Comments on Recent Cases: April 2022

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Part of my work involves reading court decisions to keep abreast of how judges decide the types of cases I handle. Below, I share some thoughts on recent decisions.

Texas Ethics Committee Says Attorney Has No Duty to Correct False Deposition Testimony

A strict ethical code governs how attorneys must act.  That code requires attorneys to be honest, but the rules are more complicated when it comes to an attorney’s obligations when someone else is dishonest.  While some ethical codes require attorneys to reveal when their witness lies during a deposition, the State Bar of Texas says that its state code does not.

I wrote about this issue in an article for Litigation News, a publication of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation.

Court Refuses to Shield Sensitive Valuation Report from Public Access

Documents filed in a litigation are generally available for public viewing. In New York State Courts, those documents are available on the NYSCEF website. And while litigants can ask courts to “seal” documents from public view, courts are reluctant to do so.

For example, in a recent decision, the state appeals court in Manhattan affirmed the decision not to seal a valuation report, even though a litigant claimed sharing the report may subject it to “draconian penalties” under Chinese law. The court rejected the arguments on appeal since the litigant did not make a strong case why the Chinese authorities would really apply the law.

Cases like this illustrate the burden litigants have when asking the court to seal documents.

Negligence Plaintiff Wins Summary Judgment

Although it is rare for a negligence plaintiff to win a case on summary judgment in litigation, it happens sometimes. It is rare because a defendant will often present some evidence that he acted reasonably. But when a defendant fails to present such an explanation, he may lose before trial.

This is what happened in a recent case considered by the state appellate court in Manhattan. In that case, the court considered a motion by a plaintiff whose car was hit by the defendant’s car at a traffic light. The plaintiff sought summary judgment in his favor, but the defendant argued that a trial was necessary because he had a good excuse for the collision: he was trying to avoid hitting a pedestrian. But the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s summary judgment award to the plaintiff because the defendant did not provide sufficient details in his excuse; it did not “set forth how fast his vehicle was traveling before the accident or why his reaction to the alleged emergency was reasonable under the circumstances.”

Cases like this indicate how important it is for defendants to gather enough evidence in negligence cases before trial to avoid summary judgment.

Workplace Birthday Party and Panic Attack Lead to Employment Litigation

Employment discrimination cases may arise from unusual circumstances.  They are not always situations where an employer fires someone because of their race or where supervisors make sexist comments. 

For example, in a case that recently got public attention, a jury in Kentucky awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to an employee who had a panic attack after his employer threw him a birthday party.  The employee complained that he notified his employer of his anxiety issues and that the employer fired him because of it.  That may be all that is needed to state a workplace discrimination claim, even if, as the employer claims, the employee became violent.

Cases like this illustrate the situations where employment disputes may arise.

Court Requires Production of Confidential Documents in Discovery

Parties in litigation are often surprised by how many documents they are required to produce to other litigants. This is because discovery in American lawsuits is really broad.

For example, in a recent decision, the state appellate court in Manhattan affirmed the decision of a trial court that required plaintiffs to produce confidential licensing agreements. The plaintiffs argued that the same information that the defendants sought from the agreements was already in tax returns they had produced, but the court said that was not a reason to avoid producing the licensing agreements as well. The court did, however, allow the plaintiffs to insist on a confidentiality agreement to protect the documents from going public.

Cases like this illustrate how hard it may be to avoid producing documents once a lawsuit begins.