News

Friday, Eldredge & Clark is pleased to announce the firm's sole practicing Certified Mediator with the Arkansas Supreme Court, James "Jim" M. Simpson.

Kasten has donated 75 hours of service over the last three years as a volunteer with Legal Aid of Arkansas. His commitment to delivering pro bono legal services to low-income Arkansans has impacted many and has driven the mission of the Legal Aid Office forward. We honor Martin for his work, and we encourage each of you to join us at the ACCESS TO JUSTICE MONTH KICKOFF 2022

On a matter of first impression in Arkansas, the Friday, Eldredge & Clark, on a matter led by Attorney Michael McCarty Harrison, obtained a summary judgment for a defendant under Arkansas’ Good Samaritan statute. As a result, the case against them was dismissed. Though the law was enacted to provide civil liability immunity to non-medical professionals from claims arising out of the rendering of emergency aid and has been on the books for many years, it has never been tested in court. The ruling was a win for the client and anyone attempting to render aid to those in need in the future.

An indigent birth parent who seeks to protect her parental rights is not entitled to appointed counsel in only one instance – if she objects in a private adoption. Act 599 of 2021 gives her the right to counsel if she consents to the adoption. And Ark. Code Ann. § 9–27–316(h) provides a right to appointed counsel in dependency and neglect proceedings brought by the state. However, the indigent birth parent who desires to contest a private adoption and protect her rights has no right to assistance of counsel.

Defense attorneys in Arkansas are, not infrequently, called upon to defend religious institutions from tort suits brought against them for a variety of reasons. Such claims may arise out of a motor vehicle accident involving a church bus, a slip and fall accident on church premises, a claim of sexual molestation on the part of a church employee, or another type of claim. In defending claims against religious institutions, it is imperative that the defense of charitable immunity and, where applicable, the Ecclesiastical doctrine, be raised in the first responsive pleading to the Complaint, be that an Answer and/or a Motion to Dismiss.

Last spring, the Arkansas Supreme Court clarified decades of seemingly conflicting precedent on when Arkansas’ judicial branch should defer to the executive branch on the legal meaning of a statute. No longer would an administrative agency’s view of a statute be given “great deference.” No longer would it be judicially embraced unless it was “clearly wrong.” An agency’s interpretation of a statute would now be reviewed afresh, under a de novo standard of review.1 And when the agency’s view comes into play at all (such as when the statute is ambiguous), it will operate as one of many interpretive tools—a light on the text, but not the sun.