Mealey's Personal Injury : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Personal Injury

January 05, 2023
Massachusetts High Court Hears Oral Arguments In Veterans Home COVID-19 Death Case

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Jan. 4 heard oral arguments in the state attorney general’s appeal of a court’s dismissal of criminal charges against a former superintendent and medical director of a veterans home for their roles in comingling residents with symptomatic and confirmed COVID-19 cases, resulting in an outbreak that caused the deaths of 76 residents.
January 05, 2023
Florida Supreme Court Upholds Reversal Of $16M Punitive Award To Smoker’s Estate

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court on Jan. 5 ruled 5-1 that an appellate panel properly reversed a $16 million punitive damages jury award to a deceased smoker’s estate because it was unreasonably greater than the $300,000 compensatory damages award, with a dissenting justice writing that the majority erred by concluding that the smoker’s death “is not a cognizable injury for purposes of punitive damages claims.”
January 04, 2023
Texas Appeals Court Allows Pelvic Mesh Trial With Remote Juror; Defendant Then Wins

DALLAS — The Fifth District Texas Court of Appeals has denied a petition for a writ of mandamus by the Ethicon Inc. subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which sought to compel a trial court to vacate its denial of a mistrial in a pelvic mesh case and to declare a mistrial because the trial court permitted one juror to attend the trial remotely.
January 04, 2023
Panel Says Liquidation Of Insurer Gave Notice For Filing Time Limit In Fraud Suit

LAKE CHARLES, La. — A Louisiana appellate court affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a surviving spouse’s suit to enforce an Arkansas court’s medical malpractice judgment, finding that the lower court’s decision that the surviving spouse’s fraud claims were prescribed for lack of timely filing “was not manifestly erroneous” because the liquidation of the medical malpractice insurer should have sufficed to begin running of the prescription for filing the fraud claim.
January 03, 2023
8th Circuit Affirms $21M Biomet Metal-On-Metal Hip Verdict

ST. LOUIS — The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said a federal trial court did not err in denying a motion for judgment as a matter of law, a new trial or remittitur of a $21 million verdict in a Biomet Inc. M2a Magnum metal-on-metal hip case.
January 02, 2023
Judge Limits Testimony From Expert On Causation, Work Expectancy After Accident

BURLINGTON, Vt. — An expert retained by a man rendered a paraplegic after a skiing accident can testify in a limited capacity on the cause of his injuries and his diminished earning potential, a Vermont federal judge ruled.
December 23, 2022
Jury Awards $40.8M In Asbestos Case Damages, Adds $11.3M In Punitives

LOS ANGELES — A California judge entered judgment on a $52.1 million verdict after a jury awarded a mesothelioma sufferer and her husband $11.3 million in punitive damages in a combined asbestos-talc and take-home exposure case.
December 23, 2022
Safety Expert Unqualified, Opinions Are Unreliable, Judge Rules In Excluding

PITTBURGH — A Pennsylvania federal judge agreed to exclude a safety expert retained by a woman who alleges that she was injured when books fell from a shelf inside a Dollar General store.
March 13, 2023
Florida Supreme Court Won’t Review Attorney Fees Award Reversal In Engle Case

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court has denied a dead smoker’s husband’s petition for review of a split appellate panel’s reversal of a trial court’s $2.5 million attorney fee award in his favor, which the panel deemed unreasonable because the award represented a risk of double recovery on top of attorney fees another tobacco company agreed to pay in a settlement of his claims against it.
December 21, 2022
Judge Upholds $363M Verdict In Ethylene Oxide Injury Case

CHICAGO — An Illinois state court judge denied two motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) filed by a medical device sterilization plant and will let stand a $363 million verdict to a woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer as a result of exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO).
December 21, 2022
Jury Awards $82M To Former Student For PCB Exposure At Seattle Area School

SEATTLE — A jury in Washington state court on Dec. 20 awarded $82 million to one of four plaintiffs who sued Monsanto for injuries stemming from exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in a Seattle area school, finding the “not reasonably safe” condition of PCBs was the proximate cause of the student’s injuries.
December 20, 2022
Residents: Union Pacific Is Liable For Fraud, Death Related To Chemical Exposure

HOUSTON — A group of Houston residents has sued the Union Pacific Railroad Co. in Texas state court contending that it is liable for injuries, including wrongful death, as a result of exposure to toxic chemicals that were stored and improperly dumped at Union Pacific’s railyard.
December 19, 2022
California Jury Finds For NCAA In Suit Over Football Player’s CTE, Early Death

Widow had argued that NCAA failed to take actions to protect players from head injuries
December 19, 2022
Georgia Jury Awards Widower $7M For Wrongful Death, Pain, Suffering Caused By Crash

Woman was making a left turn on green when driver ran red light
December 16, 2022
Hearing Slated In $11.05M Residents’ Rights Violation Verdict Against Care Home

MIAMI — An amended notice of hearing for final judgment was filed in a Florida state court after a jury issued an $11.05 million verdict against a nursing home in a suit filed by the wife of a former resident alleging statutory violations of a Florida nursing home resident’s rights, including failing to protect the former resident from harm, to provide him with appropriate supervision and to monitor changes in his health condition.
December 15, 2022
Engineering Firm Says Water Pollution Case Fails, Plaintiffs Do Not State Claim

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — An engineering firm on Dec. 14 filed a brief in Michigan federal court contending that the civil rights violation allegations of groundwater contamination plaintiffs fail because the firm is a private actor that did not have final decision-making authority over any aspect of the municipal water system that the plaintiffs claim caused their injuries.
December 15, 2022
Committee: Bellwether Plaintiffs In AFFF Injury Case Should Be A Limited Pool

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The Plaintiffs Executive Committee (PEC) in the multidistrict litigation for injuries allegedly caused by the firefighting agent known as aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) on Dec. 14 filed a letter brief in South Carolina federal court contending that the personal injury bellwether pool should be drawn solely from individuals exposed to drinking water at a military facility in Pennsylvania where substantial discovery has already been completed for two of the relevant water providers.
December 14, 2022
Judge Excludes 2 Experts In Crash Suit, Grants Summary Judgment For 1 Defendant

BEAUFORT, S.C. — A South Carolina federal judge on Dec. 13 granted summary judgment to an employer being sued by a woman who alleges that she was injured in a car accident, days after agreeing to limit the testimony of one of her experts and excluding another.
December 14, 2022
Expert Can’t Testify That Timing Of C-Section Was Cause Of Injuries, Judge Says

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A doctor who testified that a woman’s postpartum hemorrhage was a result of her health care providers deviating from the standard of care and delaying a cesarean section is inadmissible, a Connecticut judge ruled, because the opinions are not supported by a reliable methodology.
December 14, 2022
Plaintiffs: Defendants’ Online Activity Skews Flint Trial Facts, May Taint Jurors

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Flint water crisis litigation plaintiffs have moved in Michigan federal court to compel responses and the production of documents by an engineering firm defendant the plaintiffs say has run an ongoing digital advertising campaign that may have “targeted, reached or otherwise compromised” jurors in the first bellwether case related to the lead contamination of the local drinking water.
December 14, 2022
Toxicologist Can Testify To Marijuana’s Effects On Skier Who Crashed, Judge Says

BURLINGTON, Vt. — A Vermont federal judge ruled that an expert retained by a ski resort can opine on the effects marijuana consumption would have had on a skier who was seriously injured after crashing into a snow-making machine, finding that his testimony is admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and is not unfairly prejudicial.
December 14, 2022
Magistrate: Testimony From Expert In Trucking Crash Is Unreliable Under Daubert

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Allowing an expert to testify that a car accident would not have occurred if a truck driver had taken proper precautions and followed safety regulations and industry practices “would destroy the Court’s gatekeeping function” because the expert failed to provide a factual basis for his conclusions, a Wyoming federal magistrate judge ruled.
December 12, 2022
Appellants Were ‘Passengers’ In Hot Air Balloon During Accident, 4th Circuit Says

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 9 affirmed a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of an insurer in its lawsuit challenging coverage for injuries incurred in a commercial hot air balloon accident, finding that injured parties were “passengers” under the policy and Coverage B's 100,000 limit per passenger applies.
December 07, 2022
Future Earnings Expert’s Testimony Is Relevant, Admissible, Federal Judge Says

NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge ruled that an economic and vocational expert retained by a man alleging that he was injured when he slipped inside a Bonefish Grill restaurant may testify after rejecting the argument that his proposed testimony would not be helpful to a jury.
December 07, 2022
Cosmetics Company L’Oreal Is Liable For Causing Cancer, Woman Says

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — A woman suffering from ovarian cancer on Dec. 6 sued cosmetics company L’Oreal USA Inc. in Illinois federal court contending that it “falsely and deceptively misrepresented” or otherwise concealed information that ingredients in its products are toxic.