So two stories today give me a soapbox to address one aspect of ERISA class action litigation and the push back from plan sponsors and their fiduciary liability insurers against the costs imposed on them by this line of litigation. One story, which to protect the innocent I won’t otherwise identify, involves court approval of
It is one of my favorite words – spoliation. It just slides right off of a litigator’s tongue. I have been litigating, either as direct claims over destruction of evidence or as an evidentiary inference, the concepts of spoliation for decades. If memory serves, the first time I handled it was defending a direct claim
My in-box, like most of you I assume, is inundated on a day in, day out basis with offers of webinars, seminars, and the like on every topic under the sun that the sponsors think I might even conceivably have any interest in or professional connection to. Most I ignore without even opening, as not
Here is an excellent article on electronic discovery under the federal rules, and efforts to reduce the expense of this process by protecting against inadvertent waiver of privilege. As long time readers know, I have frequently criticized the structure and format of the federal rules, and their application by the courts, concerning electronic discovery, for
Here’s an interesting law review article, passed along in detail by the Workplace Prof, on problems, and potential solutions, in managing discovery. Discovery, to beat what must now be a dead horse, has become infinitely more complicated and expensive – with far more consequences for mistakes – in any type of complex litigation
I received a pitch for an interesting seminar on the interrelationship of the federal rules governing expert discovery, the retention of experts in litigation, and the work product doctrine. The issue addressed by the seminar has to do with the fact that expert discovery under the federal rules at this point is very broad, and
One of the more unwieldy of legal fictions is the so-called tripartite relationship among the insured, the insurer, and the defense counsel defending the insured against the claim. Duties run every which way in the relationship, and this beast is at its most cantankerous when one gets into the question of how the attorney client
Like all of you, I am sure, I receive almost daily pitches in my in-box for seminars, podcasts, books and publications that promise to educate me on various topics that the pitchers have decided I must be interested in. Of course, these may be the same marketing wizards who send me twenty pitches a day
Here is a nice post on whether claim reserves are discoverable in insurance coverage or bad faith litigation, with some case law on the topic as well. The discovery of claim reserve information is one of those issues that is a consistent point of dispute from one coverage or bad faith action to the next.