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Mealey's Personal Injury

  • July 18, 2025

    6th Circuit Affirms Hip Implant Device Manufacturer’s Summary Judgment Award

    CINCINNATI — A lower court properly granted a manufacturer of a hip implant device summary judgment after finding that a man’s expert witnesses to support his claim that the device was defective were properly excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held.

  • July 15, 2025

    Judge Limits Some Experts In Case Alleging Defective Gas Container Caused Fire

    PENSACOLA, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida agreed to limit testimony from certain experts retained by a woman who alleges that a faulty gas container caused a gas vapor to ignite, causing serious burn injuries.

  • July 15, 2025

    Family: AI Output Speech Questions Interesting, But Not Appeal Worthy

    ORLANDO, Fla. — First Amendment questions surrounding artificial intelligence outputs may be “controversial, important, or potentially influential for courts” but do little to further negligence and wrongful death litigation tying a child’s suicide to use of specially created AI characters and do not rise to the level requiring interlocutory appeal, a family told a federal judge in Florida in opposing immediate appeal on a ruling covering the First Amendment and aiding and abetting claims.

  • July 15, 2025

    Monsanto Seeks Missouri High Court Review Of $549.9M Roundup Damages Award

    JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Monsanto Co. has filed a petition with the Missouri Supreme Court seeking review of an appellate decision that upheld a combined $549.9 million punitive damages award for three plaintiffs who argued that exposure to the herbicide Roundup caused their cancers.  Monsanto contends that review is warranted because there are “fundamental separation of powers concerns” with respect to a statute that is designed to ensure that a defendant is not forced to pay repeated punitive verdicts arising from the same alleged misconduct.

  • July 14, 2025

    7th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Suit Against Battery Maker For E-Cig Explosion

    CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of personal injury claims brought by a minor against a Korean battery maker for injuries suffered when lithium-ion batteries intended for use with an e-cigarette device exploded in his pocket, finding that the Korean company did not purposefully avail itself of the Indiana market for batteries while noting that other courts around the country addressing exploding vape cases have split on the issue.

  • July 11, 2025

    1 Expert In, Another Excluded In Case Filed By Former Inmate Over Medical Care

    CHICAGO — An Illinois judge ruled on a pair of motions to exclude expert testimony in a case filed by a former inmate who alleges that the deliberate indifference by the staff at a correctional center caused him to suffer permanent liver damage.

  • July 11, 2025

    Judge Tosses Police Chase Personal Injury Suit Against Guaranty Association

    NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge dismissed with prejudice a suit against the New Jersey Property-Liability Insurance Guaranty Association (NJPLIGA) and other parties filed by a pedestrian who claims that she was hit and injured as a result of a police chase that allegedly violated “all standard . . . procedures.”

  • July 11, 2025

    Cook County, Ill., Jury Returns Defense Verdict In Zantac Injury Case

    CHICAGO — An Illinois jury returned a verdict for Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., rejecting arguments from a man who alleged that his prostate cancer was caused by ingesting over-the-counter Zantac.

  • July 11, 2025

    Depo-Provera MDL Judge: Disclose All Third-Party Litigation Funding Deals

    PENSACOLA, Fla. — The Florida federal judge overseeing the Depo-Provera multidistrict litigation, a group of cases alleging that a long-lasting injectable contraceptive caused women to develop intracranial meningiomas, a type of brain tumor, ordered all plaintiffs and their counsel to disclose any third-party litigation funding agreements.

  • July 10, 2025

    Ky. Federal Judge Denies Series Of Motions To Exclude Experts In Pelvic Mesh Case

    LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky federal judge presiding over a long-running case against a pelvic mesh manufacturer denied three separate motions to exclude experts filed by the manufacturer and a woman who says she was injured by the mesh.

  • July 10, 2025

    Wash. Federal Judge Rules Experts Can Testify For Worker In FELA Injury Case

    TACOMA, Wash. — Experts retained by a man who says he was injured after years of strenuous work on the railroad can testify, a Washington federal judge ruled, rejecting the railroad’s arguments that the expert’s testimony is inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.

  • July 08, 2025

    Expert’s Exclusion Dooms Design Defect Case Alleging Faulty Blender Exploded

    NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge granted a motion to exclude an expert’s testimony in a woman’s case alleging that a defectively designed blender exploded and caused injuries, further ruling that without expert testimony to prove causation, the manufacturer is entitled to summary judgment.

  • July 08, 2025

    Judge Won’t Consider Amicus Briefs In Deciding AI Speech Appeal Certification

    ORLANDO, Fla. — Amicus curiae briefs are unhelpful in determining whether to certify an immediate appeal on the question of whether artificial intelligence chatbot outputs are protected speech, a federal judge in Florida said in a docket-only order denying a quartet of motions for leave to file amicus briefs in a case alleging that use of Character.AI led to a child’s suicide.

  • July 07, 2025

    California Jury Returns Defense Verdict In Asbestos Pipe Case

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A California jury returned a verdict for a company battling an asbestos-pipe case, finding that while the company’s product contained potentially knowable risks, an ordinary customer would have recognized them and that the defendant’s failure to warn about them was not a substantial factor in the man’s mesothelioma.

  • July 03, 2025

    Plaintiffs Cross-Appeal As Monsanto Challenges $75M PCB Punitive Damages Award

    SEATTLE — Plaintiffs who won a $75 million punitive damages award that was part of a combined verdict of $100 million for injuries from exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs) at a Seattle area school have filed notice of a cross-appeal in Washington state court, seeking cross-review of the final judgment and other rulings, in response to Monsanto’s appeal of the verdict.

  • July 02, 2025

    Magistrate Judge: Testimony Limited To Facts Disclosed In Expert Report, Deposition

    MIAMI — A Florida federal magistrate judge ruled that experts retained by a man who alleges that he was rendered paraplegic due to a fall aboard a Carnival Corp. cruise ship cannot offer testimony based on opinions that were not disclosed in their expert witness reports or depositions but refused to exclude their testimony.

  • June 27, 2025

    Nondelegation Doctrine Not Violated By FCC Funding Scheme, Supreme Court Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 27 ruled 6-3 that a Federal Communications Commission subsidy program does not violate the doctrines of nondelegation or  “private nondelegation,” finding that the FCC’s delegations were properly guided by an “intelligible principle” set forth by Congress and reversing the en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • June 27, 2025

    Widow Defends $34M Verdict For 38-Year-Old Smoker’s Death As ‘Not About Race’

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The widow of a dead 38-year-old smoker urges a Florida appellate court in her answer brief to affirm the verdict and disregard a tobacco company’s arguments that the jury was inflamed by improper argument about “racial targeting,” writing that her case properly emphasized “fraudulent conduct” not “racism.”

  • June 23, 2025

    Expert Testimony Limited In Suit Over Carbon Monoxide Death After Vehicle Left On

    ATLANTA — A Georgia federal judge ruled in a pair of orders that certain experts retained in a suit against Toyota Motor Corp. cannot testify in a design defect case filed by a woman whose husband died of carbon monoxide poisoning after leaving his vehicle running in a garage but denied a motion for summary judgment filed by the car maker.

  • June 20, 2025

    Judge: Expert Did Not Show Reliable Methodology In Calculating Economic Losses

    SHERMAN, Texas — A retained expert’s “entire opinion is based on his own ipse dixit,” a Texas federal judge held, finding that a woman who was injured in a car accident cannot offer the expert’s testimony that her injuries will result in a lifetime economic loss of $643,513.

  • June 20, 2025

    Massachusetts Jury Awards $8 Million In J&J Talc Case

    MIDDLESEX, Mass. — A Massachusetts jury awarded a woman $8 million for her mesothelioma, finding Johnson & Johnson and a related entity negligent and liable for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability with regard to two of its consumer talc products.

  • June 19, 2025

    Agency To Allocate $10M For Research Into Health Impact Of Ohio Train Derailment

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the aftermath of the chemical releases in East Palestine, Ohio, following the derailment of a train operated by Norfolk Southern Railway Corp., the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) on June 19 announced a plan to allocate up to $10 million over five years to fund awards to organizations to conduct a research study of long-term health concerns related to the chemical exposure in the community.

  • June 19, 2025

    Connecticut Judge To Hold Additional Argument On J&J Successor Liability Question

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A Connecticut judge considering punitive damages and motions for a new trial and judgment notwithstanding the verdict in the wake of a $15 million asbestos-talc award ordered parties to come up with dates for additional argument on the issue of successor liability for Johnson & Johnson, choice of law and the status of LLT Management LLC as a defendant.

  • June 19, 2025

    N.Y. Federal Judge Grants Gunmaker Summary Judgment After Excluding Expert

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge excluded testimony from an expert retained by a man who suffered an eye injury while shooting a Smith & Wesson revolver and granted the manufacturer summary judgment, finding that without that testimony, the man’s claims fail.

  • June 16, 2025

    10th Circuit Affirms Experts Properly Excluded In Gun Design Defect Case

    DENVER — The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 13 affirmed summary judgment for a gun manufacturer after finding that the experts retained by a man who accidentally shot himself while removing a handgun from its holster based their causation opinions on speculation and were properly excluded as inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.