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

Mealey's Personal Injury

May 03, 2023
Widow, Defendants Battle Over $20M Verdict, Potential Punitive Damages

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A judge should award $40 million in punitive damages because of both the egregious attempts to hide or ignore the dangers of asbestos in an asbestos window glazing compound case and the defendants’ apparent net worths, a widow told a Connecticut judge. But in their own post-trial motions, one defendant argues that there was insufficient evidence that it knew of the product’s danger and another said it could not be liable for a predecessor’s conduct.
May 02, 2023
Michigan Appeals Court Reverses Exclusion Of Expert, Summary Judgment Grant

DETROIT — A Michigan appeals court held that a “trial court appeared more concerned with conducting a miniature trial” than adequately determining the admissibility of a causation expert retained by a woman who sued a nursing home for medical malpractice and reversed a grant of summary judgment and remanded the case.
May 02, 2023
Order Compelling Arbitration Affirmed In Wrongful Death Suit Against Nursing Home

TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey appellate court affirmed a lower court order compelling arbitration in an executor’s wrongful death suit against a nursing home on behalf of a man who died after a monthlong stay there, finding that despite state law voiding such agreements “as against public policy,” U.S. Supreme Court precedent favoring arbitration requires enforcement of the agreement.
May 02, 2023
Va. Federal Judge: Life-Care Expert Is Unqualified To Opine On Medical Needs

ROANOKE, Va. — Testimony from a life-care planner retained by a trucking company exceeds her area of expertise because she is rendering medical opinions, a Virginia federal judge ruled, granting a motion to exclude filed in a car-crash suit.
April 28, 2023
Ford Launches Causation, Settlement Offset Challenges To Asbestos Verdict

GREENSBORO, N.C. — In a pair of motions, Ford Motor Co. tells a federal judge in North Carolina that the more than $6.8 million in settlement monies more than offsets the $275,000 plus interest judgment and that the plaintiff’s expert improperly assumed that brake dust was hazardous and mixed science on chrysotile asbestos and brake dust in concluding that exposure to friction products was a substantial factor in a man’s mesothelioma.
April 27, 2023
Miss. High Court Says Daughter Not ‘Surrogate’ In Nursing Home Arbitration Row

JACKSON, Miss. — The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed and remanded a lower court order denying a nursing home’s motion to compel arbitration in a negligence and wrongful death suit brought against it by the daughter of a former resident, finding that the nursing home failed to show that the decedent lacked capacity, which is a requirement for a surrogate to make health care decisions on behalf of the person they are representing.
April 27, 2023
Judge: Causation Expert In Postal Truck Accident Case Passes Admissibility Test

PHOENIX — The opinions of an expert retained by the government who concluded that the injuries a man alleges that he sustained in an accident with a postal truck actually predate the incident are admissible, an Arizona federal judge ruled.
April 25, 2023
Fla. Federal Judge Dismisses Case After Settlement Reached After Daubert Ruling

MIAMI — A Florida federal judge on April 24 signed an order dismissing a lawsuit filed by a woman who claims that she was injured in a cruise ship bathroom after a settlement was reached days after the judge adopted a magistrate’s recommendations to exclude expert witnesses from testifying on the cause of the injuries.
April 24, 2023
Jury Returns Verdict For Defense In Mechanic’s Crane Brake Asbestos Case

SEATTLE — A Washington state jury returned a defense verdict for a crane company, finding no liability for a deceased mechanic’s alleged exposure to asbestos-containing brakes.
April 20, 2023
Calif. Federal Judge: Motion To Exclude Expert In Treadmill Injury Case Fails

SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge was unconvinced by a treadmill company’s attempts to exclude testimony from a standard of care expert retained by the family of toddler who was injured when he was pulled under the machine while his father was using it.
April 19, 2023
California Jury Awards $46.4M To Jiu-Jitsu Student Rendered Paraplegic

SAN DIEGO — A California jury has awarded $46,475,112.33 in compensatory damages to a man who suffered a spinal cord injury that rendered him paraplegic while training at a jiu-jitsu studio.
April 17, 2023
Plaintiffs Resume Bid For Third-Party Complaint Against Reinsurers In Crash Case

MIAMI — Describing a bid for leave to file a third-party complaint against it as “rife with procedural, jurisdictional, and substantive defects,” a reinsurer urged a Florida court to deny the long-pending motion in a plane crash case in which settlements were reached over an $844 million default judgment.
April 14, 2023
Magistrate Admits Most Opinions Of Reconstructionist In Motorcycle Crash Case

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — An accident reconstruction expert retained in a vehicle collision case cannot opine on the proximate cause of the accident, but his other opinions are admissible, a Tennessee federal judge ruled in partially granting and partially denying a motion to exclude.
April 14, 2023
In ERISA Preemption Ruling, Split Alabama High Court Partly Reverses Dismissal

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In a ruling that drew concurrences and dissents and focused on preemption under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Alabama Supreme Court partially reversed judgment in a suit concerning wrongful death claims asserted under Alabama law.
April 13, 2023
Florida Jury Awards $4.3M To Woman Injured In Car Accident

Driver’s negligence found to be cause of plaintiff’s permanent injuries
April 12, 2023
Treating Physician Doesn’t Meet Admissibility Standards In Injury Case, Judge Says

NEW YORK — An expert retained by a woman who claims that she was injured when she fell inside a bank is inadmissible under federal standards, a New York federal judge ruled (Rachel Bell v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 20-2468, S.D. N.Y., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59378).
April 07, 2023
Georgia Jury Awards Family $4.36M For Man’s Death After Cardiac Catheterization

Patient’s left ventricular wall was perforated by catheter during diagnostic procedure
April 07, 2023
Ohio Court Reverses Sanctions, Says Asbestos Firm’s Suits Were Not Frivolous

CLEVELAND — An Illinois court’s ruling on a company’s successor status does not bind Ohio courts, and an asbestos law firm’s repeated naming and dismissal of the company was not frivolous or unreasonable, evidenced by the fact that other attorneys filed similar suits, an Ohio court said April 6 in reversing an award of sanctions against the firm.
April 06, 2023
Louisiana Panel Affirms Award In Crash Suit, Finds No Error In Trial Court Rulings

SHREVEPORT, La. — A Louisiana trial court did not err in denying an “emergency” Daubert hearing requested by a woman three days into trial for injuries sustained in a car accident, a state appeals court ruled April 5, also finding no error in other rulings brought up on appeal and affirming the judgment.
April 06, 2023
Man Seeks Punitive Damages Against Fracking Operator For Oilfield Injury

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A man who was injured while performing oil field services at a hydraulic fracturing site on April 5 filed an amended lawsuit against the operator in New Mexico federal court seeking punitive damages for the company’s “reckless conduct” that caused him harm.
April 06, 2023
Federal Magistrate Judge Limits Toxicologist’s Testimony In Cruise Injury Case

MIAMI — A toxicology expert retained by Carnival Corp. can testify on a woman’s blood-alcohol concentration at the time of a fall but cannot opine on whether intoxication contributed to the accident, a Florida federal magistrate judge ruled in a personal injury suit.
April 05, 2023
High Court Asked To Review Statute Of Limitations In University Sexual Abuse Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Ohio university has requested that the U.S. Supreme Court review what it contends is an “extreme new ‘discovery rule’” for determining when Title IX claims accrue devised by a divided Sixth Circuit U.S Court of Appeals in conflict with other circuits that permitted several plaintiffs to assert Title IX claims against it based on conduct that occurred more than 20 years before they filed suit after the Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s judgment dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims of sexual abuse by a university doctor as barred by the two-year statute of limitations.
April 03, 2023
Missouri High Court: Work Product Protection Waived In Shared Accident Documents

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The plaintiffs in a personal injury negligence suit against a hospital cannot withhold documents pertaining to their settlement of an unrelated lawsuit, the Missouri Supreme Court held, ruling that the plaintiffs’ disclosure of those documents in the previous suit constituted waiver of the work product doctrine and defeated their claims that the documents are protected from discovery by privilege.
March 31, 2023
Woman’s Rebuttal Witness Allowed In Case Alleging Injury While On Cruise

MIAMI — A cruise line failed to convince a federal magistrate judge in Florida to exclude a woman’s rebuttal expert witness who says that the lifeboat she was aboard when she was injured was traveling at an unreasonable speed as it headed back to a cruise ship.
March 29, 2023
No Remand In COVID Death Suit Against Care Home Absent Joinder-Ending Diversity

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge denied a remand motion in a family’s COVID-19-related wrongful death suit against a senior living facility, finding that because Federal Rules of Civil Procedure factors “weigh against joinder” of the care home manager, “remand is not mandatory.”