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Mealey's Personal Injury

  • April 18, 2025

    Florida Panel Turns Away Tobacco Companies’ ‘Survivor’ Challenge To $2.1M Verdict

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Fourth District Florida Court of Appeal panel on April 17 affirmed a jury’s $2.1 million compensatory damages verdict to a smoker’s daughter, which was challenged by two tobacco companies on the grounds that the daughter is not the smoker’s “survivor” under the Wrongful Death Act and therefore is entitled to only $7,000.

  • April 17, 2025

    Petitioners: Supreme Court Must Hear Camp Lejeune Case To Resolve Pending Claims

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two individuals who are challenging a lower court’s decision that they are not entitled to a jury trial in their case against the U.S. government related to water contamination at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina have filed a reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that it should grant review of the ruling because the lead question in the matter is “central to resolving hundreds of thousands of pending claims under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA).”

  • April 15, 2025

    Arkansas Federal Judge Says Woman’s Experts Can Testify In Slip-And-Fall Case

    FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Two experts retained by a woman who alleges that she was injured after falling in an Outback Steakhouse restaurant can testify, an Arkansas federal judge held, finding that the company’s arguments for their exclusion went to weight and not admissibility under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • April 10, 2025

    Mich. Appeals Court: No Error In Limiting Expert’s Testimony In Lawn Care Accident

    LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Court of Appeals on April 9 affirmed a defense verdict for a landscaping business accused of negligence that caused a man’s injuries, finding no error in the trial court’s decision to partially exclude portions of the man’s expert’s testimony.

  • April 08, 2025

    Judge: Woman’s Expert Meets Requirements To Testify In Medical Malpractice Suit

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal judge denied efforts from two doctors who moved to exclude a woman’s expert from opining on the standard of care in a medical malpractice suit, finding that the expert adequately satisfied the state’s the “locality requirement.”

  • April 04, 2025

    Florida Jury Returns Defense Verdict In Suit Against Tobacco Company

    MIAMI — A Florida state court jury returned a defense verdict in an Engle lawsuit brought against a tobacco company by the estate of a smoker who died after being diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) after finding that the smoker’s illness did not manifest within the mandatory timeframe to be an Engle class member. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.

  • April 02, 2025

    Missouri Appeals Court Finds Expert Wrongly Excluded In Forklift Injury Case

    KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A divided Missouri appeals court on April 1 ruled that a trial court erred in finding that testimony from an expert in a forklift injury case was inadmissible and reversed a summary judgment award, but two judges filed dissents, contending that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.

  • April 01, 2025

    Judge Dismisses Settled Wrongful Death Suit Against Tobacco Companies

    SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge ordered the dismissal with prejudice of all remaining claims against a tobacco company brought by the family members of a dead smoker who accused the company of causing the smoker’s death from laryngeal cancer, following the parties’ announcement of a settlement and the earlier dismissal of claims against two other tobacco companies.

  • March 31, 2025

    11th Circuit: Battery Expert Properly Excluded In Deadly Tesla Case

    ATLANTA — An estate of a man who died in a fiery crash in a Tesla lost his appeal in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which affirmed a district court’s ruling that excluded the battery expert’s supplemental affidavit and his opinion about the alleged cell wall thickness defect.

  • 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.