North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

Electrical injury cases demand familiarity with national, state rules and codes

You are sitting in your star expert’s deposition. Despite five hours of wood-shedding, your expert has just testified that a national standard of care governs the removal of gangrenous limbs. “If the left leg is gangrenous, you remove the left ...

[Editor’s note: Part I of this column ran in the September 4, 2006 issue of Lawyers Weekly.] While the basic principles of agency are straightforward under North Carolina law, their application by the North Carolina courts in medical malpractice cases ...

It is an all too familiar story. With 9(j) opinions in hand, and a month to go before the statute runs, you file your blue ribbon medical malpractice case. From your perfectly organized set of medical records, you identify the ...

‘One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.’ — Oscar Wilde From the perspective of a trial attorney, few things spawn greater desperation than a clear liability case that is saddled with questionable ...

As statutes go, North Carolina’s wrongful death statute is a seemingly benign piece of legislation. Under common law, all tort claims were extinguished or “abated” by the death of their holder, regardless of the degree of pain, suffering or general ...

Familiarity may breed contempt, but it can also serve as a touchstone for success when it comes to qualifying expert witnesses in medical malpractice cases. In Wiggins v. Piver, 276 N.C. 134, 171 S.E.2d 393 (1970), the North Carolina supreme ...

In the seminal case of Wiggins v. Piver, 276 N.C. 134, 171 S.E.2d 393 (1970), the North Carolina supreme court rejected the so-called “locality rule” in favor of the more liberal “same or similar communities” standard presently used to measure ...