Rule 55 requires that notice of default be given to the attorney of a represented party. This plaintiff tried to base a $750,000 default judgment on not doing that, with predictable results.

Spectrum (in Utah) and Neeme (in Arizona) had a falling-out over a contract. Spectrum sued Neeme in Utah; Neeme sued Spectrum in Arizona. Spectrum didn’t appear in Arizona and Neeme took default judgment. Neeme sent copies of the application for default to Spectrum itself but not to Spectrum’s lawyer in Utah. On Spectrum’s motion, the trial court set the default aside. Neeme appealed. The Court of Appeals affirms.

Neeme argued that the Utah attorney wasn’t going to appear in the Arizona case. But the rule says “attorney,” not “attorney who is going to appear in the case.” The court emphasizes the facts that Neeme knew of the the Utah lawyer and that he represented Spectrum in the same dispute out of which Neeme’s case arose. And it limits its holding to that set of facts, declining to rule on various scenarios that Neeme apparently proposed – whether, for example, the rule means all of multiple lawyers, or in-house counsel, or lawyers working on matters unrelated to the subject of the dispute.

Neeme also argued that Spectrum had unclean hands because Neeme had announced that it would sue Spectrum on a particular day and Spectrum filed its suit the day before. Spectrum thereby, you see, “force[d] Neeme to litigate in a foreign forum.”  We don’t know whether the increasing ability of lawyers to make outrageous and even simple-minded arguments with a straight face arises out of an increase in attitude or an increase in ignorance, or both. In any event, the court treats the argument with at least as much respect as it deserves, making some comments about the meaning and effect of equitable defenses and also that the unclean hands have to arise out of the same transaction.

(link to opinion)

One of your standard murderer-sues-his-doctor-for-letting-him-murder cases.

Pompeneo murdered his girlfriend, pled guilty to avoid the death penalty, then sued the doctors who had tried unsuccessfully to control his various mental disorders. The murder, the suicide attempt he made after it, and his incarceration were, he claimed, their fault. The trial court granted summary judgment; this opinion affirms.

As to the suicide attempt, the Court of Appeals relies on a case (Tocci) to the effect that if the attempt is intentional – as opposed to the result of an insane impulse or an inability to realize the nature or risk of the act – then that intentional act is a superseding cause. The court then applies the same principle to the murder. There was no evidence of irresistible impulse, etc., and Pompeneo had said in his plea that he killed the girlfriend because of an argument and that it was premeditated.

Pompeneo sought various sorts of damage for being in prison. For some reason the court addresses this but it does not try to parse it too closely, contenting itself with saying that there was no evidence of at least some of them.

The doctors argued for a broad policy rule against recovery for criminal acts; the court mentions but doesn’t address that since standard summary judgment analysis resolves the matter.

(link to opinion)

This is just too boring and even we have limits. But it is important to the personal-injury practice. The holding is that when AHCCCS “has paid medical expenses for a victim who subsequently settles with a tortfeasor for less than the full amount of her overall damages”  it “may recover no more than the portion of the victim’s settlement that represents recovery of the plan’s payments on behalf of the victim, less a deduction for litigation expenses.” In other words, the amount due AHCCCS is based on the amount it actually pays, not on the face amount of the medical bills.

This is a consolidation of two cases. Plaintiff 1 had a claim worth 3 or 4 million; she settled it for 850,000 (we’re rounding off the numbers) because of “difficult liability issues.” She had total billed medicals of 920,000, which AHCCCS had satisfied for 250,000. Plaintiff 2 had a 250,000 claim that he settled for 100,000; AHCCCS had satisfied his 139,000 in billed medicals by paying 52,000. The superior court in each case held that AHCCCS’s lien would be reduced by the ratio that the settlement amount bore to the victim’s total claimed damages. AHCCCS didn’t object to that but argued that its lien was for the billed amount, not what it actually paid. The court disagreed, for reasons you can read about if you need to.

(link to opinion)