Latest Case This Week: Ferguson v. Thaemert (S.D.)

Trump’s Lawyers Will Get Away with Facilitating His Anti-Democratic Antics and They Know It

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College—predicts that because the lawyer discipline process is broken, President Trump’s lawyers will get away with facilitating his anti-democratic misconduct. Professor Sarat notes that Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) released a letter calling on bar authorities to investigate and punish members of Trump’s post-election legal team, but he points out that while LDAD can shame those members, it still lacks the ability itself to discipline or disbar.

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Ferguson v. Thaemert

Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

Citation: 2020 S.D. 69

Opinion Date: December 9, 2020

Judge: David Gilbertson

Areas of Law: Medical Malpractice

In this case brought by a patient who sued her doctor for lack of informed consent, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the circuit court granting in part Plaintiff's motion to compel the production of medical records of Defendant's non-party patients, holding that the circuit court erred. Plaintiff underwent an anterior spinal surgery with Defendant, a general surgeon, to relieve lower back pain. After Defendant performed a vertical incision rather than Plaintiff's requested horizontal incision Plaintiff brought this action alleging that Defendant performed the vertical incision without Plaintiff's informed consent. At issue was Plaintiff's motion to compel certain non-party patients' medical records. The circuit court granted the motion to compel in part, limiting the scope of the discoverable records. The Supreme Court reversed the order, holding that the records Plaintiff requested were irrelevant and therefore not discoverable.