Insurance Claim1

Have you ever met someone who claims it's someone else's fault?   I hear it at least once every day. Bad judge.  Bad lawyer. Bad opposing counsel.  Bad "legal" system.  Bad, bad, bad - it's everyone else's fault they they keep losing. Take, for instance, the couple who came in the other day.  Seems they had had a business selling tchotchkes online.  Seems their supplier had shorted them a couple hundred items on an order (they're looking at maybe $200 in damages) and so filed suit for breach of contract. Simple small claims action.  But no.  Couple was out for blood - so they sued for $150,000 and costs of suit.  Standard prayer for damages IF your damages were significant enough to sue in Superior Court (which, in couple's case, they weren't). So, couple hunts around on Google for a sample complaint, files it and......the court grants a demurrer with leave to amend their complaint.   Couple is angry but they hunt around Google for an

Have you ever bought a new car and just fell in love with it?  I mean, LOVE it, you do.  You name it, baptize it, send out notices to all your friends that you're in a new relationship, take Christmas card photos with your car. LOVE IT, you do. We had this guy come into the library the other day that just LOOOOOOOVED his car.  I mean, just...wow...he was nuts about his car; couldn't say enough good things about it.  Turns out, he had driven it off the lot a couple months before. He and the dealer had done up the paperwork and the dealer said they'd take care of the financing - and off he drove with his new love. Fast forward a couple months and guy is standing in front of me telling me that the dealer called him today and told him that if he didn't return the car immediately, that they would file grand theft charges against him. Really?  Grand theft?  Dang, but I thought that only the District Attorney could do that!? After a little discussion, I get t

You ever feel like you have no clue what to do next?  You've worked hard all your life, planned, schemed, and plotted and are still at a point where you're stuck?  Happens all the time at my LAW library. Yesterday, in fact, I had a newly minted lawyer come into our LAW library. Seems new lawyer had recently passed the kafe but try as he might, he could not get a job at a law firm and so decided to put out his own shingle.   Problem was, while law school taught theory to help with passing the kafe exam, what he needed now was practice (or tools of a practical nature).   I suspected he was kicking himself for not paying more attention in his Legal Research and Writing class.  Yeah, that would have really helped him out now (in the real world). Anyway, I could see the fear in his eyes as he roamed our halls. Heck, I could smell it and he was really freaking out since he had just accepted a new client in a personal injury case and he didn't know where to start. 

Have you ever had the experience where you are talking to a group of people and someone doesn't believe you and they say "prove it?"  I mean, the gall of some people. What is helpful, in those situations is if someone is standing there and they've got your back saying, "no, she speaks the truth" (thereby shutting down the naysayers). Yep, always nice to have someone watching your back.  Of course, this all brings us to our word of the month: CORROBORATION .  According to Black's Law Dictionary , CORROBORATION means: 1. Confirmation or support by additional evidence or authority (corroboration of the witness's testimony).  2. Formal confirmation or ratification.  3. Confirmation or support by additional evidence of the date of invention or of a trademarks first use. So, a funny thing.  The other day I was looking at this definition and while I was thus looking, a young lady came up to me asking an intellectual property issue. Seems Young