; the editorial page simultaneously swats at whatever figurative bee the malefactors of greath wealth perceive in their bonnet. Today proves no exception.
Jamie Heller and Nathan Koppel write this morning that "the nation’s largest law firm are
Would you buy a study of tort reform from this man?
The, uh, gentleman who runs the Texas House of Representatives issued instructions to various House committees last November. Speaker Tom Craddick charged the Committee on Civil Practices (yes, it’s plural) to research five things. He put this at the top of the list:
Study
For each statement, fill in the blank with your choice among (a), (b), (c), and (d).
1. Partners are _____.
(a) Good-looking.
(b) Brilliant.
(c) Intimidating.
(d)