Tennessee Law Blog

Recently, my good friend F. Davis Morse at the Consumer Justice Group had an honor even greater than the day he passed the bar exam, his winning multimillion dollar settlements, or his Supreme Court victory: He became a father.

But what should have been the happiest day of his life was overshadowed by the hospital’s mechanized medical apparatuses in place for birthing mothers, a frightening array of unnecessary procedures and forced practices. Davis blogs about it at blogspot.com.
What’s particularly interesting for me is other people’s similar reactions whenever I talk about my or another lawyer’s blogs. They seem suspicious, like I’m having them on. Maybe it’s like how children imagine their elementary school teacher sleeps in the classroom: it’s hard for laypeople to imagine lawyers having a private life or being affected by the world outside the courtroom.

But at the day (and despite the jokes), lawyers are people, live in the same world and are subject to the same injustices and horrors as we write about here and fight against in trials.

This year the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that it will open the southern U.S. border to Mexican interstate trucking companies. Unfortunately, in 2005 the DOT Inspector General found that there is inadequate border safety facilities, that many of these Mexican trucking companies failed to have accurate data about Mexican trucks and drivers, that they failed to certify random drug and alcohol testing already required of U.S. truck drivers.

Another concern is that the Mexican truck drivers ignore drive time limits and will suffer from driver fatigue. Fatigue is a recognized a widespread industry problem that contributes to truck-related crashes and is a major safety concern for truck drivers entering the U.S. John Lannen, the executive director of the Truck Safety Coalition stated “I am deeply troubled that DOT is looking the other way on the problem of fatigued and sleep-deprived Mexican truck drivers”. According to Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH) and Parents Against Tired Truckers (P.A.T.T.). “The U.S. DOT knows that more than 15 percent of Mexican truck drivers entering the U.S. don’t even have the paper logbooks that are currently required to show the amount of working, driving, and rest time. We have no proof that Mexican drivers will not continue to flout U.S. limits on driving time and fail to keep proper time records,”

I have represented families in Tennessee and throughout the United States that have lost loved ones or been tragically injured in trucking accidents. It is imperative that we keep are highways safe and this latest government move is not a step in the right direction. We have plenty of good drivers in this Country and we do not need to lower the bar.

The Tennessee Supreme Court recently addressed an issue that has been the source of significant confusion throughout the years. In general, an employee has one year to bring a workers compensation lawsuit. This time runs from the date of the injury or the last date of workers compensation benefits are provided. A difficult problem arises, however, when an employee suffers a gradual injury such as carpal tunnel syndrome or a back injury that occurs over time. The old case law said that the statute of limitations would begin to run when the employee knew or should have known they had a work related injury or the last date worked. It was very difficult to prove when an employee "should know the have a work injury."

The court has now narrowed the test. The time now begins to run based upon the last day worked doctrine. The Court believes that if the injury is so bad an employee has to miss work the should know that they have a serious work related injury. Workmans compensation is a remedial statute and the court feels this is a more forgiving law for the workers.

This week I finished a case where an insurance company had refused to pay the benefits owed under a life insurance policy. Basically my clients' young son lost his life in car wreck. To help pay for the medical and funeral expenses my clients made a claim for payment on their child's policy. The claim was denied. What puzzled my client most is that the claim was denied because of something in his sons medical history which was accidentally omitted. Remember this child died in a automobile accident not because of health problems. The insurance company claimed that if they would have had an accurate medical history they never would have insured the child and therefore the legally do not have to pay.

Fortunately, we were able to resolve the case in favor of my client. This did not occur, however, until a lawsuit was filed and significant litigation took place. It amazes me how this insurance company went out of their way to avoid paying this claim. Unfortunately, I have several other cases where insurance companies have denied claims based upon grounds that appear border line frivolous. I can't help but wonder how many people simply accept the insurance companies rejection. Tennessee does have some modest laws that allow us to punish the insurance company if the denial is made in bad faith. This is often difficult to prove under the law and the financial punishment can be modest in light of the financial power of these companies. Seeing these cases on a day to day basis I truly believe that we should all be discussing "insurance reform" instead of tort reform