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Mealey's Personal Injury

  • March 27, 2025

    Judge Limits Testimony Of Expert In Cases Alleging Man Died After Leaving Hospital

    ALEXANDRIA, La. — An expert retained by a medical center cannot opine on whether a hospital action violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) but is otherwise qualified to testify, a Louisiana federal judge held.

  • March 27, 2025

    High Court Hears Oral Arguments On FCC Authority Under Nondelegation Doctrine

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 26 heard oral arguments in consolidated cases filed by the Federal Communications Commission and telecom providers urging reversal of an en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that a subsidy program violates the “private nondelegation doctrine.”

  • March 26, 2025

    Supreme Court:  ATF May Treat ‘Ghost Gun’ Parts As Firearms Under Gun Control Act

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on March 26 reversed a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling invalidating a rule promulgated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), effectively broadening the Gun Control Act’s (GCA) definition of “firearm” to include parts of “ghost guns,” which can readily be assembled into weapons but, before the rule, were considered by some manufacturers to not require serial numbers or a firearms background check before sale.

  • March 25, 2025

    AI Chatbot Is A Product, Outputs Not Protected Speech, Mother Contends

    ORLANDO, Fla. — The First Amendment protects speech and not the predictive text outputs by an artificial intelligence chatbot, but even if those outputs constituted speech, speech protections would not apply to the type of harmful chatbot outputs that led a teenager to commit suicide, a mother told a federal judge in Florida in opposing dismissal while arguing that Google LLC and its related entity can be held liable.

  • March 25, 2025

    Experts Featured In Mealey's Daubert Report

    Entries are in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony.  Experts appeared in the January, February and March 2025 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.

  • March 25, 2025

    Treating Doctors’ Opinions On Injury Causation Are Unreliable, Judge Finds

    DETROIT — Two treating physicians for a woman who alleges that she was injured when a charter bus on which she was a passenger collided with a semitruck cannot testify on causation after a Michigan federal judge found their opinions to be unreliable.

  • March 25, 2025

    Sig Sauer Loses En Banc Review Bid For Experts Ruling In Gun Design Defect Case

    CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied an en banc hearing to review its ruling that while a district court properly excluded expert testimony on causation, it erred in excluding design defect testimony and reversed an award of summary judgment, rejecting a gun manufacturer’s argument that the ruling that expert testimony on causation is not needed in a complex design defect case “misapprehended Kentucky law.”

  • March 21, 2025

    Jury Awards $40M To Estate Of Smoker Hooked After Getting Samples As Teen

    WOBURN, Mass. — A Massachusetts state court jury awarded more than $40 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the estate of a dead smoker who began smoking after receiving free samples as a teenager and who developed lung cancer after smoking for 37 years, finding punitive damages warranted against two tobacco companies that it said engaged in “malicious” and grossly negligent” conduct. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.

  • March 20, 2025

    Expert In Car Crash Case Can Testify On Future Lost Wages, Not Future Medical Care

    SEATTLE — An expert retained in a personal injury suit stemming from a car accident can opine on a man’s future loss earnings but is prohibited from “parroting the opinion of a non-testifying expert” on future medical costs, a Washington federal magistrate judge said.

  • March 20, 2025

    Wyoming High Court Affirms Dismissal For Failure To Pay Attorney Fee Sanction

    CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A trial court did not abuse its discretion or violate a personal injury plaintiff’s rights under the Wyoming Constitution by ordering her to pay defense attorney fees and costs as a sanction for violating a motion in limine or in dismissing her case with prejudice when she failed to pay the sanction as ordered, the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled.

  • March 18, 2025

    Plaintiffs Leadership Named For Depo-Provera MDL

    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, has appointed Christopher Seeger of Seeger Weiss LLP as plaintiffs’ lead counsel.

  • March 14, 2025

    University Denies Existence Of Contract With Student Who Died In COVID-19 Isolation

    NEWARK, N.J. — In response to the amended complaint filed by the estate and parents of a college sophomore who died from an epileptic seizure while in a university’s COVID-19 isolation alleging breach of contract and of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, the university on March 13 moved a New Jersey federal court to dismiss the complaint, contending that there was no valid contract between it and the student.

  • March 14, 2025

    Associations Urge High Court Reversal Of Ruling Finding Nondelegation Violation

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Telecom provider petitioners and broadband association petitioners filed reply briefs on March 13 in the U.S. Supreme Court, urging reversal of an en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that a subsidy program violates the “private nondelegation doctrine” after the high court granted two petitions for a writ of certiorari and consolidated cases concerning whether Congress violated the nondelegation doctrine by authorizing the Federal Communications Commission to delegate to a private entity.

  • March 12, 2025

    Juul, Florida Settle Youth Marketing Suit For $79M

    TAMPA, Fla. — Florida and e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. entered into a consent judgment in Florida state court under which Juul will pay $79 million over several years to resolve state claims that it unlawfully marketed its popular e-cigarette products to youth, months after a state court judge denied Juul’s motion to dismiss the state’s claims against it.

  • March 12, 2025

    ‘Paucity Of Evidence’ Linking Disorders To Gardasil Vaccine Bars Preemption Defense

    STATESVILLE, N.C. — The manufacturer of the Gardasil vaccine could not unilaterally add warnings to the vaccine’s label, the North Carolina federal judge overseeing the Gardasil multidistrict litigation ruled, finding that the bellwether plaintiffs’ sole remaining claim is preempted by federal law.

  • March 10, 2025

    Federal Judge Enters $24B Judgment Against China For COVID-19 Economic Damage

    CAPE GIRDEAU, Mo. — A Missouri federal judge on March 7 entered a default judgment in favor of the state of Missouri in the amount of almost $24.5 billion in the state’s lawsuit against the People’s Republic of China, other Chinese governmental entities, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences alleging that the defendants covered up the existence and danger of COVID-19 and hoarded personal protective equipment (PPE) to the detriment to the citizens of Missouri.

  • March 07, 2025

    10th Circuit Finds Expert Did Not Support Causation; Summary Judgment Affirmed

    DENVER — A representative of an estate’s named experts in a suit against a skilled nursing facility failed to show that the facility’s actions caused one of its residents to fall, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, affirming a district court’s summary judgment award and ruling that the court did not err in failing to hold a hearing to consider the experts’ admissibility under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.

  • March 06, 2025

    Life-Care Planner Can Testify In Case Alleging Injuries From Defective Air Bag

    ORLANDO, Fla. — A life-care planner can testify for a man who alleges that he was severely injured by a defective air bag, a Florida federal judge found March 5, rejecting arguments that his testimony should be excluded as duplicative of the man’s treating physicians.

  • March 06, 2025

    Magistrate Judge: Experts Can Opine On Employability, Lost Income After Fall

    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal magistrate judge largely denied two motions to exclude expert testimony presented on behalf of a man who says he is unable to work after falling at a restaurant after finding that experts meet the admissibility standards set in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • March 06, 2025

    COVID-19 Countermeasure Causation Standards Are Not Final Agency Action, HHS Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government on March 5 moved to dismiss a lawsuit brought by more than 200 individuals whose family members were treated during the COVID-19 pandemic with and allegedly died as a direct result of certain countermeasures such as hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and alleged that the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was applying an incorrect standard for eligibility and to date had found no one eligible for the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program (CICP) benefits.

  • March 05, 2025

    Treating Doctors Survive Motions To Exclude In Car Crash Injury Dispute

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The treating physicians of a man who alleges that he was injured in a car accident may testify on his treatment, prognosis and future treatment, a New Mexico federal magistrate judge ruled in denying two motions to exclude their testimony.

  • March 04, 2025

    Jury Returns Verdict For American Honda In Asbestos Brakes Case

    SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A Los Angeles jury found that an automaker’s brake products failed to perform as an ordinary customer would expect and that it failed to adequately warn about the dangers but that the conduct was not a substantial factor in a man’s development of mesothelioma.

  • March 03, 2025

    Panel Affirms $6M Verdict For Dead Smoker’s Kids, Rejects ‘Forgery’ Theory

    MIAMI — The Florida Third District Court of Appeal affirmed a $6 million verdict in favor of a dead smoker’s children against a tobacco company, finding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence regarding the smoker’s diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that was contested by the smoker’s own physician.

  • February 28, 2025

    Iowa High Court: Psych Tests May Be Disclosed Only To Licensed Psychologists

    DES MOINES, Iowa — A trial court erred in granting an insurance company’s motion to compel production of a plaintiff’s psychological test materials in a dispute over uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM) benefits, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled, finding that state law unambiguously holds that discovery of such materials may be made only from one licensed psychologist to another.

  • February 26, 2025

    Sig Sauer Wants En Banc Rehearing On Experts Ruling In Pistol Design Defect Case

    CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that expert testimony on causation is not needed in a complex design defect case “misapprehended Kentucky law,” a gun manufacturer argues in a Feb. 25 petition for an en banc rehearing of a recent split decision that found that while a district court properly excluded expert testimony on causation, it erred in excluding design defect testimony and reversed an award of summary judgment.