Category: Articles, Law Enforcement & Corrections, Medical & Healthcare, Safety, Security Workplace Violence in Hospitals Prevention, Mitigation and Recovery TASA ID: 2402 The image of today’s hospital being the “safe haven” it was years ago, is no longer true; unless hospitals make the safety of their staff of paramount concern.Security in hospitals is a sliding scale of professionalism; in many hospitals Security still reports to Food or Building Services, as it’s seen as a cost “burden” and one that can be buried in an already fragile budget. Read more
Category: Articles, Crime Investigation, Law Enforcement & Corrections, Safety, Security Displacement of Crime or Diffusion of Crime TASA ID: 10544 In the concept of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design, also known as CPTED (pronounced SEP-Ted), created more than 60 years ago by Tim Crowe, I believe the purpose is to be proactive regarding crime issues. I was in a training program five years ago when someone in the audience asked, “On a street close to my campus, we have drug dealers and hookers. How do I get rid of them?” The lecturer couldn't answer the question, but I knew the answer. Read more
Category: Articles, Appraisals / Valuations, Architecture, Business & Commerce, Intellectual Property, Real Estate, Resources for Attorneys, Resources for Experts Analyzing Architectural Designs for Copyright Disputes TASA ID: 10524 IntroductionThere’s nothing simple about architectural copyright litigation. Activity generated from The Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act of 1990 continues to increase. The law continues to develop, but factual realities, though seemingly obvious, are often complex and difficult to compare What is an architectural work? It is a building design embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building itself, architectural plans, or drawings. Overall form is copyrightable. Exterior and interior spatial arrangements and elements of these arrangements are copyrightable. Individual standard features are not copyrightable. These presuppositions raise further questions. Read more
Category: Articles, Construction, Product Liability, Resources for Attorneys Part 2: Proximate Cause in Warnings Cases Plaintiff’s Side TASA ID: 4009 In many product liability cases there is something missing from an existing warning and instruction - some safety information which arguably the plaintiff did not know at the time of the accident. It may be relatively straight forward to figure out whether or not the existing warning was defective by reference to items like the ANSI Z353 Standards, signal word, color, conspicuity, language, grade level word choice, whether or not the warning adequately explains the hazard and the consequences of not heeding the warning and whether or not the warning explains what to do to avoid the hazard. All of these are items which in general make a warning more likely to be noticed, read, understood and heeded. That is exactly why the standards and authorities require them. Read more
Category: Articles, Construction, Product Liability, Resources for Attorneys Part 1: Proximate Cause Defense in Product Liability Warnings Cases TASA ID: 4009 Jurors in product liability warnings cases strive to answer these two questions: Was the warning on this product defective?Was a defect in this warning a proximate cause of this personal injury accident?Plaintiffs do not prevail unless jurors provide a “yes” answer to both questions. The kinds of arguments and the evidence presented for each of these questions are vastly different from each other. Read more
