Evidence Expert witnesses A treating physician who is offered to provide expert testimony as to the cause of the plaintiff’s injury, but who did not make that determination in the course of providing treatment, is required to submit an expert ...
Read More »09-2815 Hill v. Potter
Employment Retaliation Where an employee could not show there was work available that she could perform with her limitations, summary judgment was properly granted to the employer on her claim that her hours were reduced in retaliation for engaging in ...
Tagged with: Employment Digest Retaliation
Read More »09-3002 Hatmaker v. Memorial Medical Center
Employment Retaliation The participation clause in Title VII does not prohibit retaliation for participation in an internal investigation. The ‘investigation’ to which section 2000e-3 refers does not include an investigation by the employer, as distinct from one by an official ...
Tagged with: Employment Digest Retaliation
Read More »09-3015 Runyon v. Applied Extrusion Technologies, Inc.
Employment Age discrimination Where an employee had a turbulent relationship with co-workers from the start, and had several heated disputes with them, his termination was not age discrimination. “Extrusion explained at trial that Runyon was fired primarily because he was ...
Tagged with: Age discrimination Employment Digest
Read More »09-3007 & 09-3996 Metavante Corp. v. Emigrant Savings Bank
Civil Procedure Attorney fees Individual scrutiny of line-item entries is not necessary or appropriate in contractual fee-shifting cases. “Emigrant submits that allowing the submission of redacted bills effectively amounts to a prepayment standard- if the prevailing party has paid its ...
Tagged with: Attorney fees Civil Procedure Digest
Read More »09-2589 & 09-2593 U.S. v. Favara
Sentencing Reasonableness Where a defendant had a history of fraudulent behavior, it was not disparate to impose a 70-month sentence, while other co-defendants received probation. “Favara’s 70-month sentence was not unwarrantedly disparate from her co-defendants, several of whom received probation. ...
Read More »10-1173 U.S. v. Carlisle
Search and Seizure Reasonable expectation of privacy Where a defendant denied at a suppression hearing that he did not own a backpack he was carrying at the time of his arrest, he has no reasonable expectation of privacy that would ...
Read More »08-2679 U.S. v. Sanchez
Retaliation Against a Witness Sufficiency of evidence Where the government presented no evidence that the defendant knew the targets of his kidnapping plot had given testimony against the drug trafficker for whom the defendant was working, the evidence is insufficient ...
Read More »09-1856 U.S. v. Cantrell
Honest Services Fraud Sufficiency of the evidence Where a defendant steered contacts to a third party in exchange for kickbacks, the evidence is sufficient to support a conviction for honest services fraud. “The indictment charged Cantrell with using his position ...
Read More »09-2155 Jay Franco & Sons, Inc., v. Franek
Intellectual Property Trademarks; functionality A round beach towel is not a valid trademark. “Franek wants a trademark on the circle. Granting a producer the exclusive use of a basic element of design (shape, material, color, and so forth) impoverishes other ...
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