Mealey's Personal Injury
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January 31, 2023
Federal Judge Rules For Amazon In Insurer’s Strict Products Liability Suit
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A federal judge in Minnesota granted Amazon.com Inc.’s motion for summary judgment and denied an insurer’s motion to certify a question to the Minnesota Supreme Court, finding that pursuant to Minnesota law, strict products liability applies only to sellers and manufacturers of defective products.
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January 30, 2023
Judge: Parts Of Experts’ Testimony In Power Tool Accident Case Are Unreliable
PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania federal judge limited the testimony expected from two experts retained by a man who lost two fingers while using a Black & Decker router, finding that some testimony is admissible and that the manufacturer’s move for summary judgment fails.
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January 27, 2023
Jury Awards Smoker’s Widow $5M For Lung Cancer Death
MIAMI — A Florida state court jury in an Engle case awarded $5 million to the widow and estate of a dead smoker but apportioned 40% of fault for the smoker’s death to himself after the widow argued that he got hooked on cigarettes at age 14 while a tobacco company lawyer argued that the smoker disregarded certain health risks and also used drugs such as cocaine and marijuana. VIDEO OF THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
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January 24, 2023
$732,167 Final Judgment Entered For Plaintiff Injured By Cruise Ship Bunk Bed
Jury in second trial in maritime injury case finds cruise line, cabin steward negligent
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January 24, 2023
Georgia Federal Jury Finds For Grocery Store In Premises Liability Suit
Customer said she was injured after slipping on spilled shampoo
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January 19, 2023
Crash Suit Parties Reach Settlement Day After Judge Allows Expert Testimony
LAS VEGAS — Parties involved in a car accident suit filed a notice in a Nevada federal court on Jan. 18 stating that they have reached a settlement, one day after a federal judge denied a motion to exclude a woman’s expert who would opine on her future medical needs.
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January 17, 2023
Architect Can Testify In Fall Case Against Hotel But Can’t Opine On New Repairs
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A federal judge in Puerto Rico ruled that a hotel can cross-examine an architect who opines that a woman fell in the hotel’s stairway because of negligence to point out deficiencies in his conclusions but said the testimony is not inadmissible, though she agreed to strike a portion of his testimony that she found unfairly prejudicial.
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January 17, 2023
Texas Criminal Appeals Court Finds Any Error In Officer’s Testimony To Be Harmless
AUSTIN, Texas — A trial court’s error in admitting a police officer's direct opinion testimony on the credibility of a child who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a family friend was harmless and had little influence on the jury, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals found, reversing an appellate court decision that remanded the case for a new trial.
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January 13, 2023
Judge Finds Jurisdiction Lacking In 3M Ear Plug Fraudulent Transfer Suit
PENSACOLA, Fla. — Florida courts lack jurisdiction over an action alleging fraudulent transfer and seeking to enjoin 3M Co.’s conduct related to the bankruptcy of subsidiary Aearo Technologies LLC stemming from Combat Arms earplug litigation, a federal judge in Florida said.
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January 13, 2023
8th Circuit Upholds Dismissal Of Tribal Member’s Negligence Suit Over Crash
ST. LOUIS — A Native American who was seriously injured in an auto/lawnmower accident on the property of a tribal hospital cannot pursue negligence claims against the United States because sovereign immunity bars the claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in affirming dismissal of the case.
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January 11, 2023
Expert Correctly Excluded In Wrongful Death Suit, Utah Appeals Court Says
SALT LAKE CITY — A trial court did not err in excluding an expert retained by the estate of a man whom it alleges died as a result of negligence by a nursing home, a Utah appeals court ruled, also finding that because the estate failed to establish medical causation, summary judgment was also appropriate.
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January 10, 2023
Parties Reach $408M Settlement In Ethylene Oxide Injury Cases
CHICAGO — Sotera Health Co., the parent of medical sterilization company Sterigenics US LLC, on Jan. 9 announced that it has reached agreements to settle more than 870 ethylene oxide (EtO) poisoning cases pending against Sterigenics for $408 million.
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January 09, 2023
Valve Maker Hit With $23M Asbestos Verdict In New York
NEW YORK — A New York jury awarded $23 million to a man suffering from mesothelioma and found valve manufacturer Jenkins Bros. 90% liable.
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January 09, 2023
Judge Dismisses Companies In Wrongful Death Suit, Cites No Personal Jurisdiction
GREENVILLE, S.C. — A South Carolina federal judge granted dismissal to two out-of-state parent companies of a nursing home in an elder abuse and wrongful death suit filed against them by an estate representative for a man who died at the nursing home, finding that the federal court lacks personal jurisdiction over the parent companies because they did not forfeit their personal jurisdiction defense and they are not subject to specific jurisdiction.
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January 09, 2023
Mistrial Declared In Dead Smoker’s Daughter’s Suit Against Tobacco Company
SANTA FE, N.M. — A mistrial was recently declared during jury deliberations in a lawsuit brought in New Mexico state court by the daughter of a late smoker who had accused a tobacco company of causing her father’s death from laryngeal cancer by defectively designing its cigarettes to be too addictive and too easily inhalable.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).