The Chronicle reports and the Texas Lawyer reports here on the plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case seeking a Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) order allowing her to return to the courtroom in the hope of overturning the U.S. Supreme Court‘s decision that made the procedure legal. After losing in the District Court on her motion, the plaintiff has appealed that denial to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has set oral argument on the matter for March 2.
In an ironic twist, the Chronicle also runs a front page story today about twin baby girls born Feb. 11 in Houston, one of whom weighed 2.8 pounds and the other 12 ounces at birth. Houston’s fabulous Texas Children’s Hospital in the Texas Medical Center has long been one of the nation’s leader’s in the care of premature babies.

In Bank of China v. NBM LLC, No. 02-9267 (2d Cir. Feb. 17, 2004), the 2nd Circuit reversed a jury’s $132 million civil RICO verdict in a bank fraud trial, in part because of a Fed. R. Evid. 701 violation. The plaintiffs offered an employee to testify in the form of lay opinion about various aspects of banking practice and custom and the district court admitted the testimony, citing the witness’ years of experience in international banking and “common sense.” Inasmuch as the testimony was based exclusively on the experience of the witness, the 2nd Circuit held that the testimony was subject to Fed. R. Evid. 702’s disclosure requirements for expert evidence, and not properly admissible as lay opinion. Although the 2nd Circuit observed that the Fed. R. Evid. 701 violations are subject to a harmless error analysis, the Court nevertheless concluded that the evidentiary error was not harmless, given that the witness’ testimony comprised nearly a thousand pages of the trial transcript.
Moral to this decision: Disclose your experts!

Following an earlier post on last week’s Chronicle article on the impact that tort reform is having on Harris County jurors, Professor Richard Alderman, who holds the Dwight Olds Chair in Law at the University of Houston Law Center, writes this op-ed in which he criticizes the effect of tort reform propaganda on the civil justice system. Professor Alderman notes the following in a part of his op-ed:

The United States does not regulate the marketplace by legislation. We regulate through the civil justice system. Private attorneys represent private citizens injured as the result of negligent, incompetent, careless or even willful conduct. Professionals maintain high standards, corporations follow the law, manufacturers develop safe products, landlords maintain security systems, and newspapers and television stations check and double check stories because of lawsuits. Our civil justice system is often the only recourse you have when you lose your money, your health or even your life. And an essential part of that system is the damages the Legislature and courts have determined may be recovered by an injured individual. Just as jurors must make the hard decision to imprison or even sentence a criminal to death, civil jurors have a duty to follow the law and award damages authorized by the Legislature.

An Alabama federal jury yesterday awarded a group of ranchers $1.28 billion in damages after it found that Tyson Fresh Meats, the country’s largest beef packer and a division of Tyson Foods, used illegal cattle contracts to hold down the prices it paid them. The cattle ranchers originally filed their suit against IBP Inc., which was later bought by Tyson Fresh Meats. This is the first verdict in the three class actions that cattle ranchers have brought against three of the four largest beef packing companies in the U.S. The other two cases remain pending in Alabama federal court.

The Texas Law Blog points to a Houston Chronicle weekend article that interviews various Harris County judges and attorneys regarding the increased difficulty that courts are having in finding jurors who are willing to follow Texas law in awarding damages in personal injury cases. Many jurors are now advising attorneys and courts during voir dire that they are unwilling to consider awarding damages in regard to certain types of injury such as mental anguish, and some are admitting that they are unwilling to award punitive damages. In the face of intense political debate in Texas regarding tort reform over the past couple of years, the article is more anecdotal evidence that the tide of Harris County public opinion is turning against the awarding of large personal injury damages.