Although the best practice is to avoid driving in hazardous winter weather, that does not always coincide with life's necessities. When driving in bad winter weather is unavoidable, allow the snow plows time to clear the roads and lay out salt and sand. Also, be sure to leave extra travel time. When conditions become icey, try to heed the following advice:

Driving safely on icey roads:

1. Decrease your speed and leave yourself plenty of room to stop. You should allow at least three times more space than usual between you and the car in front of you.
2. Brake gently to avoid skidding. If your wheels start to lock up, ease off the brake.
3. Turn on your lights to increase your visibility to other motorists.
4. Keep your lights and windshield clean.
5. Use low gears to keep traction, especially on hills.
6. Don't use cruise control or overdrive on icy roads.
7. Be especially careful on bridges, overpasses and infrequently traveled roads, which will freeze first. Even at temperatures above freezing, if the conditions are wet, you might encounter ice in shady areas or on exposed roadways like bridges.
8. Don't pass snow plows and sanding trucks. The drivers have limited visibility, and you're likely to find the road in front of them worse than the road behind.
9. Don't assume your vehicle can handle all conditions. Even four-wheel and front-wheel drive vehicles can encounter trouble on winter roads.

For more winter weather driving tips please go here.

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Altria v. Good, the American Association for Justice (AAJ) praised the Court in denying immunity for cigarette manufacturers who break state consumer protection laws with untrue affirmations of lowered tar and nicotine.

AAJ President Les Weisbrod issued the following statement:

"We hope that the court continues to look at claims of corporate immunity from the perspective of consumer health and safety and continues to support the rights of consumers to get justice through the courts."

For more on the AAJ please go to http://www.justice.org/.

In Valdez v. State, the Nevada Supreme Court recently ruled on the constitutional rights and statutory procedures regarding instructing a jury on the separating the finding of guilt from the penalty phase of the legal process in a first-degree murder case.

In Valdez the Court addressed four issues:

1) Whether the district court must explicitly instruct the jury, immediately prior to deliberations in a first-degree murder case, that it is to determine only the question of guilt and not deliberate on the sentence until the separate penalty phase of the proceedings;

2) Whether the jury acted improperly by deliberating the penalty while deciding the issue of guilt, and if so, whether the district court abused its discretion in denying a motion for a mistrial based on this jury misconduct;

3) Whether numerous alleged acts of prosecutorial misconduct require reversal; and,

4) Whether cumulative error warrants reversal in this case.

The Nevada Supreme Court ultimately found that "the district court's failure to give a written instruction regarding bifurcation was an abuse of discretion" and that the ensuing juror misconduct violated Valdez's constitutional rights and therefore warrants reversal.

The entire opinion can be found here.

The American Association for Justice, in conjunction with American University's Washington College of Law, recently released two research papers discussing dangerous foreign products, Defective Foreign Products in the United States: Issues and Discussion and The Social Costs of Dangerous Products: An Empirical Investigation.

The first paper asserts that foreign producers "are protected by the complex web of laws, policies, and practices that make it difficult if not impossible to sue successfully foreign manufacturers in domestic courts." Professor Andrew Popper of American University Washington College of Law discusses the inequities of product liability between foreign and domestic manufacturers and proposes several options to level the playing field. Professor Popper concludes, "stripped of the incentive value the tort system provided, it should come as no surprise that domestic consumers have been exposed to tens of millions of defective products produced by foreign suppliers."

The second paper focuses on the costs of injuries and fatalities associated with three known dangerous products: Ford SUV's with Firestone tires, the pharmaceutical drug Baycol manufactured by Bayer, and all terrain vehicles (ATVs). Professors Sidney Shapiro of Wake Forest School of Law, Ruth Ruttenberg of National Labor College, and Paul Leigh of the University of California at Davis, using the above products as a baseline, find nearly $4.7 billion in medical costs, lost wages, and other costs, excluding the cost of pain and sufferingor other extended costs. The paper looks at compsensation awarded in the tort system and compares it with the actuals costs created by hazardous products and ultimately concludes tort awards are less than the actual costs of the dangerous products themselves. It is difficult to measure the actual costs, however "the tort system provides a valuable service for society to the extent it successfully deters the sale of dangerous products."

A copy of Defective Foreign Products in the United States: Issues and Discussion can be found at http://www.justice.org/Unavailable_and_Unaccountable.pdf.

A copy of The Social Costs of Dangerous Products: An Empirical Investigation can be found at http://www.justice.org/he_Social_Costs_of_Dangerous_Products_An_Empirical_Investigation.pdf.