Blog of law articles

Well given that there were only three civil opinions released this week and one is a glorified PCA and two are United Auto cases, I thought I would do a short 3d DCA Watch and head over to the Federal Bar luncheon early to see if Judge Jordan wanted to have a quick game of pick up football in the Bankers Club lobby.

(Judge Gold, don't worry -- you can be all-time-QB!)

But then I came across this interview of Nicole Kidman discussing her marriage:

'I've explored obsession. I've explored loss and love in terms of being in a grief-stricken place, I've explored strange sexual fetish stuff, I've explored the mundane aspect of marriage, and monogamy,' Kidman said.

'You work on it,' she went on of marriage. 'It's a very extraordinary, adventurous place to be: incredibly raw, incredibly dangerous and you're very much out at sea. You're exposed. You could drown.'

'When you commit to someone like that, you live and die together by that decision.'

Holy hail -- is this a marriage or Basic Instinct?

All I can say is Tom, you really did a number on her.

I want to focus on this United Auto opinion by Judge Shepherd because I think it encapsulates the way this Judge approaches the law.

As usual, it's a second-tier cert appeal of a circuit court appellate division PCA of a county court decision that went against United Auto.

The first thing that's notable is Judge Shepherd spends an unusual amount of time detailing the basis for the Court's jurisdiction. In fact, you don't even get to the facts section until page 3. This is consistent with the Judge's limited jurisprudential approach.

The second thing I found interesting is you don't learn the outcome of the appeal until page 7 -- most judges will summarize the outcome (affirmed, reversed etc.) up front.

Way to keep your audience guessing, Judge!

Third, this is another example of Judge Shepherd taking a very close and narrow read of a statute -- in this case section 627.736(4)(b), which apparently does not require an insurer to ever respond to an insured's request for payment under a PIP policy:

In fact, carefully parsed, it is clear there is neither a requirement nor a deadline for a personal injury protection insurer to respond to a request for payment.

So under the statute an insurer can simply ignore a request forever.

Finally, there are Judge Shepherd's usual turns of phrase:

However, actions have consequences.

And this:

Accordingly, while there is no absolute deadline for the payment of a properly presented personal injury protection claim, there is a cost—and, indeed, ever increasing risk—to a miscreant insurer who does not treat its customers properly. This is the manner in which the legislature has chosen to regulate insurers in matters of this type.

Here that, all you "miscreant insurers" out there in "miscreant insurer land"?

Don't blame us -- blame your legislature (yet another recurrent theme).

Ok, I got me some football to play!