Mealey's Personal Injury
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September 08, 2025
Tobacco Companies Say 2 Hawaii Smokers Can’t Seek Punitive Damages
Tobacco companies that are seeking dismissal of two personal injury lawsuits filed against them in Hawaii state courts by smokers with bladder cancer argue that the plaintiffs’ claims for punitive damages are barred by the doctrine of res judicata based on Hawaii’s entry into the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with tobacco companies and that their other claims are not sufficiently alleged.
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September 05, 2025
Dead Smoker’s Daughter Seeks Review After Tobacco Company Wins Appeal
BOSTON — The daughter of a dead smoker filed an application to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for further appellate review (FAR) after the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of her lawsuit against a tobacco company for causing the smoker’s lung cancer and death after smoking for more than 25 years, for which a jury awarded no damages.
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September 03, 2025
Appeal In Smoker’s Death Dismissed After $9.3M Judgment Satisfied
A Florida appellate court dismissed an appeal filed by tobacco company R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (RJR) of a more than $9.3 million verdict against it for causing the death of a smoker from coronary artery disease (CAD) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) after the parties confirmed before the trial court that the full judgment has been satisfied.
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September 03, 2025
California Panel Publishes Sophisticated User Ruling In Asbestos Pipe Case
LOS ANGELES — A California appellate court granted a request to publish a recent decision in which the court upheld a jury verdict finding a pipelayer qualified as a sophisticated user of asbestos-containing pipe and that the manufacturer was not negligent.
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September 02, 2025
Judge Vacates New Graphic Warning Rule For Tobacco Products
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — A Georgia federal judge on Aug. 29 granted summary judgment in favor of a tobacco company and several retailers and vacated the Food and Drug Administration’s final rule requiring graphic warnings on all tobacco products pursuant to the Tobacco Control Act (TCA) after finding FDA’s “failure to disclose the raw data for its studies” violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
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August 29, 2025
Putative Class Action Against Ankle Monitor Maker Filed In Colo. Federal Court
DENVER — A man who claims that he developed chronic pressure injuries as a result of wearing a court-ordered alcohol monitoring ankle bracelet sued the device manufacturer on Aug. 28 in a Colorado federal court and seeks to represent a nationwide class of individuals alleging similar injuries.
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August 28, 2025
Parents Claim Intentional ChatGPT Design Choices Led To Son’s Suicide
SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities intentionally designed ChatGPT to emotionally engage with users but without implementing sufficient safeguards, leading the AI to encourage a teenager to isolate from his family and commit suicide, his parents say in a California lawsuit alleging strict liability, negligence, wrongful death and violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL).
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August 27, 2025
150 Plaintiffs Sue PFAS Makers Alleging Wrongful Death, Other Injuries From PFAS
CHARLESTON, S.C. — One hundred and fifty plaintiffs filed a joint short-form complaint in South Carolina federal court on Aug. 26, arguing that E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 3M Co. and others are liable for a variety of injuries stemming from exposure to the firefighting agent known as aqueous film forming foam (AFFF), which contains per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
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August 20, 2025
COMMENTARY: A Survey Of State Laws Regulating Third-Party Litigation Funding
By Mark A. Behrens and Christopher E. Appel
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August 25, 2025
Machine Maker Secures Summary Judgment After Judge Says Experts Are Out
CHICAGO — Summary judgment for the manufacturer of a drain cleaning machine is appropriate in a case brought by a man who claims that a defect in the machine caused his injuries, an Illinois federal judge held Aug. 22 after finding that the testimony from two experts retained by the injured man is unreliable and irrelevant.
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August 22, 2025
Panel: Ga. Trial Court Erred Allowing FELA Case To Proceed Without Expert Testimony
ATLANTA — A Georgia trial court erred in refusing to grant summary judgment to Norfolk Southern Railway Co. because its employee, who claims that strenuous work on the railroad caused his injuries, lacked expert testimony to prove medical causation, the state appeals court held in reversing.
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August 22, 2025
Illinois Enacts Consent-To-Jurisdiction Law For Toxic Tort Suits
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Under legislation signed into law by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, foreign corporations registering to do business in the state will have consented to general jurisdiction in toxic tort suits.
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August 21, 2025
No Contract Existed Between University And Student Who Died In COVID-19 Isolation
NEWARK, N.J. — Finding that the parents of a college sophomore who died from an epileptic seizure while in a university COVID-19 isolation dormitory failed to allege the existence of a valid contract between the student and the university, a New Jersey federal judge on Aug. 20 granted the university’s motion and dismissed with prejudice the parents’ lawsuit seeking damages for breach of contract.
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August 20, 2025
Expert On Injuries Out, But Judge Says Dashcam Video Not Enough For Summary Judgment
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge denied a motion for summary judgment in a car accident case after finding that “genuine factual disputes exist regarding” whether a trucking company and its driver are responsible but ruled that an expert retained by a passenger cannot testify as to injuries because her opinions are speculative and unreliable.
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August 18, 2025
Monsanto: $175M Glyphosate Award Broke With Precedent, Warranting Review
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Monsanto Co. has filed a petition for review in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court arguing that a lower court “broke with decades of precedent” when it affirmed a $175 million jury award to a couple in a glyphosate cancer lawsuit. Monsanto maintains that the lower court’s decision amounts to “fashioning a new legal standard under which the most coercive ex parte pressure to reach a verdict will never be found prejudicial.”
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August 14, 2025
Expert Can Testify That Marijuana Use, Not Defective Helmet, Caused Brain Injuries
SHERMAN, Texas — A neuropsychologist who opines that a man’s cognitive and neurological impairments were, at least in part, caused by his use of marijuana and not solely the result of wearing an allegedly defectively designed motorcycle helmet during an accident can testify after a Texas federal judge rejected the man’s efforts to bar her testimony under Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403.
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August 12, 2025
Depo-Provera MDL Judge Rejects Bid To Modify Common Benefits Guidelines
PENSACOLA, Fla. — A Florida federal judge denied a motion to modify an order, which established common benefit preliminary procedures and guidelines, filed by a law firm that represents one plaintiff in 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.
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August 11, 2025
$3.5M Class Settlement OK’d In Assisted Living Facilities Misrepresentation Suit
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California approved a $3.5 million class action settlement and injunction between the operator of assisted living communities and a resident resolving claims that the operator misrepresented to residents its capability of adequately providing care services.
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August 07, 2025
Judge Finds Proposed Expert Testimony Irrelevant After Certain Claims Dismissed
TACOMA, Wash. — After granting a motion to dismiss a man’s negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) claim, a Washington federal judge found that testimony from experts retained by a man who sued after his wife died from surgical complications is admissible as irrelevant under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
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August 05, 2025
2 Smokers With Cancer Sue Tobacco Companies, Retailers In Hawaii State Court
HONOLULU — A smoker with lung cancer and a smoker with bladder cancer filed separate personal injury complaints in Hawaii state courts against tobacco companies and retailers, both seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the defendants for concealing the risks of smoking and getting them addicted in the 1960s and 1970s.
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August 01, 2025
Tobacco Settlement Doesn’t Bar Smoker’s Punitive Damages Claim, Hawaii Judge Says
WAILUKU, Hawaii — A Hawaii state court judge declined to dismiss a lawsuit filed by an elderly smoker with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who brought a products liability and fraudulent misrepresentation lawsuit against tobacco companies and a local retailer, writing that Hawaii’s entry into the 1998 master settlement agreement (MSA) with tobacco companies does not preclude individual smokers from seeking punitive damages.
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July 31, 2025
Split Panel Reverses $8.1M Verdict For Smoker’s Kids Over Jury Instruction Error
MIAMI — A split Florida Third District Court of Appeal panel on July 30 reversed a trial court’s final judgment worth $8.1 million in compensatory damages in favor of the children of a dead smoker, finding that the court’s instructions on fraud-related findings from the Engle trial were improper and remanded for a new trial.
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July 30, 2025
Massachusetts Jury Awards $42 Million In Asbestos Case Against Johnson & Johnson
BOSTON — A Massachusetts jury on July 29 found Johnson & Johnson negligent and that it breached the implied warranty of merchantability and awarded a couple $42,608,300 for the husband’s mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos in Johnson & Johnson consumer talc in what sources said is believed to be the largest asbestos verdict in state history.
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July 29, 2025
Delaware Jury Awards $9 Million In Asbestos Shotgun Shell Case
WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware jury awarded $9 million to a farmer’s estate and family in what is believed to be the first asbestos-related shotgun shell mesothelioma case to go to a verdict.
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July 29, 2025
Hearing Set To Confirm Satisfaction Of $9.3M Judgment For Smoker’s Death
A Florida state court judge on July 28 set a hearing on an unopposed motion by tobacco company R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (RJR) to confirm the satisfaction of a more than $9.3 million judgment awarded against it by a second jury for causing the death of a smoker from coronary artery disease (CAD) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), while on the same day a pending appeal of the judgment was stayed.