Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to post anything until January 2, but the Ohio Supreme Court came down today with two decisions which essentially gave a lump of Christmas coal to the personal injury and criminal defense bars, while handing out shiny new bicycles to the insurance industry and county prosecutors.  In [1] Arbino v. Johnson, the Court upheld certain provisions of the tort reform statutes passed by the General Assembly back in 2005, specifically, those capping non-economic damages at a maximum of $350,000, and those capping punitive damages at two times the compensatory damages.  And in [2] State v. Crager, the Court reversed a 3rd District decision which had held that a DNA analyst’s testimony about a test that had actually been performed by a different analyst was a “testimonial” statement under Crawford v. Washington.

I’ll have more on both decisions next week.  Remember, our motto here at The Briefcase:  We read the cases so you don’t have to.