By: Professor Kenneth L. Port

On March 19, 2009, the Minnesota Supreme Court took a significant step in leveling the intellectual property playing field. In General Cas. Co. v. Wozniak Travel, Inc., the Court determined that trademark infringement falls within the scope of a commercial general liability (CGL) insurance policy and that it amounts to an advertising injury. As such, trademark infringement should fall within the scope of the insurance policy and the insurance company must defend the defendant.

By: Professor Michael K. Jordan

Few, if any, would question the need to interdict the movement of drugs across the borders of the United States. The problems caused by the sale of drugs on our streets and the resulting indirect and direct hardship on every citizen cannot be doubted. Now the tough question: how far are we willing to go in stopping, or at least curtailing this drug trafficking? Should we subject individuals who have no history of drug use to drug testing simply because they are involved in the front-line defense against drug traffickers? Is the risk that these individuals may have their integrity compromised by drug use sufficient to justify drug testing of them, even if there is no evidence of their using drugs?

By: Phil Duran

Travel up the North Shore’s Highway 61 to Canada, or down I-35 to Iowa, and you will find, within a few hours’ drive, destinations where discrimination in marriage has come to an end and same-sex couples from Minnesota and elsewhere may legally marry. Travel west on I-90, or in either direction on I-94, and you will soon enter states whose constitutions have been amended by popular vote to deny same-sex couples access to marriage (and in some cases to any other form of legal recognition). In the middle of it all stands Minnesota: Minnesota statutes prohibit same-sex couples from marrying, but efforts to write this policy into our constitution have seemingly ground to a halt.

By: Professor Mike Steenson

Osborne v. Twin Town Bowl, Inc., arose out of the death of 24-year-old Michael Riley. Mr. Riley (“Riley”) jumped from a bridge after being stopped for DWI by a Minnesota State Highway Patrol officer who arrested, but did not handcuff Riley. His family and girlfriend sued Twin Town Bowl under the Civil Damages Act, alleging that Riley was illegally served alcohol there, that the illegal sale led to his intoxication, and that his intoxication caused his death.

By: Ted Sampsell-Jones

American criminal trials are governed by a variety of rules that protect criminal defendants. Such rules protect both innocent defendants and guilty defendants. Protection of the latter is a necessary but perhaps regrettable consequence of protecting the former. Pro-defense legal rules occasionally result in guilty defendants going free, but that result is said to be warranted because the same rules protect innocents from wrongful convictions. The tradeoff is justified by the traditional Anglo-American principle, made famous by Blackstone: “it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”