Filtered by Category: Commentary

Comments on Recent Cases: May and June 2020

Few employers think they are guilty of racial or sexual discrimination when they fire someone. But even for employers that comply with the law, responding to a discrimination claim may still require depositions and legal argument. This is why employers should take proactive measures to ensure they avoid the risk of litigation and prepare themselves well if a dispute arises.

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Comments on Recent Cases: June 2026

Defendants in litigation often cite the statute of limitations to argue that the court should dismiss a claim because the plaintiff waited too long before asserting it. But applying time limits to claims is not always straightforward.
As we saw in the prior case, employment discrimination plaintiffs usually have a list of events about which they complain in litigation. While each of the events could support a discrimination clam, some of them may still be excluded from a lawsuit for being too distant if they are not tightly linked to actions within the time limit for filing a claim.
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Comments on Recent Cases: May 2026

Defamation claims can be difficult to prove. This is because the law protects statements of opinion from litigation, and a qualified privilege often applies that shields statements from liability unless the plaintiff can establish the defendant made the statement maliciously. These legal shields do not prevent the cost and burden of litigation altogether.
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Comments on Recent Cases: April 2026

Since litigation is burdensome and expensive, parties can make agreements to limit their own exposure to a lawsuit. Courts will enforce “no action” clauses, putting obstacles to the commencement of a lawsuit, even when they protect non-parties to the agreement.
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Comments on Recent Cases: March 2026

People are understandably upset when others say false things about them, and they may consider defamation litigation. When false statements arise in a public process, such as in city records or in court, the lies may do more damage than they would have in a less official forum. The subject of those statements may therefore feel a greater desire to sue. But common-interest privilege protects certain types of statements.
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Comments on Recent Cases: February 2026

When a court orders someone to appear for a deposition, the person must appear or get another court order to the contrary. The penalty for disobeying the order to appear, however, can vary. For witnesses who decline to appear, the penalty may be monetary. For parties to the lawsuit, the court may rule the person who failed to appear must lose, but that is not always the case.
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More Representations and Warranties

The distinction between “representations” and “warranties” may be academic, as they both are promises about the truth of certain facts, but generally a representation is a promise about the present, and a warranty is a promise about the future. For example, a product seller may represent that they are not aware of any defects in a product, but they may warrant that, if defects are found, the seller will repair or replace the product in the future.
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Movies About Lawyers

Depositions instead are usually dull. If you're not asking or answering the questions, it can be easy to nod off. So to make movies of them necessarily requires some dramatic license.
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More Thoughts on the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods

Parties can determine whether the CISG is helpful for them based on whether they prefer its terms over the ones found in another applicable law. But putting those substantive differences aside, I believe that there is a significant benefit to the CISG, and a significant drawback.
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More Thoughts on Trial Exhibit Lists

The process for making an exhibit list often begins several weeks before a “pretrial conference” with the judge to discuss the trial. Often the judge’s rules or the court’s rules will instruct the parties to exchange proposed lists of exhibits. By exchanging these lists before the conference, the parties can identify the subjects of agreement ahead of time and then present their disagreements to the judge at the conference.
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Antitrust Litigation

Some Antitrust conduct is illegal “per se,” which means it is always illegal. Agreeing to fix prices or refusing to sell to certain consumers fits this definition. But other conduct can still violate the law. Courts apply what they call the “rule of reason” to determine whether the defendants conduct is so unreasonably anticompetitive, given the particular circumstances, that it violates the law.
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Litigation in Singapore

The Singapore Courts deal with a high volume of all sorts of commercial disputes. The Singapore International Commercial Court specialises in international commercial disputes and streamlines complex cases with informed judges. The panel of judges in this court is populated by international judges sitting with local judges. Other areas can be just as focused, with the judges hearing cases within their domain expertise.
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Litigation in Uruguay

Unlike common-law systems where paying the other party’s legal fees helps limit unnecessary litigation, each party pays its own legal fees in Uruguay. There are two exceptions: judgment enforcements and egregious behavior.
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Litigation in Hong Kong

An advantage of the courts in Hong Kong is that they maintain strong judicial independence. On the other hand, there is a high risk and cost of litigation, and it can take three to four years to get to trial.
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Litigation in Seychelles

As English French and Creole are all national languages of Seychelles, legal proceedings could include any one of them. However, English is the language used in court. So if a witness speaks Creole or French, they will be provided an English-language interpreter for the court record.
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Litigation in Lithuania

Lithuania’s private law has been a mixture of rules from Germany, France, and Netherlands. In 2004 when Lithuania joined the EU, they not only adopted the regulations that apply to all member states, but they amended other national laws to align with European principles. Today, Lithuanian commercial law is European and modern.
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