In 2012, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and legal writing expert, Bryan Garner, published Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts. According to its authors, the purpose of the book is two fold: (1) to promote a judicial philosophy that finds the content of the law in the text of the Constitution, statutes, and contracts … Continue Reading
This morning, the Illinois Supreme Court announced a busy oral argument docket of twelve civil cases for the September term, the Court’s first term of its potentially year-long stay in Chicago. The cases are: Wednesday, September 11 Hooker v. Retirement Board of the Firemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, No. 114811 — Issues Presented: Do … Continue Reading
Last term, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a state plan that provides up to $100,000 to the parents or legal guardians of an infant found to have sustained a birth-related neurological injury. See Samples v. Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Ass’n, 114 So. 3d 912 (Fla. 2013) (click here to view … Continue Reading
One of the cases the Supreme Court of Florida will be considering this Fall concerns “legislative privilege” – specifically, whether Florida legislators or legislative staff members can be forced to give deposition testimony and produce documents relating to legislation establishing new congressional districts. See Fla. House of Representatives v. League of Women Voters … Continue Reading
Last week, in a case which had attracted nationwide interest in the workers’ compensation bar, a divided Illinois Supreme Court extended the mailbox rule to the process of initiating judicial review of decisions of the Workers’ Compensation Commission. Justice Robert R. Thomas wrote the opinion for the five-Justice majority in Gruszeczka v. The Illinois Workers’ Compensation … Continue Reading
Florida has established a statutory framework for the pre-suit investigation of medical malpractice cases. See §766.201-.212, Fla. Stat. Part of that framework requires that a claimant, prior to noticing its intent to initiate medical negligence litigation, “corroborate reasonable grounds to support the claim of medical negligence” with a “verified written medical expert opinion.” On July … Continue Reading