The Appellate Record : Texas Appellate Lawyer & Attorney Kendall Gray for Fifth Circuit & Supreme Court Appeals

The hardest working circuit in the law business continues cranking out the hits.  Two published opinions from the Fifth Circuit yesterday having potential interest to the civil practitioner.

• Laughlin v. Nouveau Body  & Tan ( In re Laughlin) (pdf) involves the question of whether the debtor's renunciation of an interest in his father's estate before seeking bankruptcy protection was a fraudulent transfer (it was not).  Judge King wrote the opinion. 
• Wackman v. Rubsamen (pdf) was a wrongful death case applying Texas law.  It probably deserves an extended post as it involved several interesting issues; however, the main issue was the legal sufficiency of the medical causation evidence.  Depending upon whom one believed, the decedent either died of cancer or (according to her largely estranged family) was killed by an overdose of pain medication intentionally administered by her caregivers. 

The court largely affirmed the judgment, finding the expert testimony and circumstantial evidence sufficient to support the judgment notwithstanding some "analytical gaps" acknowledged by the expert.  Judge Garza wrote the opinion.

I hope to have some time to read Wackman closely and pull apart the expert discussion.  It is worth your time as well.  The question presented is right in the middle of the fairway of the when expert testimony is "no evidence," or when an objection is required, or what type of objection is sufficient, or when defects in testimony go to the admissibility or only to the weight of the testimony. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link