The lawsuit filed by blogger Mark Nicolas with the Bluegrass Report when Fletcher was the governor blocking state employees' access to blogs has been settled for $10,000.
Here is a link to Marcia Oddi's post at the Indiana Law Blog digesting the posts and linking to the stories in the HL and the CJ:
Thanks to the Indiana Law Blog for pointing me to a recent law review article study ranking the state's highest courts. Courts - Arkansas Supreme Court rated highly in a U of Chicago study.
Which States Have the Best (and Worst) High Courts?
Here is a link to the 51-page study.
According to the abstract:This paper ranks the high courts of the fifty states, based on their performance during the years 1998-2000, along three dimensions: opinion quality (or influence as measured by out-of-state citations), independence (or non-partisanship), and productivity (opinions written). We also discuss ways of aggregating these measures
Interestingly enough, the oft-touted Chamber of Commerce study was criticized since only the biggest lawfirms with the biggest ties to insurance and corporations made up their survey base:
The final ranking comes from a non-academic study. This is a ranking of the various state courts put out by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (for purposes of our discussion, we focus on the 2002 rankings).
32 In this study, close to 1,500 senior lawyers working at firms with revenues of at least $100 million annually were surveyed annually since 2001 for their evaluations of the different state legal systems. As we will discuss in Part V, there is good reason to doubt that these particular lawyers would provide an objective evaluation of state legal systems, as opposed to an evaluation that reflects the perspective of a lawyer who works for a large corporation.
Kentucky's rankings were as follows from this report:
Notice of the Jefferson Circuit Court Jefferson Circuit Court, Division Five (5) and Division Nine (9) will not conduct Motion Hour on Monday, June 16.
Motions will be heard on the following Monday, June 23.
Thanks to the LBA for this update!
From the Herald Leader is a story of a lawsuit against former Fayette County Attorney Kannenshohn:
A lawsuit claiming that former Fayette County Attorney Margaret Kannensohn wrongfully fired an employee for reporting time-card irregularities may proceed to trial, a judge has ruled.
On Wednesday, Fayette Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine overruled a motion for summary judgement filed by the Fayette County Attorney's Office.
The office had argued that former employee Wanda Brown did not have a good-faith basis for reporting allegations of wrongdoing by Kannensohn to state and federal authorities and thus was not entitled to protections under state whistle-blower laws.
Whether Brown reported the allegations in good faith is a question for jurors to decide, Goodwine ruled.
An attorney for Brown said the case is now ready to proceed to trial. Within the next few weeks Brown will ask the judge to set a trial date, attorney Michael Dean said.
Well, someone out there actually reads these pages!
Last week I mentioned a procedure in Indiana in which elected count officials, legislators, and members of the judiciary meet and brainstorm ideas to improve the justice system. I liked the idea and posted the Indiana Law Blog post with a few comments of my own: INDIANA: "Commission on the Courts" Consisting of Court and Legislative Members - et tu Ky?
Aaron Silleto has posted a comment which I have taken the liberty of moving here and posting separately. Yes, I know there are rules committees, and ethics committees, and judicial campaign conduct committees, and class action ethics issues committees. But, as everyone chops those trees in front of them, they miss the beauty and the interconnectivity of the forest (bad metaphor but its late). A big picture approach needs to be made and waiting for that phantom other person to do it means it won't be done.
By the way, Aaron has his own blog and ran an uphill race for district court judge last month. With 17 candidates in the initial starting gate, Aaron gets a tip of the hat for laying it all on the line and doing his best. Click here for his blog. And his comment is as follows:
I think this Commission on the Courts would be a worthwhile idea for Kentucky. To stoke the conversation, here are a few items for such a commission to consider:
-- The modifications to Civil Rule 45 proposed by SCOKY, if they are not otherwise adopted this summer. (For details, feel free to check out my latest blog post. [added by KLB -Proposed rule changes merit support]).
-- Conforming Civil Rule 23 to bring it into line with the Federal Rules. Judge Billingsley at LawReader had some good comments on this a while back. The federal courts have a great deal more control over class action settlements than state judges do, and I think that where there are differences, the federal rules are more consumer-friendly.
-- Your suggestion about changing the commencement of an action to coincide with the filing of a complaint, as opposed to the issuance of summons, would be a good change. But in addition to modifying Civil Rule 3.01, the General Assembly would also have to amend KRS 413.250 to effect the change. Also, to prevent abuse, SCOKY would probably have to consider adopting a provision in the Civil Rules analogous to Rule 4(m) of the Federal Rules (120-day time limit for service after commencement of an action).
-- What about expanding the scope of KRS 422.300, et seq. (allowing hospitals to supply certified medical records to the court in lieu of the records custodian appearing at trial), to include all licensed medical providers, as opposed to only hospitals? As far as I know, this has never been a problem, and is honored more in the breach. But codifying existing practice seems to make sense.
I could probably conceive of a few other things, but hopefully this will further the discussion. (Michael, I am interested to hear what your ideas are that you alluded to in your post.)
Kentucky Kingdom accident report expected tomorrow
from Courier Journal
The Kentucky Department of Agriculture inspects amusement park rides. It has been awaiting tests on a cable from the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom to determine what caused it to snap.
Prosecutors with the state attorney general's office had persuaded the lab earlier this month to stop tests on DNA evidence found on the clothing reportedly worn by the killer in the slaying of Virgil Harris.
Indiana Law Blog has a routine entry announcing issues to be reviewed by its "Commission on the Courts" - Interim Legislative Committee to study court issues - which also referenced an earlier post which is a "groups of lawmakers who gather throughout the summer to brainstorm what issues might need to be dealt with in the law."
I am not aware of a similar entity in Kentucky consisting of members of the legislature, judiciary, and local county representatives, but it sounds like something to think about. Reliance upon legal changes solely at the leisure of the legislature and prompted by self-interest of various groups who each have their own agenda is not the ideal way of effecting change.
The Indiana folks will be looking at judicial mandates (whatever those are), judicial elections/appointments/retentions, and a unified statewide mechanics lien apparatus.
I hear a lot of ideas bandied about in Kentucky by lawyers and others on how to improve the quality of our system. But, there seems to no single entity with the public protection and interest in mind with a systematic process (meetings, minutes, methods, etc).
We reported earlier this year on the creation of a committee to look into the ethical rules on class action and tort litigation in the Commonwealth.
Feb. 5, 2008. Chief Justice Joseph E. Lambert has appointed 12 Kentucky attorneys to a committee that will study mass tort and class action litigation cases. The Mass Tort and Class Action Litigation Committee will determine whether current court rules for attorneys and judges provide adequate safeguards against unethical conduct and whether rule changes may provide guidance to attorneys and courts dealing with complex litigation.
However, a hit or miss approach to the problem of the moment is an episodic rather than a systemic approach to problem solving and solutions. Plus this committee included only lawyers since it was apparently focusing solely on the concerns of unethical conduct.
Be it the legislature, the judiciary, the bar (KBA, LBA, FBA, NKBA), or a group of volunteer brainstormers, the time has come for a committee to look at the whole court system - a Y2K Court Committee.
I have some ideas, but will see if this generates any comments. Think inside the box, as well as outside the box. Everything from a simple revision of the civil rules to match up the commencement of a complaint to the simple filing (like the feds) to a review of judicial appointments versus elections and everything in between. Since there is something already going on in the criminal law setting, this should focus on the civil side of the house.
From Courier Journal:
Charged with burglarizing two family members' homes in Clay County earlier this year, Michael Gilliam was facing as many as 20 years in prison -- and angry relatives pushing for stiff punishment.
