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

Mealey's Personal Injury

July 18, 2024
CPAP MDL Judge Sets Date For Medical Monitoring Settlement Hearing

PITTSBURGH — The federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving the recall of approximately 10.8 million continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) sleep apnea devices will hold a final fairness hearing on Oct. 30 on a $25 million settlement to resolve medical monitoring claims in the MDL.
July 16, 2024
Judge Allows Expert To Opine If Speed Of Crash Supports Alleged Injuries

OMAHA, Neb. — A Nebraska federal judge on July 15 denied a couple’s motion to exclude testimony from an expert opining on the speed, impact, energy and severity of a collision, finding that the arguments for exclusion go to weight, not admissibility.
July 15, 2024
Dollar General To Pay $12M, Make Nationwide Safety Investments Under DOL Pact

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dollar General Corp. and its retail subsidiaries will pay $12 million in penalties and make safety changes as part of its corporate-wide settlement presented to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).
July 15, 2024
Connecticut Court Hears Arguments On CDA Immunity In Snapchat Assault Suit

WATERBURY, Conn. — Snap Inc., which operates the Snapchat social network, squared off in Connecticut court against the parents of a minor who was sexually assaulted by two men that she met through the platform, with the social media company asserting that it is immune from liability for the rapists’ actions under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA).
July 11, 2024
Magistrate Judge OKs Expert Testimony In Case Alleging Death Stemmed From Crash

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A federal magistrate judge in Florida agreed to limit certain opinions offered by a medical examiner in a wrongful death suit stemming from an overdose of opioid medication but found that his other testimony is admissible and further ruled that a rebuttal witness can testify on possible causes of a woman’s injuries.
July 11, 2024
Pleadings Of Passenger Injured In Jet Ski Accident Survive Challenge By Cruise Line

MIAMI — In an action by a cruise line seeking exoneration from or limitation of liability for an accident involving two of its passengers riding jet skis supplied by it, a Florida federal court denied the cruise line’s motion to dismiss the statement of claims of one of the passengers and to strike her affirmative defenses to the petition.
July 11, 2024
Dallas Jury Awards $500,000 For Man’s Mesothelioma

DALLAS — A Texas judge entered judgment on a $500,000 asbestos verdict, finding that the plaintiffs are entitled to costs and various interest on the $325,000 in exemplary damages awarded by the jury.
July 11, 2024
Care Facility, Owner Seek High Court Review Of Ruling Affirming Arbitration Denial

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A California skilled nursing facility and its owner/operator filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of a California Supreme Court ruling affirming the denial of their efforts to compel arbitration of an elder abuse and negligence suit filed against the petitioners related to a former resident’s fall and injuries.
July 10, 2024
Tobacco Company Not Liable For Smoker’s Laryngeal Cancer Death, Jury Says

MIAMI — A Miami-Dade County, Fla., 11th Judicial Circuit Court jury issued a verdict awarding no damages and finding a tobacco company not liable for claims that it defectively designed Virginia Slims cigarettes and caused a smoker’s death from laryngeal cancer. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
July 09, 2024
Court Deputy Files Scheduling Order In Malpractice Suit Against Rehab Home

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — At the direction of an Arkansas federal court clerk, a courtroom deputy filed an order outlining deadlines for discovery and a proposed trial date in a man’s medical malpractice suit against the nursing and rehabilitation center he alleges failed to provide him with the appropriate standard of care for his pressure ulcers, leading to infection and colostomy surgery.
July 09, 2024
Ohio Panel Reverses Judgment For Care Home, Finds Fact Questions Remain For Jury

CANTON, Ohio — An Ohio appellate court on July 8 reversed and remanded a lower court’s ruling that granted summary judgment to a nursing home in a wrongful death and negligence suit against it, finding that questions of fact remain for a jury regarding whether “proper monitoring” of a former resident’s urinary tract infection (UTI) would have prevented her death from sepsis.
July 09, 2024
Smoker’s Estate Opposes Florida High Court Review Of Engle Residency Requirements

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A smoker’s estate argues in an answer brief that the Florida Supreme Court should not review an appellate panel’s opinion affirming a $2.5 million verdict against two tobacco companies for the smoker’s death from lung cancer, writing that the panel’s holding that she was an Engle member despite also residing in New York does not conflict with any other case.
July 08, 2024
Federal Magistrate Judge Recommends Reduced Attorney Fees In CoolSculpting Case

ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal magistrate judge in Florida recommended that attorney fees for counsel who successfully defended a company in a design defect case be reduced from the counsel’s request after finding “that employing 15 attorneys and four paralegals for this matter, and requesting over $1 million in fees for a 13-month period, to be excessive on its face.”
July 08, 2024
Merck Says 3 Gardasil Cases Must Be Dismissed On Jurisdictional Grounds

STATESVILLE, N.C. — Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC tells the court overseeing the Gardasil multidistrict litigation that plaintiffs opposing its motion to dismiss “yet again ask this Court to interpret the Vaccine Act in a way that, so far as Merck is aware, no court ever has.”
July 05, 2024
Causation Expert Found Unreliable By Wash. Federal Judge In Slip-And-Fall Suit

SEATTLE — Because a woman’s causation expert “is not an expert in analyzing surveillance video,” she cannot testify in a slip-and-fall lawsuit because her opinion on the exact moment a woman’s knee hit the ground is not reliable under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Washington federal judge held.
July 05, 2024
Texas Appeals Court: Biomechanical Engineer Testimony Properly Excluded

DALLAS — While Texas courts do allow biomechanical engineers to offer expert testimony in car accident cases, a trial court did not err in excluding an expert who did not offer any evidence that the injuries allegedly sustained in a crash were inconsistent with the physical forces created in the collision, a state appeals court ruled in affirming a $700,000 verdict.
July 03, 2024
Objectors Say $600M Ohio Train Deal Is ‘Unconstitutional,’ Cite EPA Whistleblower

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Two plaintiffs in the class action against Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and Norfolk Southern Corp. (Norfolk Southern, collectively) related to toxic chemicals spilled during the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, have filed separate objections to a $600 million settlement, saying it is “unconstitutional” because evidence of liability and damages has been suppressed or withheld and information from a whistleblower at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exposes “shocking efforts” by the EPA to “avoid learning the truth immediately after” the derailment.
July 03, 2024
Judge Approves Death Settlement Against Care Home, Apportions Distributions

ST. LOUIS — A Missouri federal judge on July 2 approved a confidential settlement agreement in a wrongful death suit filed by a decedent’s daughter against a nursing home, finding “that the balance of interests in this case favors” keeping the settlement terms confidential and that the daughter’s proposed apportionment to all three of the decedent’s children “is just and fair.”
July 03, 2024
Death Suit Against Memory Care Facility Assigned To Magistrate For Mediation

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri federal magistrate judge on July 2 was assigned to alternative dispute resolution (ADR) through a notice of inclusion in a mediation program in a wrongful death suit filed the previous day against a memory care facility and a related entity asserting that the defendants acted negligently in failing to implement safety procedures and provide adequate staffing to prevent a former’s resident’s “avoidable” fall, which purportedly led to his death.
June 28, 2024
COMMENTARY: Courts Must, As Recently Reminded, Follow The Law In Rule 702 Expert Testimony Determinations

By Erin Sheley
June 28, 2024
High Court Overrules Chevron Deference, Changes Standard For Regulatory Review

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 28 voted 6-3 to overrule the doctrine of Chevron deference as incompatible with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in two cases arising out of federal fishing regulations, changing governing precedent for federal courts reviewing agencies’ regulatory actions.
June 28, 2024
N.J. Jury Awards $600K To Estate In Wrongful Death Suit Over Improper Restraint

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A New Jersey state court jury returned a $600,000 verdict against a behavioral health facility and its employees related to the death of a patient who incurred blunt force trauma to his head and spine when he was improperly restrained, attributing 35% fault to the mental health technician who restrained the decedent and 65% fault to his supervisor.
June 28, 2024
Oregon Court Reverses $10M Asbestos Award Based On California Workers’ Comp Law

PORTLAND, Ore. — A trial court erred in granting a plaintiff partial summary judgment after concluding that it was the defendant’s burden to demonstrate that California’s workers’ compensation exclusivity provision applied to an asbestos case, the Oregon Court of Appeals said in an unpublished opinion, reversing a $10 million loss-of-consortium award.
June 27, 2024
Asbestos Defendant Says Proper Bond Will Be Filed After Asbestos Verdict Dispute

LOS ANGELES — Parties to a more than $3 million judgment in an asbestos case appear to have resolved a dispute over the bond required for an appeal, with the defendant saying a proper bond should be filed before a hearing next month.
June 27, 2024
Parties Settle Wrongful Death Suit Over Alligator Attack In 55-Plus Community

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The personal representative of the estate of a Florida retirement community resident who died after an alligator attacked her near her home settled a wrongful death suit filed in a Florida state court against the company operating the community, asserting that the woman’s death resulted from the company’s negligence in failing to remove the alligators or to warn of the danger caused by them.