Thomas B Scheffey

May 24, 2004 | Law.com

Nicholas V. Perricone's new anti-wrinkle cream doesn't come cheap -- it retails at Neiman Marcus for $570 per 2-ounce bottle. But even at that price, he's going to have to push a lot of product to pay the mounting legal fees in his divorce case. A Connecticut judge has already ordered the multimillionaire skin doctor to pay his wife's lawyers $450,000 within 30 days and predicts that costs in the 9-month-old divorce battle will soon top $1 million.

By Thomas B. Scheffey

6 minute read

March 23, 2011 | New York Law Journal

Francis Lee Bailey, whose clients have included "Boston Strangler" suspect Albert DeSalvo, kidnapped newspaper heiress-turned bank robber Patty Hearst, and O.J. Simpson, is one of the most famous criminal defense lawyers of the 20th century, Bailey no longer practices law, having lost his licenses after a 2001 dispute with federal prosecutors over legal fees. He sat down recently with Thomas B. Scheffey on what he's up to now.

By Thomas B. Scheffey

6 minute read

June 17, 2003 | Law.com

The widow of New Haven Superior Court Judge Frank J. Kinney has won a round in her 15-year legal battle to prove her late husband was literally worked to death by the state of Connecticut. New Haven Superior Court Judge Richard E. Arnold determined that a legislative bill allowing Joan Kinney's negligence claim against the state is not unconstitutional as a "special emolument" lacking in any broader public purpose.

By Thomas B. Scheffey

6 minute read

April 28, 2010 | Law.com

Attorneys C. Robert Zelinger and Carole W. Briggs, both of Levy & Droney, will each devote two weeks next month going overseas to teach college classes. Zelinger, who heads the firm's business finance practices group, will teach American business law concepts in China's Shandong province. Briggs, whose practice combines real estate, commercial transactions and litigation, will teach business law in Warsaw, Poland. She accepted a volunteer teaching offer from the Center for International Legal Studies.

By Thomas B. Scheffey

6 minute read

July 14, 2004 | Law.com

Exceptions to the broad employment-at-will doctrine are mapped case by case, when courts find a public policy reason to make such a firing illegal. Another exception: whistleblowers fired for alerting authorities to a public danger, as in the landmark case of Sheets v. Teddy's Frosted Foods. A new application of the Sheets doctrine occurred with a June 23 Connecticut ruling that invoked an "open access to courts" clause to protect a third party's right to sue.

By Thomas B. Scheffey

4 minute read

February 15, 2007 | Law.com

Last year saw some stratospheric verdicts in product liability and personal injury cases in Connecticut, such as the $26.5 million awarded to a trucker who was left paraplegic due to a defective lift gate. But some plaintiffs lawyers say lower-end claims are getting harder to win. Richard A. Silver of Silver, Golub & Teitell, who negotiated a $17 million medical malpractice settlement, says the value of injury cases is not rising "when there's disputed liability or something less than significant injury."

By Thomas B. Scheffey

8 minute read

September 11, 2009 | Law.com

Capping weeks of charges of plagiarism, Connecticut's largest newspaper reportedly disciplined six employees and issued an apology for using stories -- online and in print -- from smaller dailies. In this digital world, the process known as "aggregation" may exceed "fair use" boundaries.

By Thomas B. Scheffey

6 minute read

March 31, 2003 | Law.com

A "captive" insurance company lawyer, allegedly fired for excessive client loyalty, can sue for wrongful termination on public policy grounds, a federal judge in Connecticut has ruled, answering what had been an open question in many jurisdictions. The insurer unsuccessfully argued that courts have repeatedly ruled that attorneys' conduct rules -- such as loyalty to a client's interests -- do not give rise to civil suits.

By Thomas B. Scheffey

4 minute read

July 22, 2005 | Law.com

Concluding the award "shocks the sense of justice," a Connecticut judge has reduced a jury's record consortium verdict of $7.25 million to $1 million, for the widow of a trench collapse victim. The judge wrote that the verdict's "enormity" led him to believe that the jury was "swayed by sympathy" for the victim's widow, Lynette Milligan. Milligan's attorney claimed the jury rightly decided that Milligan's life "was ruined to an extent that could be equivalent to her husband's loss of life."

By Thomas B. Scheffey

4 minute read