Law Commons^™

Just Because You Can Doesn’T Mean You Should: Reconciling Attorney Conduct In The Context Of Defamation With The New Professionalism, Heather M. Kolinsky

Scholarly Articles

The Florida Bar has recently proposed enforceable professionalism standards. While many states have professionalism codes they remain aspirational and unenforceable. Florida’s move toward enforceable professionalism standards is laudable, but raises concerns about how moving a “step above” the floor of the rules of professional conduct will affect advocacy and practice.

This paper examines how a shift to enforceable professionalism standards may impact absolute immunity. The paper suggests that as other states consider similar standards or simply how to better policy professionalism, perhaps it is time to also consider how discipline is imposed with respect to defamatory statements that are otherwise …

Abrogating The Witness Immunity Rule: How Fast? How Far?, Robert Currie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article examines the current state of the witness immunity rule in Canada (i.e. the rule that individuals, especially experts, are immune from tort actions which might arise from their participation in court proceedings). In light of the UK Supreme Court's modification of the rule in Jones v. Kaney (2011), some proposals are made for restricting the scope of the rule and thus allowing meritorious litigation to proceed in spite of it.

Supreme Court Holds Grand Jury Witnesses Absolutely Immune From § 1983 Liability, Martin Schwartz

Scholarly Works

This article discusses the Supreme Court's ruling in Rehberg v. Paulk, 132 S. Ct. 1497 (2012), which extended the absolute witness immunity recognized in Briscoe v. LaHue, to grand jury witnesses. In an unanimous opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., the Court held that grand jury witnesses are absolutely immune from §1983 liability for their testimony, and even for conspiring to give false testimony.