A medical malpractice case, also known as a medical negligence action, while fundamentally easy to understand, can be one of the most difficult cases to try in a New Hampshire courtroom. In a medical negligence action, the plaintiff must prove a claim that is very similar to an ordinary negligence case, such as a slip and fall or automobile accident.…
One of the oldest doctrines in property law is known as adverse possession which is the taking of title to real estate by possessing it for a certain period of time It allows a party to obtain ownership of a piece of property without having a deed. Adverse possession is most frequently seen in boundary line disputes. The boundary line…
An insurance policy is a contract between the insurance company and the insured. Under this contract, an insurance carrier agrees to pay money to the insured in the event of a covered loss. A covered loss is a loss that the insurance carrier has agreed to protect the insured against in the event of its occurrence. For example, in an…
When an employer fires an employee and provides her severance pay she would not otherwise be entitled to, that employer should seriously consider requiring the employee to sign a release in exchange for the severance pay. A clear, properly drafted and signed release may prevent the employer from incurring substantial costs in time and money to defend a potential legal…
The New Hampshire Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a physician could be held liable for the suicide of a patient. After reviewing the facts alleged by the plaintiff in the recent case of Estate of Maloney v. Badman, the Court held that the defendant could not be held liable in this particular instance. Helene Maloney committed suicide on…
Readers of these articles will have noticed that many of them deal with recent New Hampshire Supreme Court decisions. The purpose of this article is to explain, briefly, the role of the state Supreme Court in New Hampshire’s legal system and what an appeal to that court entails. The NH Supreme Court is the highest court in the state system…
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted 201 CMR 17.00 which is designed to protect state citizens’ personal information. This law, which has already been revised and postponed three times, now requires all covered entities to achieve full compliance by March 1, 2010. Does the new Massachusetts privacy law apply to a company or entity that is located in New Hampshire? The…
Creating A Written Information Security Plan (Wisp) Is A Key Component Of Compliance Pursuant to 201 CMR 17.00, the Massachusetts Privacy Law, your entity must develop, implement, maintain and monitor a comprehensive Written Information Security Program (WISP) to ensure the security and confidentiality of personal information in both physical and electronic format. The actual scope and complexity of a WISP…
The need for an experienced lawyer to represent a buyer or a seller in a real estate transaction has never been more critical than in today’s troubled economic times. There are a number of distressed or foreclosed properties on the market which may present the potential purchaser with an incredible bargain but may very well contain hidden pit falls. Many…
While once considered only the province of the rich and famous, premarital agreements are becoming more common in today’s society. A premarital agreement is a contract signed before the marriage between the soon to be husband and the soon to be wife which sets forth the division of assets and liabilities in the event of death and/or divorce. For example,…