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Personal Injury & Medical Malpractice
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April 30, 2024
Epstein Victims Must Disclose Names In FBI Suit, Judge Says
A New York federal judge on Tuesday denied anonymity to 12 survivors of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein in their lawsuit alleging the FBI ignored numerous tips that Epstein was running a sex trafficking ring, saying the victims failed to support claims they would suffer irreparable harm if their identities were revealed.
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April 30, 2024
Chiquita Capitalized On Colombian War, Victims' Families Say
Attorneys representing the families of 10 men killed during Colombia's civil war told a Florida federal jury Tuesday that the Chiquita banana company is liable for their deaths, saying it knowingly funded a right-wing narcoterrorist group that committed atrocities against its workers as the fruit corporation expanded its business.
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April 30, 2024
'Hatchet-Wielding' Killer Can't Join Netflix Suit, Judge Rules
Convicted killer "Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker" can't get in on a defamation suit involving a Netflix documentary about the murderer's life, a Texas federal judge ruled Monday, saying that his claims don't have a sufficient basis to warrant intervention in the lawsuit.
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April 30, 2024
'Vanderpump' Stars Want 'Scandoval' Revenge Porn Suit Axed
"Vanderpump Rules" cast members Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix have asked a California court to toss revenge porn and invasion of privacy claims brought by former cast member Rachel Leviss following the show's viral "Scandoval" cheating scandal, saying Leviss' claims are false and "an abuse of the legal process."
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April 30, 2024
Migrant Families, Biden Admin Settle Separation Suit
The Biden administration has inked deals resolving two lawsuits from migrant parents who claim to be experiencing lasting emotional damage after being separated from their children under a Trump-era policy.
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April 30, 2024
Truck Driver Wins $12M In Illinois Crash Case
An Illinois state jury hit a pipeline construction company with a $12 million verdict over claims that one of its drivers rear-ended a semitruck driver, causing a spinal injury and lifelong pain.
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April 30, 2024
Watchdog Says USA Swimming Indemnity Suit Has No Basis
A nonprofit watchdog overseeing reports of sexual abuse in U.S. sports has urged a Colorado state judge to toss an indemnification suit by USA Swimming, claiming there is no contract between them, much less one requiring the watchdog to pay for separate litigation in Washington state.
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April 30, 2024
Texas Doctor Can't Get Expert Report Tossed In Suicide Suit
A Texas appeals court on Tuesday refused to dismiss a mother's suit alleging a doctor and medical center failed to properly treat her son's depression, saying the expert report is sufficient in laying out how the doctor's alleged negligence led to the son's suicide.
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April 30, 2024
Drug Company Can't Escape Texas Counties' Opioid MDL
A Texas appeals court on Tuesday declined to cut loose a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical manufacturer from Texas multidistrict litigation over opioid addiction in the state, finding that the counties of Dallas and Bexar have demonstrated that it's made deliberate moves toward the Texas market.
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April 30, 2024
3rd Circ. Preview: Kavanaugh Classmate Takes On HuffPost
The Third Circuit's May lineup will find the court weighing HuffPost's battle with an allegedly libeled former classmate of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and claims by consumers alleging they bought defective Bayer antifungal medicine.
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April 30, 2024
NJ AG Asks Court To Nix UAW's Suit Over Smoking In Casinos
The New Jersey attorney general has requested that a state court dismiss a United Auto Workers complaint claiming a law excluding casino workers from a smoking ban at certain indoor workspaces violates the state constitution, saying the dispute should be left to the Legislature.
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April 30, 2024
Dust Spray Maker Hit With $7.75M Verdict Over Fatal DUI
The maker of aerosol dust remover has been ordered by a Minnesota federal jury to pay $7.75 million to the husband of a woman who was killed in a car accident by a truck driver who huffed the spray before getting behind the wheel.
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April 30, 2024
Judge Tosses LTL's Suit Over Article Linking Talc To Cancer
A New Jersey federal judge on Tuesday tossed a suit from the bankrupt talc unit of Johnson & Johnson accusing three doctors of damaging its business through a medical journal article it claimed was backed by "junk science," ruling that the doctors having served as expert witnesses in the Garden State is not enough to show that the court has jurisdiction over its claims.
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April 30, 2024
Pa. Schools Say Railcar Cos. Must Face Derailment Claims
Pennsylvania school districts have told a federal judge that railcar companies cannot evade allegations they negligently shipped toxic chemicals in retrofitted tank cars during last year's Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, saying the environmental and health harms in their communities can be tied to the companies' conduct.
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April 30, 2024
Camp Lejeune Litigants Balk At Bellwether Pick Process
The leadership group for former residents of Camp Lejeune who claim that contaminated drinking water caused their diseases has told the North Carolina federal court overseeing their case that it's too soon to limit trials to just plaintiffs who allege only one disease.
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April 30, 2024
City Says Workers' Comp Ends $50M Ship Fire Death Suit
The city of Newark, New Jersey, is seeking to toss a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit brought by the families of two firefighters who died in July aboard a burning cargo ship, arguing that accidents that occur in the course of employment are matters to be resolved through the workers' compensation process, not the federal courts.
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April 30, 2024
Georgia EMS Co. Rife With Harassment And Abuse, Suit Says
An Atlanta-based EMS provider was hit with a lawsuit by a former paramedic who says in under one year with the company, she faced a workplace rife with sexual harassment, domestic abuse, medical malpractice, retaliation and white supremacist affiliations.
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April 30, 2024
Apple Says Astroworld Trial Is Halted For Pretrial Loss Appeal
Apple told a state court Monday that the first trial in litigation stemming from the 2021 Astroworld crowd crush is automatically stayed while it appeals a Houston judge's denial of its bid for a pretrial win in a move that the victims called a "bad-faith, desperate attempt" to "derail" the proceedings less than a week before jury selection is set to begin.
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April 30, 2024
Conn. Atty Says Depo Reveals Referral Fee Deal Was Legit
An attorney who says another lawyer owes him a $58,333 referral fee for handing over a personal injury case has pointed to a deposition to argue that referral "discussions" occurred despite his opponent's apparent claims that they didn't, according to a supplemental argument submitted to a Connecticut state trial court judge.
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April 30, 2024
Trial Set For Lin Wood's Ex-Partners' Defamation Suit
Controversial attorney Lin Wood will face trial in August in a defamation case brought by his former law partners who say he falsely accused them of trying to extort him, a Georgia federal judge decided Tuesday.
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April 29, 2024
Radiologist Can't Opine On Surgeon Standards, Court Says
A woman can't maintain a medical negligence suit against a vascular surgeon for allegedly failing to identify a pseudoaneurysm in her leg, which later became infected, a Minnesota appeals court ruled on Monday, saying the patient's medical expert was properly disqualified.
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April 29, 2024
House Passes Bill To Curb Online Child Exploitation
The House by voice vote passed a bipartisan bill on Monday night aimed at better curbing online child sexual exploitation by improving the nation's centralized reporting system, which now goes to the president's desk.
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April 29, 2024
5th Circ. Ponders If There Were Claims In 'Patient Mistake' Suit
If an insurer says there's no claim, might a claim still have been made, a skeptical Fifth Circuit panel pondered at oral arguments Monday, considering whether a healthcare company's settlement paid for mistakenly approving out-of-state treatment of a Florida Medicaid patient was covered by insurance.
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April 29, 2024
Diddy Calls 1991 Rape Claim 'False, Offensive And Salacious'
Sean "Diddy" Combs has asked a New York court to trim one of the multiple sexual assault suits he is facing, calling plaintiff Joi Dickerson-Neal's allegations of a 1991 rape "false, offensive and salacious."
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April 29, 2024
Singapore Tech Co. To Pay FTC $1.17M In Mask False Ad Suit
The Federal Trade Commission has inked a $1.17 million deal with Singaporean American company Razer Inc. and its affiliates to resolve claims that it falsely advertised its "Zephyr" air purifier masks as being equivalent to N95 face masks.
Expert Analysis
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Storytelling Strategies To Defuse Courtroom Conspiracies
Misinformation continues to proliferate in all sectors of society, including in the courtroom, as jurors try to fill in the gaps of incomplete trial narratives — underscoring the need for attorneys to tell a complete, consistent and credible story before and during trial, says David Metz at IMS Legal Strategies.
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Aviation Watch: 737 Max Blowout Raises Major Safety Issues
The sudden in-flight loss of a side panel on an Alaska Air 737-9 Max last month, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane's cabin, highlighted ongoing quality issues at Boeing, the jet's manufacturer — but the failure also arose from decisions made by the airline, says Alan Hoffman, a retired attorney and aviation expert.
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EDNY Ruling Charts 99 Problems In Rap Lyric Admissibility
A New York federal court’s recent ruling in U.S. v. Jordan powerfully captures courts’ increasing skepticism about the admissibility of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials, particularly at a time when artists face economic incentives to embrace fictional, hyperbolic narratives, say attorneys at Sher Tremonte.
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3 Principles For Minimizing The Risk Of A Nuclear Verdict
In one of the latest examples of so-called nuclear verdicts, a single plaintiff was awarded $2.25 billion in a jury trial against Monsanto — revealing the need for defense attorneys to prioritize trust, connection and simplicity when communicating with modern juries, say Jenny Hergenrother and Mia Falzarano at Alston & Bird.
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Series
Coaching High School Wrestling Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Coaching my son’s high school wrestling team has been great fun, but it’s also demonstrated how a legal career can benefit from certain experiences, such as embracing the unknown, studying the rules and engaging with new people, says Richard Davis at Maynard Nexsen.
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SG's Office Is Case Study To Help Close Legal Gender Gap
As women continue to be underrepresented in the upper echelons of the legal profession, law firms could learn from the example set by the Office of the Solicitor General, where culture and workplace policies have helped foster greater gender equality, say attorneys at Ocean Tomo.
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Verizon Benefits Ruling Clears Up Lien Burden Of Proof
A Rhode Island federal court recently ruled that a Verizon benefits plan could not recoup a former employee’s settlement funds from the attorney who represented her in a personal injury case, importantly clarifying two Employee Retirement Income Security Act burden of proof issues that were previously unsettled, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.
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Googling Prospective Jurors Is Usually A Fool's Errand
Though a Massachusetts federal court recently barred Google from Googling potential jurors in a patent infringement case, the company need not worry about missing evidence of bias, because internet research of jury pools usually doesn’t yield the most valuable information — voir dire and questionnaires do, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.
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A Look Into How Jurors Reach High Damages Awards
In the wake of several large jury awards, Richard Gabriel and Emily Shaw at Decision Analysis shed light on challenges that jurors have in deciding them, the nonevidentiary and extra-legal methods they use to do so, and new research about the themes and jury characteristics of high-damages jurors.
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Opinion
Food Safety Bill Needed To Protect Kids From Heavy Metals
The recent announcement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that hundreds of children may have been exposed to unsafe lead levels in applesauce highlights the continuing failure by Congress to pass legislation that would require baby food manufacturers to ensure safer levels of heavy metals in their products, says Vineet Dubey at Custodio & Dubey.
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Opinion
3rd-Party Financiers Have Power To Drive Mass Tort Cases
The abnormal recovery premium presented by modern mass tort cases coupled with their deemphasized role for attorneys creates an opportunity for third-party financiers to both create and control these cases, says Samir Parikh at Lewis & Clark Law School.
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Preparing For A New Wave Of Litigation Under Silicosis Rules
After the Division of Occupational Safety and Health of California issued an emergency temporary standard to combat noncompliance with assessments of workers' exposure to particles of crystalline silica, companies that manufacture, distribute or sell silica-containing products will need aggressive case-specific discovery to navigate a new wave of litigation, say attorneys at Dechert.
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Managing Competing Priorities In Witness Preparation
There’s often a divide between what attorneys and witnesses want out of the deposition process, but litigation teams can use several strategies to resolve this tension and help witnesses be more comfortable with the difficult conditions of testifying, say Ava Hernández and Steve Wood at Courtroom Sciences.
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Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout
While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.
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Opinion
Gilead Ruling Signals That Innovating Can Lead To Liability
A California appeals court's ruling last month in Gilead Life Sciences v. Superior Court of San Francisco that a drug manufacturer can be held liable for delaying the introduction of an improved version of its medication raises concerns about the chilling effects that expansive product liability claims may have on innovation, says Gary Myers at the University of Missouri School of Law.