Tag Archives: litigation

As South Florida’s Economy Rebounds, What We Learned in the Courtroom

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By Todd A. Levine and Lisa J. Jerles

Prior to the 2008 recession, the South Florida skyline was teeming with cranes as the real estate market boomed.  But then the newly or partially completed projects remained empty as developers and brokers were unable to sell residential and commercial properties and projects.  With the entire real estate community reeling, brokers, developers, lenders, investors and buyers and sellers often turned to the courthouse to resolve issues that emerged as the South Florida real estate market was plummeting.   As we emerge from the recession, a review of the events of the past few years may help to avoid future litigation.

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Associate’s Corner: Post-Traynor, How Far Does Absolute Privilege Extend?

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By Marko Cerenko

Much has been written about the recent Florida Supreme Court case of Delmonico v. Traynor, which declined to extend Florida’s long standing absolute litigation privilege to statements made by an attorney during ex-parte, out of court questioning of a nonparty witness. Recently I came across an interesting twist on Traynor that will hopefully require the courts to revisit the scope of the absolute privilege.

The Traynor decision dealt with a defamation claim and since the facts of Traynor are well laid out here, they won’t be addressed in this post. It should be noted that defamation was one of the historical torts that the absolute privilege was intended to protect – libel and slander being the others.

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Kluger Kaplan Named Top Litigation Department in Real Estate by the Daily Business Review

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Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine was named Top Litigation Department in Real Estate by the Daily Business Review.

“We are thrilled to be chosen for such an honor,” said Founding Partner, Alan Kluger, “Kluger Kaplan has built a significant practice both locally and nationally handling a variety of complex real estate litigation matters.”

The firm will be honored at an awards ceremony on April 17 at The Four Seasons.

When Criminal Issues Arise in Civil Litigation – What to Do?

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By Abbey L. Kaplan

When large amounts of money are at stake in a civil litigation, parties may resort to a host of criminal activities in order to guide the case towards a favorable outcome.  As civil litigators, we often do not recognize criminal activity because we are generally accustomed to dealing only with “civil” issues.  However, it is not uncommon for criminal activities to find their way into the civil courts when a party resorts to illegal activities to limit its exposure.  Examples include forgery of key documents, perjury, suborning of perjury, modification of financial data, fraud on the court and “spoofing.”  Spoofing occurs when an email address is highjacked and emails are purportedly sent from an individual who uses the email address but in fact, the emails are sent by a third party.

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Social Media in Litigation Part II

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By Steve Silverman

Last week I blogged about how social media is impacting businesses in litigation and discovery.  This week, let’s look at the issue of employees and how their social media usage can impact discovery in litigation.  The social media opportunities are seemingly endless: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram, to name the biggest players.  It is likely that most, if not all employees at a given company have an personal account with at least one or more of these services.

A variety of discoverable information may exist in an employee’s personal social media account.  For example, in a dispute over commissions, an employee’s Facebook posts and Tweets may disclose information about the employee’s whereabouts that could support (or rebut) his claims against his employer.  Or an employee may tweet, from his desk, confidential information about a company, such as a pending merger or upcoming layoffs.

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