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September 25, 2026
HAMMOND, Ind. — An Indiana federal judge adopted the result of a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and denied two motions for partial judgment on the pleadings filed by manufacturing companies accused of exposing to lead 11 minors who lived in homes and attended elementary school in an area later discovered to be contaminated, writing that “throwaway lines in a brief” regarding four plaintiffs not having injuries do not constitute “judicial admissions” that would warrant dismissal of their claims.
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September 24, 2026
MIAMI — Philip Morris USA Inc. (PM USA) filed three motions in Florida state court challenging a $37.5 million final judgment entered against it and in favor of a smoker’s estate after a jury trial, urging the court to set aside the judgment, order a new trial or in the alternative order remittitur, writing that the estate did not present sufficient evidence showing that PM USA influenced the smoker’s decision to smoke or caused her lung cancer and death at age 54.
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September 23, 2026
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York appellate court reversed the portion of a lower court’s ruling granting dismissal of some of an estate’s claims in a negligence, health law violations and wrongful death suit against a nursing home after a resident’s death purportedly from COVID-19, finding that the nursing home failed to show that it was immune under the Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act (EDTPA).
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September 18, 2026
CARSON CITY, Nev. — A Nevada Supreme Court panel held that a lower court erred in awarding attorneys the full amount of requested contingent attorney fees for representing a man in a medical malpractice suit, finding that the fees were capped under state law because the settled claim sounded in professional negligence rather than ordinary negligence.
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September 16, 2026
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A Wyoming federal judge granted a hydraulic fracturing company’s partial motion for summary judgment as to punitive damages sought by two fracking site workers who suffered serious burns from equipment explosions and sued the company for negligence, finding that there is no dispute that the company’s conduct was not willful or wanton misconduct warranting an award of punitive damages.
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September 15, 2026
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida federal judge on Sept. 14 rejected arguments from Costco Wholesale Corp. that testimony from an expert retained by a man who was injured after he slipped at a Costco gas station is inadmissible and further denied its motion for summary judgment.
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September 15, 2026
PHOENIX — An Arizona federal court jury returned a $40 million verdict for a woman who alleged that a C.R. Bard Inc. implanted port catheter (IPC) device fractured and left a piece dislodged in her heart in the second bellwether case in the multidistrict litigation to reach trial.
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September 14, 2026
KINGS HILL, St. Croix, Virgin Islands — A Virgin Islands judge denied summary judgment but granted a bifurcated trial, finding that an indirect owner of an aluminum company could be liable to that company’s former employees for negligence and failure to warn about the dangers of the bauxite it supplied for use at the facility and that evidence of the supplier’s net worth will appear in phase 2 only if necessary to avoid introducing prejudice against the company in the first phase of the trial.
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September 14, 2026
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge allowed negligence, gross negligence and battery claims to proceed in a lawsuit brought by a former laboratory technician who alleges that occupational exposure to benzene-containing solvents caused his cancer but dismissed strict liability and fraud claims against three chemical companies; the judge also refused to order that the plaintiff provide a more definite statement under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(e).
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September 11, 2026
SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge applied Wyoming law and dismissed as federally preempted negligence and strict products liability claims brought against the manufacturer of a glucose monitoring system by the parents of a diabetic patient who died after allegedly becoming hypoglycemic while driving when his continuous glucose monitoring system failed to provide an adequate warning.
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September 10, 2026
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed remand of an asbestos action on Sept. 9, finding that General Electric Co.’s provision of turbines to the U.S. Navy did not give it a colorable federal contractor defense to a woman’s claims stemming from her husband’s work at one of the company’s commercial facilities.
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September 10, 2026
MIAMI — The widow of a man who was killed when an Amazon Prime plane crashed into vehicles while landing at Miami International Airport filed a wrongful death and negligence suit on Sept. 9 in Florida state court against Amazon.com Inc., Amazon.com Services LLC, the company operating the plane and related entities and the two pilots, asserting that the defective condition of the aircraft “was a proximate cause of the incident and the failure of the aircraft to properly perform the landing in a safe manner.”
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September 09, 2026
DENVER — The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition by two individuals who accuse the alleged owners and operators of a Kansas facility of exposing them and others to carcinogens, seeking interlocutory review of the question whether the latent disease exception to the Kansas Product Liability Act’s (KPLA) statute of repose applies to toxic tort claims arising from air emissions.
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September 08, 2026
DALLAS — A Texas federal judge held that a man who alleges that metal-on-metal hip implants caused metallosis can pursue product liability claims that otherwise would be barred by Texas’ 15-year statute of repose, finding that the alleged condition could fall within the statute’s latent disease exception and denying the hip implant manufacturers’ motion for judgment on the pleadings.
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September 08, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge denied a motion to strike expert testimony from two liability experts retained by a man who alleges that he was injured in a fall outside a UPS shipping store, finding that UPS’s challenges largely go to the weight of the experts’ opinions rather than their admissibility.
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September 08, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana jury hearing an asbestos-talc case against Johnson & Johnson awarded a pair $10 million for a woman’s malignant epithelioid mesothelioma, apportioning the company 9% of the liability, sources told Mealey Publications.
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September 08, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Johnson & Johnson and an affiliate (J&J) withdrew a consolidated bellwether asbestos action in which a jury handed it a defense verdict, ending posttrial briefing in which the plaintiffs challenged the “jury’s inexplicable finding that J&J was not negligent.”
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September 04, 2026
CINCINNATI — A trial court acted within its discretion when it denied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60 motions for relief from the personal injury payment releases filed by class members who settled claims over a chemical release that occurred after a train derailed in Ohio in February 2023, Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and Norfolk Southern Corp. (together, Norfolk Southern) and class counsel on behalf of the settlement class argue in appellee briefs filed in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Aug. 26 and Sept. 3, respectively.
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September 04, 2026
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal jury returned a verdict in favor of a manufacturer of infant formula that allegedly caused preterm infants to develop necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in one of a series of bellwether trials to be held in a multidistrict litigation (MDL).
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September 04, 2026
ATLANTA — A trial court did not err in excluding one expert and allowing testimony from another in a suit in which the estate of a man who died from carbon monoxide poisoning contends that Toyota Motor Corp. was negligent in its design “of a vehicle that lacked both an automatic shut-off feature and an adequate warning/alarm system that would activate when the engine was left running,” a Georgia appeals court panel held.
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September 04, 2026
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An Illinois federal judge remanded to state court a suit brought by the estate of a smoker who died from bladder cancer against a tobacco company and an Illinois chemical company where the smoker formerly worked and was allegedly exposed to hazardous chemicals, after finding that the chemical company was not fraudulently joined to destroy diversity jurisdiction.
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September 03, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man who says he developed cancer after exposure to the active ingredient in Roundup and who was awarded a $28 million combined award against the herbicide manufacturer filed a three-page brief on Sept. 2 responding to Monsanto Co.’s petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court stating that he “does not oppose the disposition the petition requests, which would leave it to the California Court of Appeal to apply [Monsanto Co. v. Durnell] to this record in the first instance.”
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August 28, 2026
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Finding that “the court cannot reconsider a ruling it never made” regarding costs and fees for discovery proceedings, a federal judge in Virginia denied a motion to reconsider a ruling partially granting and denying a motion in limine to exclude proposed evidence of chemical testing in a wrongful death case involving a woman who died after alleged exposure to toxic dyes in recalled slip-on shoes.
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August 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Philip Morris USA Inc. (PM) filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Massachusetts’ highest court wrongly affirmed a judgment worth approximately $64 million in favor of the estate of a smoker by “converting” the preemption provision of the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (FCLAA) “into a pleading requirement” in conflict with high court precedent on cigarette labels.
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August 25, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana dismissed a lawsuit by a seaman who alleged that he suffered from pulmonological and neurological injuries after being exposed to toxic fumes aboard a vessel after the parties stated that they reached a confidential settlement.