On June 21, 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) unveiled a landmark set of new rules for the commercial operation of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS), more popularly known as drones. The new rules will take effect in late August 2016 and only apply to commercial uses for drones weighing less than 55 pounds. Designed […]
Owners of many small unmanned aerial systems (“sUAS” or “drones”) and model airplanes will have to register them with the government. The Federal Aviation Administration announced the requirement in an interim final rule on December 14. The FAA touts the new regulation as providing “an alternative, streamlined and simple web-based aircraft registration process for sUAS…to […]
Two recent rulings illustrate the widely varying responses courts have taken in confronting an emerging national issue: how to measure damages for past medical expenses when the hospital’s treatment charges, before discounts and write-offs, dramatically exceed the sums actually paid for the health care provided. Although a seemingly simple question, courts around the country have […]
The amendments that changed Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 on December 1, 2015 re-define the scope of discovery and seek to rein in abusive over-discovery. Two revisions in particular demonstrate that these amendments narrow the framework of allowable discovery. First, the amendments delete from Rule 26(b)(1) the provision that discovery may seek relevant but […]
The Texas Supreme Court’s ruling in Nabors Well Services, Ltd. v. Romero, 456 S.W.3d 553 (Tex. 2015) has re-opened the national debate about whether courts should admit evidence of seat belt non-usage in lawsuits arising from motor vehicle crashes. The Romero decision reversed the course that Texas courts had followed for more than forty years […]
On November 21, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Registration Task Force released its recommendations on registration requirements for small UAS, or “drones”, operated in the United States (including those used for commercial purposes, and all model aircraft). Background Federal law (49 U.S.C. §4401(a)) requires that a person may only operate an […]
On December 1, 2015, a package of amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure took effect. Two changes to Rule 26 contained within these amendments will go far to rein in overly broad discovery requests that are expensive to address and distracting from the merits of the litigation. First, Rule 26(b)(1) will delete the […]
What’s the latest news on Arizona’s civil defense verdicts? Here are some interesting defense verdicts from 2014: – Steak Out Restaurant & Saloon, L.L.C. et al. v. Old Lobos T&T, L.L.C. et al. Steak Out Restaurant and its owners the Wystrach family filed suit against Old Lobos T&T and its owners the Ault family, alleging […]
On February 15, 2015, the federal government unveiled two key documents concerning the future of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)—sometimes referred to as “drones”—in the United States. The FAA released a highly anticipated Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding commercial UAS operations, while the White House issued a Memorandum outlining privacy protections for government UAS use in the National […]
The learned intermediary doctrine can be a legal defense against product liability claims. It is most commonly applied in cases involving drugs and medical devices. A learned intermediary is a medical expert, such as a prescribing physician, who can weigh the risks and benefits of a medication and make informed prescription decisions based on knowledge […]
