The year has started with a rush for trusts and estates lawyers, who are scrambling to field calls from clients worried about how a one-year lapse in the federal estate tax affects their legal documents. The situation is “a very real mess, which leaves millions of Americans unnecessarily at risk,” says one lawyer for a Chicago-based boutique. A Morgan Lewis partner laments that some clients will end up rearranging their plans only to have those changes become obsolete or prove needless if Congress acts this year.
Posts on ‘February 2nd, 2010’
Snooping by Detective ‘Legitimate’ Part of Divorce Process, Judge Finds
A man who hired a detective to trail his wife to a motel where she was having an affair with a local priest was not stalking her, a New York judge has ruled. Forced to resign after her husband turned over a recording of her and the priest to the church where she worked, the wife accused her husband of violating an order of protection requiring him to stay away from her home and place of employment. But the judge held that the husband had the right to gather evidence to defend himself in a divorce proceeding.
Boston Scientific to Pay J&J $1.73 Billion in Settlement
Boston Scientific said Monday it will pay medical device rival Johnson & Johnson $1.73 billion to settle several seven-year-old patent disputes over drug-coated stents. Boston Scientific will pay Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis unit $1 billion this week and $725 million next January. The settlement resolves three patent disputes dating back to 2003, and avoids jury trials that were scheduled to begin later this month.