Blog Archives
Casey Kasem’s Children Settle Wrongful Death Lawsuit With his Wife
December 17, 2019
On Tuesday, the adult children of the late radio host Casey Kasem filed for the dismissal of their wrongful death suit against their stepmother, Jean Kasem. Both sides have signed off on an undisclosed settlement. Kerri Kasem, however, is reportedly unhappy with the settlement, with the rumors stating that she felt that the ending was forced upon her by her two siblings. Kasem passed away in 2014 at the age of 82 after suffering from dementia and a severe bedsore, leaving behind an estate of an estimated...
December 17, 2019
On Tuesday, the adult children of the late radio host Casey Kasem filed for the dismissal of their wrongful death suit against their stepmother, Jean Kasem. Both sides have signed off on an undisclosed settlement. Kerri Kasem, however, is reportedly unhappy with the settlement, with the rumors stating that she felt that the ending was forced upon her by her two siblings. Kasem passed away in 2014 at the age of 82 after suffering from dementia and a severe bedsore, leaving behind an estate of an estimated...
How to Litigate an Inheritance Dispute in Federal Court
December 16, 2019
Under the Probate Exception, federal courts are barred from litigating certain aspects of probate suits, including: the probate of a will, the annulment of a will, determining the beneficiaries under a will, disposing of property that is under the jurisdiction of a state probate court, and appointing or removing a representative of an estate. However, there are certain issues that federal courts are not barred from hearing, including the validity of an inter vivos trust, the validity of a pay on death...
December 16, 2019
Under the Probate Exception, federal courts are barred from litigating certain aspects of probate suits, including: the probate of a will, the annulment of a will, determining the beneficiaries under a will, disposing of property that is under the jurisdiction of a state probate court, and appointing or removing a representative of an estate. However, there are certain issues that federal courts are not barred from hearing, including the validity of an inter vivos trust, the validity of a pay on death...
Legal Analytics Products Deliver Widely Divergent Results, Study Shows
December 14, 2019
I have made no secret of the fact that I consider litigation analytics to be one of the most important technologies to have gained traction in recent years. Writing about analytics a year ago on Above the Law, I titled the post, This Tech Can Turn the Tables in Litigation. In my year-end summary of the most important legal tech developments of 2018, my top item was “analytics become essential,” noting, “We could be nearing a point where it would be malpractice for a lawyer not to...
December 14, 2019
I have made no secret of the fact that I consider litigation analytics to be one of the most important technologies to have gained traction in recent years. Writing about analytics a year ago on Above the Law, I titled the post, This Tech Can Turn the Tables in Litigation. In my year-end summary of the most important legal tech developments of 2018, my top item was “analytics become essential,” noting, “We could be nearing a point where it would be malpractice for a lawyer not to...
Detecting Accounting Fraud in Publicly Traded U.S. Firms Using a Machine Learning Approach
December 8, 2019
We develop a state‐of‐the‐art fraud prediction model using a machine learning approach. We demonstrate the value of combining domain knowledge and machine learning method in model building. We select our model input based on existing accounting theories, but we differ from prior accounting research by using raw accounting numbers rather than financial ratios. We employ one of the most powerful machine learning methods, ensemble learning, rather than the commonly used method of logistic regression....
December 8, 2019
We develop a state‐of‐the‐art fraud prediction model using a machine learning approach. We demonstrate the value of combining domain knowledge and machine learning method in model building. We select our model input based on existing accounting theories, but we differ from prior accounting research by using raw accounting numbers rather than financial ratios. We employ one of the most powerful machine learning methods, ensemble learning, rather than the commonly used method of logistic regression....
Intelligent Risk Detection in Health Care: Integrating Social and Technical Factors to Manage Health Outcomes
December 7, 2019
The rapid increase of service demands in healthcare contexts today has reignited the importance of a robust risk assessment framework supported by real-time service handling in order to ensure superior decision-making and successful healthcare outcomes. Big data and analytics have the potential to provide numerous opportunities in healthcare for the application of information technology (IT) and decision sciences to real-time intelligent risk detection and management. In this article, we suggest...
December 7, 2019
The rapid increase of service demands in healthcare contexts today has reignited the importance of a robust risk assessment framework supported by real-time service handling in order to ensure superior decision-making and successful healthcare outcomes. Big data and analytics have the potential to provide numerous opportunities in healthcare for the application of information technology (IT) and decision sciences to real-time intelligent risk detection and management. In this article, we suggest...
Ohio’s Portage County Launches the Nation’s First ODR Program for Foreclosure Mediation
December 6, 2019
On November 18, 2019, Ohio’s Portage County launched the country’s first foreclosure mediation online dispute resolution (ODR) program. The program, developed under the guidance of Portage County Common Pleas Court Judge Laurie J. Pittman, uses Court Innovations’ Matterhorn software. A press release for the program indicates that one of the goals of the program is to make the process more accessible to the public by allowing parties to work on their cases remotely. The program’s mediator...
December 6, 2019
On November 18, 2019, Ohio’s Portage County launched the country’s first foreclosure mediation online dispute resolution (ODR) program. The program, developed under the guidance of Portage County Common Pleas Court Judge Laurie J. Pittman, uses Court Innovations’ Matterhorn software. A press release for the program indicates that one of the goals of the program is to make the process more accessible to the public by allowing parties to work on their cases remotely. The program’s mediator...
The Repeat Player, Arbitration Providers, Evident Partiality, and the Ninth Circuit
December 5, 2019
Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) Section 10 permits Courts to vacate awards “where there was evident partiality. . . in the arbitrators. . . .” 9 U.S.C. § 10(a)(2). If an arbitrator fails to disclose an ownership interest in an arbitration provider, which has a nontrivial, repeat player relationship with a party, should the award be vacated for evident partiality? What constitutes evident partiality and under what circumstances is a controversial and sometimes elusive topic. We’ve written...
December 5, 2019
Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) Section 10 permits Courts to vacate awards “where there was evident partiality. . . in the arbitrators. . . .” 9 U.S.C. § 10(a)(2). If an arbitrator fails to disclose an ownership interest in an arbitration provider, which has a nontrivial, repeat player relationship with a party, should the award be vacated for evident partiality? What constitutes evident partiality and under what circumstances is a controversial and sometimes elusive topic. We’ve written...
Absent Class Members, Class Arbitration, Class Certification Awards, Consent, Coercion, and the Second Circuit
December 4, 2019
While federal, and many state, courts have class-action procedural rules that permit them to bind absent class members to a judgment or settlement, arbitration is different because it is based on party consent, not coercion. While the critical, threshold issues presented in class arbitration is party consent to class arbitration, class certification disputes arising out of a class arbitration proceeding can be just as challenging, especially when they involve absent class members who have not opted...
December 4, 2019
While federal, and many state, courts have class-action procedural rules that permit them to bind absent class members to a judgment or settlement, arbitration is different because it is based on party consent, not coercion. While the critical, threshold issues presented in class arbitration is party consent to class arbitration, class certification disputes arising out of a class arbitration proceeding can be just as challenging, especially when they involve absent class members who have not opted...
DoorDash TROs Signal a New Frontier in Mass Individual Arbitrations
December 3, 2019
We rarely write about early litigation actions on this blog, but there’s something very interesting happening in California. A law firm there has taken action to protect its effort to engage in mass individual arbitrations on behalf of a large group of clients. In two different actions – one in the California Superior Court (Boyd v. DoorDash, Inc., Case No. CPF-19-516930) and one in the federal court for the Northern District of California (Abernathy v. DoorDash, Inc., CASE NO. 3:19-cv-07545-WHA)...
December 3, 2019
We rarely write about early litigation actions on this blog, but there’s something very interesting happening in California. A law firm there has taken action to protect its effort to engage in mass individual arbitrations on behalf of a large group of clients. In two different actions – one in the California Superior Court (Boyd v. DoorDash, Inc., Case No. CPF-19-516930) and one in the federal court for the Northern District of California (Abernathy v. DoorDash, Inc., CASE NO. 3:19-cv-07545-WHA)...
Article on Fiduciary Authority and Liability in Probate Estates: An Empirical Analysis
December 2, 2019
Reid K. Weisbord recently published an Article entitled, Fiduciary Authority and Liability in Probate Estates: An Empirical Analysis, Elder Law eJournal (2019). Provided below is the abstract to the Article. This Article presents an empirical analysis of testamentary preferences pertaining to the selection, compensation, appointment, powers, and liability of executors. Often an after-thought in the will-drafting process, such administrative terms deserve careful attention because the executor’s...
December 2, 2019
Reid K. Weisbord recently published an Article entitled, Fiduciary Authority and Liability in Probate Estates: An Empirical Analysis, Elder Law eJournal (2019). Provided below is the abstract to the Article. This Article presents an empirical analysis of testamentary preferences pertaining to the selection, compensation, appointment, powers, and liability of executors. Often an after-thought in the will-drafting process, such administrative terms deserve careful attention because the executor’s...
