[Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller] did not violate any written or unwritten rules or laws. Of course that does not absolve her of the responsibility to assure that the courts remain fair and just. Her conduct, however, does not warrant removal from office, or even further reprimand beyond the public
Laws were made to be broken.
Christopher North, Blackwood's Magazine, May 1830.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68).
I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody’s asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and
Pardon our excitement, but Eric Turkewitz has included our "Got Champerty" post in his Friday Linkworthy on New York Personal Injury Law Blog. Alright, Eric!
Does the doctrine of functus officio — "having performed his office" — allow an arbitrator to change his award? Yes, the Second Circuit held today — if the parties agreed in advance to permit amendments. T.Co Metals, LLC v. Dempsey Pipe & Supply, Inc., No. 08-08-3894-cv(L) (2d Cir. Jan. 14, 2010).
The panel also
In February of last year, Blawgletter posted this item:
Got Champerty?
Often a yoke companion to maintenance, champerty means . . . what?
Our law school Black's Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979) defines the crime as:
A bargain by a stranger with a party to a suit, by which such third person undertakes to carry on the litigation
A California court of appeals today held that a city may hire private counsel to collect taxes on a contingent fee basis without violating state law.
The case involved Anaheim's efforts to recoup tax payments from travel services, including Travelocity, Expedia, Priceline, and Orbitz. The city alleged that the travel services short-paid its local transient
You've heard about drinking and driving. A ruling today by the Eleventh Circuit involved drinking and diving.
The court held that insurance may cover quadriplegia that resulted from a dive into the Atlantic off a platform in the Bahamas. The diver, James Capone, seems to have trained for the head-first leap by imbibing fluids that induced in him a blood alcohol
Blawgletter grew up in Nacogdoches and went to college and law school in New England. Bear with us.
One time, to get home for Christmas, we caught a bus in New Haven, boarded another one in a scary part of New York, rode across the nation's midsection before cutting south, and ended up in Henderson, Texas.
The Seventh Circuit today upheld a forum non conveniens ruling. The order under review sent a Bulgarian company's case against a Bulgarian bank and its American parent to Bulgaria. Anecdotes about corruption in the Balkan state's courts didn't impress the panel, nor did Bulgaria's hefty filing fee, among other things that Their Honors found not enough to keep