Mealey's Personal Injury
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December 18, 2025
Insurers, Reinsurers Seek Indemnification From Jet Manufacturer For Fatal Crash
SAVANNAH, Ga. — An air carrier and its aviation insurers and reinsurers filed a complaint in a Georgia federal court seeking contribution and indemnification, alleging that the manufacturer of a business jet involved in a fatal crash is responsible for millions of dollars in hull, crew and passenger death settlements that the carrier and its insurers and reinsurers were compelled to pay.
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December 17, 2025
Alabama High Court Grants Mandamus To Hospital In Birthing Injury Suit
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Depositions pertaining to newly alleged acts and omissions in a medical liability suit over a mother and baby’s injuries sustained while giving birth should have been stricken by a trial court because they related to amended claims that were untimely pleaded, an Alabama Supreme Court majority ruled, granting the defendants’ petitions for writs of mandamus to reverse a trial court’s denial of their motion to strike the depositions and dismiss the untimely claims.
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December 16, 2025
5th Circuit Grants Rehearing, Says No Jurisdiction Over Battery Maker In Vape Case
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 15 granted a South Korean battery-maker’s petition for rehearing, withdrew its opinion finding jurisdiction over personal injury claims against the company for injuries caused by a vape explosion, and issued a new opinion finding no jurisdiction after a Seventh Circuit opinion in a similar case led it to go “hunting” for previously unreviewed jurisdictional facts.
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December 16, 2025
JPMDL Creates Separate Track For GLP-1 Eye Injury Cases In Pa. Federal Court
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Dec. 15 agreed to centralize cases alleging that the use of glucagon-like peptide-I receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) medications caused permanent vision loss in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania but found that the cases should be separated from cases in an MDL alleging gastrointestinal injuries.
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December 16, 2025
Disposition For Insurer Affirmed In Dispute With Estate Over Misrepresentations
DETROIT — A Michigan appellate court affirmed a lower court’s ruling granting summary disposition in favor of an insurer in a dispute with surviving children and the estate of a woman who died in a car accident, finding that the lower court did not err in granting the insurer’s motion for summary disposition because the decedent’s children are ineligible for survivor benefits due to the decedent’s misrepresentations in the policy application.
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December 16, 2025
Florida Unfair Practices Claim Not ‘Fraud’ In Zyn Marketing Suit, Judge Rules
MIAMI — Addressing an issue that was recently a matter of first impression before the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a Florida federal judge denied a motion by the companies that manufacture and sell Zyn nicotine pouches to dismiss a putative class claim accusing them of deceptively marketing Zyns in violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA), saying the claim doesn’t sound in fraud and is not subject to federal particularity requirements.
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December 11, 2025
Judge Finds Experts Can Testify On Injuries, Limitations After Car Accident
INDIANAPOLIS — An expert who was retained by a man who was injured in a car collision to testify about the man’s disability and limitations cannot opine on medical causation, an Indiana federal judge ruled in finding that most of the expert’s testimony, as well as the testimony of two other experts, is admissible.
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December 11, 2025
Man Sues Dupixent Makers, Says Drug Caused Him To Develop Rare Cancer
NEWARK, N.J. — A man who alleges that his use of Dupixent, a prescription medication used for the treatment of asthma and inflammatory skin conditions, caused him to develop cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), a rare type of cancer that affects white blood cells called T cells, or T lymphocytes, sued the manufacturers in a New Jersey federal court.
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December 10, 2025
Vanderbilt Challenges Causation, Damages After Environmental Asbestos Verdict
CANTON, N.Y. — A woman never adequately established that her mother would have been environmentally exposed to talc from a Vanderbilt Minerals LLC mine, let alone that the talc contained asbestos or that the injury was foreseeable, the company says in a post-trial motion challenging a $12.25 million verdict.
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December 10, 2025
Experts Connecting Metal In Baby Food To ASD/ADHD Out In California Case
LOS ANGELES — A California judge agreed to exclude two experts retained by a boy who alleges that exposure to toxic heavy metals in baby food led to neurological injuries after finding that one expert failed to meet the admissibility standard set in California in Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern California and that the other based his conclusions on that expert’s findings.
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December 10, 2025
COMMENTARY: Cozen O’Connor Attorneys Discuss How Insurers Will Approach Artificial Intelligence Liability Issues
[Editor’s Note: Copyright © 2025, LexisNexis. All rights reserved.]
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December 09, 2025
Panel Affirms Ruling In Insurers’ Favor In Bad Faith Suit Over Factory Work Death
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 8 affirmed a lower court’s ruling in favor of insurers in a plastics manufacturer’s breach of contract and bad faith lawsuit seeking indemnification for the settlement of an underlying lawsuit brought by the family of the insured’s factory employee who was killed on the job, holding that the policies bar coverage for the underlying claim that the insured violated Ohio’s employer intentional tort statute.
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December 08, 2025
Smoker With Lung Cancer Says Tobacco Company Suit Belongs In State Court
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — A 58-year-old smoker with lung cancer on Dec. 5 filed a motion in Massachusetts federal court to remand his suit against three tobacco companies and two retailers to state court, arguing that the defendants improperly removed the suit based on the claim that he fraudulently joined a local retailer in his suit for compensatory and punitive damages based on consumer law violations.
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December 05, 2025
Tobacco Company Urges Florida Supreme Court To Skip Voir Dire Appeal
MIAMI — A tobacco company in a Dec. 5 brief tells the Florida Supreme Court it should not find jurisdiction over a petition challenging an appellate court’s affirmance of a jury verdict finding the company not liable for a smoker’s death from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), writing that the smoker’s estate failed to preserve its challenge to the trial court’s “random jury box method” and cannot join a pending appeal on that issue.
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December 05, 2025
Medical Expert’s Opinions Are Reliable, Relevant, Judge Says In Allowing Testimony
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge rejected efforts by a prison health care provider and three of the provider’s staff members to exclude testimony of an expert retained by the estate of a man who died in custody that the medical treatment the inmate received breached the standard of care.
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December 04, 2025
Panel Questions Evidence Of Smoker’s Reliance On Ads In $1M Verdict Appeal
MIAMI — During oral arguments in a tobacco company’s appeal of a $1 million verdict in favor of a smoker’s estate, a Florida appellate panel quizzed attorneys for both sides as to whether jurors could infer that the smoker relied on tobacco company statements that filtered cigarettes were safer based on a conversation with his brother or whether such evidence is insufficient in light of Florida Supreme Court precedent.
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December 04, 2025
Claims Against CooperSurgical Trimmed In Bellwether Paragard IUD Cases
ATLANTA — The Georgia federal judge overseeing the Paragard intrauterine device (IUD) multidistrict litigation partially granted CooperSurgical Inc.’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the company had no control over the design of the IUD during the time period that the three bellwether plaintiffs allege that they underwent a procedure to implant the device, but the judge deferred ruling on the failure-to-warn claims until after supplemental briefing on causation is submitted.
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December 02, 2025
Massachusetts Court Enters Judgment Exceeding $803,000 For Smoker’s Cancer Death
WOBURN, Mass. — A Massachusetts court on Dec. 1 entered judgment worth more than $803,000 in favor of a smoker’s estate after a jury awarded the estate only medical expenses for the smoker’s death from lung cancer after smoking for approximately 55 years and awarded no further compensatory or punitive damages against two tobacco companies or a local retailer.
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December 02, 2025
4th Circuit Revives Part Of Detainee’s Suit, Rules That Evidence Was Admissible
RICHMOND, Va. — Concluding in part that some of the trial court’s evidentiary decisions were wrong, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment against the appellant on several counts in his suit alleging that several serious blood clots were attributable to a lack of proper medical care while he was a pretrial detainee in county jails.
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December 02, 2025
Employers Liability Exclusion Bars Coverage, 11th Circuit Rules In Reversal
ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals determined that a general liability insurance policy’s employers liability exclusion barred coverage for injuries suffered by a convenience store employee who was shot while leaving work, reversing a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling against an insurer and remanding for further proceedings.
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November 25, 2025
N.J. Supreme Court Holds Shaken Baby Syndrome Properly Excluded In Abuse Cases
TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey Supreme Court held that the state failed to show that its expert’s testimony on shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma (SBS/AHT) was sufficiently reliable to go before a jury in two separate cases, affirming an appellate court’s decision that dismissed charges filed against two fathers.
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November 21, 2025
COMMENTARY: Testing The Boundaries Of Product Liability For AI Products: How To Hold An Insurance Company Liable For AI Errors
By Jamie O’Neill and Abigail Damsky
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November 21, 2025
Judge: Experts Can Testify In Case Alleging Shopping Cart Collapse Led To Injuries
OMAHA, Neb. — A Nebraska federal judge rejected dueling motions to exclude testimony from the other party’s expert in a personal injury case stemming from injuries a woman suffered after a shopping cart broke, finding that both experts meet admissibility standards and that objections to their testimony can be resolved through cross-examination.
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November 20, 2025
Judge Limits Expert’s Testimony, Bars Him From Offering Legal Conclusions
SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge in Utah ruled that a trucking safety expert can testify on behalf of a man who was injured in a bicycling accident with a semi-truck but he cannot opine on who had the right of way at the time of the accident.
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November 19, 2025
Panel: Whether Immunity Applies To COVID-Era Hospital Death Is For Jury
ATLANTA — Concluding that a fact finder could determine that a hospital and hospital personnel were not engaged in emergency management activities that would provide immunity for their conduct in the treatment of a man who did not have COVID-19 but presented to and died in a hospital during the pandemic, a Georgia appellate panel reversed grants of summary judgment by a trial court in favor of the hospital and personnel in a medical malpractice lawsuit brought by the man’s daughter.