Exchange offers case materials on bed rails and ex parte access to corporate employees.

With the help of experienced ATLA. plaintiff members, the ATLA Exchange has created two new litigation packets in the areas of attorney ethics and products liability: "Ex Parte Access to Corporate Employees: Effective and Ethical Legal Representation Under ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 4.2" and "Bed Rails: Dangerous Devices."

Rule 4.2 packet. Contacting a corporate defendant's former and current employees is often essential to establish negligent conduct and injury to your client--no matter what type of case you are handling. ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 4.2, "Communication with Persons Represented by Counsel," addresses whether and under what circumstances plaintiff counsel may contact employees of an adverse party ex parte, when the adverse party is represented by counsel.

Amended in 2002, Rule 4.2, its comments, and evolving case law are essential tools in defining the scope of inquiry for corporate employees. While the ABA has developed professional standards that serve as models, not all states have adopted its model rules, including the "new" Rule 4.2, without modification.

If you want to contact and question employees within the bounds of ethical and judicial parameters, the Rule 4.2 litigation packet can help. It contains an in-depth analysis of the application of Rule 4.2 for all 50 states, including the version of the rule applied, interpretive case citations, and case summaries in a variety of practice areas; ATLA Education speaker papers with strategies on the use of Rule 4.2, including sample questions for former and current corporate employees; TRIAL articles on seminal Rule 4.2 cases; illustrative motions, memoranda, and orders regarding access to corporate employees in nursing homes and medical malpractice cases; and a selected bibliography of articles on Rule 4.2 from law journals and periodicals.

Bed rails packet. From 1985 through January 1, 2006, the FDA received 691 reports of people caught, trapped, or strangled by bed rails. (See www.fda. gov/cdrh/beds/index.html.) Most of these people were frail, confused, or elderly--413 of them died and 120 suffered nonfatal injuries. As a result of publicly reported deaths due to bedrail entrapment, the FDA issued a safety alert on bed-rail asphyxiations to 94,000 health care facilities. According to a 2002 Sentinel Event Alert from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 53 percent of reported events occurred in nursing homes and 20 percent occurred in hospitals.

The bed rails litigation packet focuses on the physical apparatus of bed rails, bed manufacturers' responsibility for design, and products liability issues involved in successfully handling this type of case. The packet includes deposition transcripts and summaries from key bed manufacturer employees; a motion for summary judgment in a bed-rail entrapment case; names and contact information for ATLA members assessing similar cases; ATLA Education speaker papers; a Westlaw survey with company profiles for the three largest bed-rail manufacturers; and FDA materials including the safety alert, a bed satiety guide, and a clinical guidance assessment.

For more information, log onto the Exchange at www.exchange.atla.org and click on "Litigation Packets," or call [phone].