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

Mealey's Personal Injury

November 21, 2024
Question Of Whether COVID-Era Restroom Door Handle Was Obvious Danger Left For Jury

TULSA, Okla. — An Oklahoma federal magistrate judge denied a department store’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by a customer who injured her arm and hand while trying to open the store’s restroom door using a “hands-free” door handle installed during the COVID-19 pandemic, ruling that whether the door handle presented an open and obvious hazard was a question for the jury, but granted the store’s motion for summary judgment as to punitive damages.
November 20, 2024
Split Panel Rules No Federal Question In Assisted Living COVID Death, Remand Proper

ATLANTA — A split panel of the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment of a Florida federal court remanding to state court a lawsuit brought by the personal representatives of a woman who died from COVID-19 in an assisted living facility alleging that the facility failed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, finding that the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act was not a complete preemption statute, nor was any other federal question invoked that would confer jurisdiction on the federal court.
November 19, 2024
2 Companies To Pay More Than $23.52M For Silicosis Injury To Quartz Stonecutter

LOS ANGELES — A California judge has issued a judgment awarding a combined $23,522,788.70 against two makers of quartz countertops, which are among multiple defendants that were sued by a man who developed silicosis from working as a stonecutter who has already won $52 million in a general verdict against all of the defendants. In the same ruling, the judge granted judgment notwithstanding the verdict to another defendant.
November 19, 2024
Judge: 1 Expert Admitted, 1 Excluded In Medical Malpractice Suit

HONOLULU — A Hawaii federal judge ruled that because a medical malpractice case is not being heard by a jury, an expert retained by the government can testify as the judge will be able determine the reliability of the expert’s testimony at trial; the judge also ruled that exclusion of a couple’s expert is the proper sanction for disclosing the expert after a deadline.
November 19, 2024
Texas Panel Dismisses Oil Rig Injury Case For Lack Of Jurisdiction

HOUSTON — A Texas appellate panel has ruled that a trial court could not exercise general jurisdiction over the case of a man who sued an oil rig operator for personal injuries, saying the companies in question were not “essentially at home” in Texas and, therefore, the case is dismissed.
November 18, 2024
Family Drops Appeal After Nonsuit In California Asbestos Case

LOS ANGELES — A California appeals court entered an order dismissing an appeal after a family that was awarded nearly $9 million in an asbestos case asked to drop the appeal of a ruling granting nonsuit to ExxonMobil Oil Corp. on the heels of the trial.
November 04, 2024
COMMENTARY: Lady Justice May Be Blind, But Her Courts Aren’t: Gender Bias And Barriers To Representation For Female Plaintiffs

By Sophie Zavaglia
November 15, 2024
Jury Awards $2M In Negligence, Civil Rights Suit Against Decedent’s Care Home

ALBANY, N.Y. — A New York federal court jury awarded $2 million to a plaintiff who sued her father’s nursing home and related parties for negligence and civil rights violations related to their alleged neglect that resulted in his death after the daughter purportedly found her father at the nursing home on the floor “gasping for breath” with staff not responding to her requests for help.
November 14, 2024
Oregon Judge Finds $200M Punitive Damages Constitutional In Asbestos Case

PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon judge declined to reduce or vacate $200 million in punitive damages awarded in an asbestos-talc case against Johnson & Johnson, saying the jury’s $60 million in noneconomic damages supports finding that the award passes constitutional muster.
November 14, 2024
Judge: Expert Not Qualified To Opine On What Caused Ladder To Collapse

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A mechanical engineer who spent most of his career in the automotive industry is unqualified to testify as to why an extension ladder collapsed and caused injuries, a West Virigina federal judge ruled Nov. 13 while affirming a previous order that the company’s expert may testify.
November 12, 2024
Mother Details Jurisdiction In Suit Alleging Character.AI Led To Son’s Suicide

ORLANDO, Fla. — A woman who claims that her son committed suicide after interactions with Character.AI filed an amended complaint and response to an order to show cause, further detailing the citizenship of defendant Google LLC after the court issued a sua sponte order saying it couldn’t properly determine whether federal jurisdiction was appropriate without the information.
November 12, 2024
Ohio Train Derailment Defendants Say Their Expert Is Qualified To Testify

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Defendants in the litigation over the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that released toxic chemicals into the air and soil have filed a brief in Ohio federal court arguing that Norfolk Southern Corp.’s arguments to exclude a defense expert do not have merit.
November 12, 2024
Group Outlines Dismissal Arguments In Another Reinsurer’s RICO Lawsuit

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — As it has done in a similar Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act suit that a different reinsurer filed in New York federal court over purportedly fraudulent workers’ compensation claims and personal injury lawsuits, a group of defendants filed a pre-motion letter outlining plans to seek dismissal.
November 08, 2024
Pa. Federal Magistrate: Rebuttal Witness On Life-Care Needs Can Testify

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal magistrate judge denied a motion filed by a family injured in an accident to exclude the testimony of an expert hired to rebut the report of the family’s life-care planning experts.
November 05, 2024
5th Circuit Rejects Insurer’s Argument In Coverage Dispute Over LSU Hazing Death

NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S Court of Appeals on Nov. 4 affirmed a lower federal court’s ruling against an excess homeowners insurer in lawsuit brought by the parents of a Louisiana State University (LSU) freshman who died in 2017 of alcohol poisoning following a fraternity hazing incident, finding that the lower federal court did not err by denying the insurer’s motion for summary judgment on the applicability of its policy exclusions.
November 05, 2024
Late Medical Malpractice Case May Be Viable Due To Georgia COVID-19 Emergency Order

ATLANTA — A Georgia Court of Appeals panel rejected a medical malpractice litigant’s arguments that the five-year statute of repose did not apply to his renewal action or did not apply because his lawsuit was previously dismissed involuntarily, but vacated the judgment of a trial court dismissing the action and remanded it for consideration of whether the statute of repose had been tolled by a COVID-era judicial order as laid out by a recent Georgia Supreme Court opinion.
November 05, 2024
Mo. Federal Judge Finds Expert Testimony Not Relevant In Wrongful Death Case

ST. LOUIS — Because a Missouri federal judge had previously granted a retail store summary judgment on a negligence claim against it in a wrongful death suit stemming from the drowning of a child in an aboveground pool, he ruled that the testimony from two experts is no longer relevant.
November 04, 2024
Federal Judge: Case Alleging Injury From Falling Sign In Target Moves Forward

NEW ORLEANS — An expert retained by a woman who alleges that she was injured by a falling sign in a Target store is qualified to testify and his opinions are relevant, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled, also rejecting Target’s motion for summary judgment after finding that whether the company is liable is in dispute.
November 01, 2024
Split Panel: Silicosis Case Fails Due To Plaintiff’s Unreliable Experts

HOUSTON — A split Texas appeals court panel on Oct. 31 affirmed a lower court’s ruling in favor of Exxon Mobil Corp. in a silica injury lawsuit brought by a worker who sandblasted railcars and contended that he developed pulmonary fibrosis because the company created a situation in which he had to perform an “intrinsically unsafe and ultrahazardous activity.” The panel held that the worker’s experts were not reliable.
October 29, 2024
9th Circuit Denies Rehearing Of Ruling That Uber Has Duty Of Care Toward Driver

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has denied a petition for rehearing en banc or panel rehearing of a panel reversal of a grant of summary judgment by a Washington federal court in favor of a rideshare company in a lawsuit by the estate and survivors of one the company’s drivers stemming from the driver’s murder during a carjacking attempt perpetrated by two people who had signed up for the company’s services with false personal information and a prepaid phone and gift card minutes before being matched with the driver.
October 28, 2024
New York Jury Awards $600,000 In Mechanic’s Mesothelioma Case

NEW YORK — A New York jury awarded $300,000 each for past and future pain and suffering experienced by a former automobile mechanic with mesothelioma but declined to award any punitive damages against defendant North American Honda Motor Co. Inc., sources told Mealey Publications.
October 24, 2024
Florida Panel Limits New Trial In Widower’s Engle Case To Spousal Damages

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Fourth District Florida Court of Appeal on Oct. 23 issued an order on the scope of a new trial in an Engle case in which a dead smoker’s widower originally won $157 million, writing that the new trial should consider only the widower’s entitlement to compensatory damages under the state’s Wrongful Death Act based on new Florida Supreme Court precedent allowing surviving spouses to pursue noneconomic damages even if they married after the relevant injury manifested.
October 23, 2024
In Malpractice Suit, Nevada High Court Modifies Attorney Fee Award

CARSON CITY, Nev. — In consolidated appeals of a malpractice suit over a 2009 surgery mishap, the Nevada Supreme Court largely affirmed rulings in favor of the prevailing plaintiff; however, the court modified an attorney fee award of more than $1.5 million to reflect a lesser fee award against two professional entities, with the court holding that “a vicariously liable professional entity cannot be held more liable than its principal and thus cannot owe more . . . attorney fees than its principal.”
October 23, 2024
Woman: Character.AI Creators Strictly Liable, Negligent In Son’s Suicide

ORLANDO, Fla. — Character.AI’s creators knowingly used sex to lure minors to the program and failed to apply appropriate guiderails for an artificial intelligence whose dangers they were uniquely aware of, leading a child to depression and, ultimately, death, his mother claims in an Oct. 22 strict product liability and negligence suit filed in Florida federal court.
October 23, 2024
Substantial Nexus Existed Between Burn Incident, Vehicle Use, Panel Says In Reversal

TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey appeals panel on Oct. 23 reversed a lower court’s ruling in favor of an automobile insurer in an insured’s lawsuit seeking personal injury protection (PIP) benefits for her injuries caused when a hot beverage spilled on her when she was sitting in her car at a Dunkin’ Donuts’ drive-through, finding that the insured’s injuries were a “natural and reasonable . . . consequence” of the use of her vehicle and, therefore, a substantial nexus existed between the injury incident and her vehicle use.