The Volokh Conspiracy

I'm proud to report that my appellate colleagues at Mayer Brown (where I'm a part-part-part-time academic affiliate) have had a remarkable string of victories, five in the nine days from Aug. 19 to Aug. 27:

Movsesian v. Victoria Versicherung AG (9th Cir.), holding that a California statute that "extends the statute of limitations until 2010 for claims arising out of life insurance policies issued to 'Armenian Genocide victim[s]'" is preempted because it "interferes with the national government's conduct of foreign relations."
Salmeron v. Enterprise Recovery Systems, Inc. (7th Cir.), affirming dismissal of a False Claims Act suit against Sallie Mae and other defendants as a sanction for leaks of confidential material by the plaintiff's attorney to wikileaks.com.
CSX Transportation, Inc. v. Bickerstaff (Md. Ct. Spec. App.), vacating damages awards totaling over $15 million, on the grounds that the trial court erroneously failed to instruct the jury to apportion damages to factors other than CSX's or the plaintiffs' negligence (such as the plaintiffs' age, obesity, or pre-existing medical conditions).
Hensley v. CSX Transportation, Inc. (Tenn. Ct. App.), concluding that an erroneous failure to instruct the jury on the requirements to recover damages for fear of cancer was not harmless, and therefore required reversal of the $5 million verdict.
Udac v. Takata Corp., reversing a $12.5 million product liability punitive damages award for lack of sufficient evidence of the punishable mental state, and vacating the remaining $4.5 million compensatory damages awards because of evidentiary and instructional errors committed by the trial court.

It's such a pleasure working with top-notch lawyers like this; with luck, I'll learn something from them.

	[Eugene Volokh, August 31, 2009 at 5:58pm] Trackbacks On a Roll: I'm proud to report that my appellate colleagues at Mayer Brown (where I'm a part-part-part-time academic affiliate) have had a remarkable string of victories, five in the nine days from Aug. 19 to Aug. 27: Movsesian v. Victoria Versicherung AG (9th Cir.), holding that a California statute that "extends the statute of limitations until 2010 for claims arising out of life insurance policies issued to 'Armenian Genocide victim[s]'" is preempted because it "interferes with the national government's conduct of foreign relations." Salmeron v. Enterprise Recovery Systems, Inc. (7th Cir.), affirming dismissal of a False Claims Act suit against Sallie Mae and other defendants as a sanction for leaks of confidential material by the plaintiff's attorney to wikileaks.com. CSX Transportation, Inc. v. Bickerstaff (Md. Ct. Spec. App.), vacating damages awards totaling over $15 million, on the grounds that the trial court erroneously failed to instruct the jury to apportion damages to factors other than CSX's or the plaintiffs' negligence (such as the plaintiffs' age, obesity, or pre-existing medical conditions). Hensley v. CSX Transportation, Inc. (Tenn. Ct. App.), concluding that an erroneous failure to instruct the jury on the requirements to recover damages for fear of cancer was not harmless, and therefore required reversal of the $5 million verdict. Udac v. Takata Corp., reversing a $12.5 million product liability punitive damages award for lack of sufficient evidence of the punishable mental state, and vacating the remaining $4.5 million compensatory damages awards because of evidentiary and instructional errors committed by the trial court. It's such a pleasure working with top-notch lawyers like this; with luck, I'll learn something from them.