Update #2 (December 20, 2011):  This legal malpractice case foundered on causation and the plaintiffs recovered nothing.  They have now been order to pay over $30,000 of the defendants’ costs (and, of course, had to pay their own costs, as well).  Meanwhile, plaintiffs seek reversal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.  

Update (June 7, 2011):  U.S. District Court Judge Donovan W. Frank (D. Minn.) awards summary judgment to legal malpractice defendants, finding no causation — in a nutshell, his analysis is: “You cannot lose what was never yours to begin with…”  An appeal seems probable.

Original post (September 7, 2010):  In lengthy, messy litigation previously covered by Minnesota Litigator (here), litigants in a hard-fought multi-forum commercial dispute (centering around the sale of a business and related trademark rights) went toe-to-toe in the negotiation of a consent order with regard to who had what rights and, at least from a distance, one party appears to have sought to narrow the rights that it gave the counter-party in negotiation by transmitting the consent order to the Court under a transmittal letter that characterized those rights more narrowly than the language in the consent order itself.

On the other hand, perhaps it was the cover letter and not the underlying consent order that embodied the parties’ agreement?  Either way, the order was dated March 31, 2001 and it is clear that the U.S. Court of Appeals, even while finding some of the lawyering of the prevailing party was perhaps devious, felt that far too much time had passed for Plaintiff Louis E. Kemp.  ”For several reasons,” the Court held that Mr. Kemp fell “far short of the exacting standards for after-the-fact equitable relief.” (He sought relief from judgment under Rule 60(d)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.) Continue reading →

Large law firms have been shrinking for several years now.  Since 2008, over 10,000 large firm lawyers have been let go across the country.  Anecdotally, Minnesota Litigator understands that every job opening in a Twin Cities legal opportunity is deluged with interested applicants.

At the same time, Minnesota Public Radio has a story about how rural America is losing its lawyers and is looking for lawyers. (Hat-tip: DKP).  (Query: if surgeons can do surgery remotely, can’t lawyers do law remotely?  American business can out-source to the Far East but rural Minnesota can’t line up Twin Cities counsel (if there are not local lawyers available for the work)?)

ATM Fee Notice From Wells Fargo ATM

Update (December 16, 2011): Coincidentally, U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Davis (D. Minn.) ruled against a putative class action this week related to a single ATM that apparently lacked its ATM Fee Notice Sticker.  As such, plaintiff’s case had some marginally greater merit than the case described below.  But, still, with all due respect, plaintiff has no class (as the Court held in a sense). (Plaintiff admitted that he was given notice of the $3.00 charge on the ATM screen and went forward with the transaction regardless.  So his actual damages therefore were what?  Assuming that the plaintiff had canceled the transaction on learning about the fee on the screen, maybe his damages would be the dollar value of about 8 seconds or so of his life between when he would have read the ATM fee sticker versus reading about the charge on the ATM screen?  A human life is reportedly worth about $9 million these days.  If that value is equal for all time, then that makes 8 seconds of our lives worth about $0.03.  Most would conclude that this is not worth suing over but who are we to judge?) Continue reading →

Any news-following Minnesotan is aware of the tragic attack yesterday in Grand Marais.  This is not the kind of “news and commentary” about Minnesota litigation that Minnesota Litigator is particularly equipped to cover but, on the other hand, it is sad news that cannot go without mention or notice.

The challenges of rural legal practice are many and courthouse security (the absence of same) is on the list.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, direct and indirect, of this horrific attack.

A recent decision by Senior Judge David Doty in an inflammatory racial discrimination case arising in the Red Wing public schools provides a good overview of claims that a student who has been harassed based on her race might bring against a school district and its officials, focuses attention on the little-known Title VI (not its more popular sibling Title VII), and perhaps even offers a lesson to school officials.

Continue reading →

Update (December 16, 2011):  The earlier post concerned multiple layered financial transactions and queried whether the structure, in the end, was legitimate or fraud.  U.S. District Court Judge Donovan W. Frank weighed in this week, finding fraud against some defendants, not against others.  

Original Post (November 16, 2011):  The way many businesses are organized, with entities owning parts of entities holding parts of entities, can remind one of “Russian Nesting Dolls” or even the cosmological conundrum expressed in by shorthand expression “turtles all the way down.”

Such complex interrelationships are not necessarily devised to mask fraud.  In fact, there are most often legitimate business reasons for complicated commercial arrangements — delicate multi-player balancing acts of risk-sharing and profit-sharing.  Then, again, sometimes “shell games” are devised to mask fraud.   Continue reading →

Minnesota law provides for post-judgment interest on the unpaid balance of money judgments.  Until 2009, such interest was tied to the yield of one-year United States Treasury bills.  In 2009, however, the legislature changed the law.  Interest on judgments of $50,000 or less is still based on the yield of T-Bills; interest on judgments of more than $50,000 is set at a statutory annual rate of ten percent.

In a recent case, the Court of Appeals considered the question of whether the statutory rate for large judgments is also mandated for judgments arising out of property settlements in divorces, or whether the district court, as part of its obligation to divide assets in a just and equitable manner, has the discretion to apply a lower rate of interest. Continue reading →

Here is the Governor’s Press Release about soon-to-be Judge Bartolomei.

Here is the Governor’s Press Release about the final field of five or two spots on the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Minnesota Litigator is in its third year, covering “News and Commentary about Minnesota Civil Litigation,” which is a crime by omission.  That leaves out a large swath of Minnesota litigation, of course:  criminal law.

Minnesota Litigator is delighted to announce Eric Rice, our newest guest poster, who will recalibrate the scale of Minnesota Litigator by offering insights into the criminal side of Minnesota litigation.  Here is Eric’s bio:

Criminal law has been a passion of mine since law school.  In law school I worked for the Office of the Federal Defender in Minnesota, a Boston-area prosecutor’s office, and the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama.  As a lawyer, I have a solo criminal law practice and handle all types of criminal defense matters, including DWI, assault, theft, and drug charges.  Although based in St. Paul, I handle matters throughout the state.  I received a B.A. in music from the University of Minnesota and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.  More information about me and my practice can be found at ricedefense.com.

If you are the first person to identify a federal question in this complaint on Minnesota Litigator, you win a $10 Caribou Coffee Gift Card.