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Mealey's Personal Injury

  • November 11, 2025

    Panel: New York Officials Had Qualified Immunity For COVID Nursing Home Orders

    NEW YORK — A panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of a New York federal court that dismissed a lawsuit against New York state officials and nursing homes brought by survivors of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 after state executive orders prevented nursing homes from denying admission to patients having or suspected of having COVID-19.

  • November 11, 2025

    Class Suit Says UPS, GE And Boeing’s Recklessness Caused November Plane Crash

    LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Recklessness by United Parcel Service Inc., General Electric Co. and Boeing Co. caused the Nov. 4 crash of a UPS MD-11 cargo aircraft as it attempted to depart a Louisville airport for Hawaii, airport neighbors allege in a putative class complaint filed in a federal court in Kentucky.

  • November 10, 2025

    Ga. Panel Majority Vacates, Remands $13.7M Attorney Fee Award In Malpractice Suit

    ATLANTA — A panel majority of the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated and remanded a trial court’s $13.7 million attorney fee award entered in favor of the claimants in a medical malpractice suit after determining that the trial court abused its discretion because the award included attorney fees that were incurred on appeal, which is not supported under Georgia’s offer of settlement statute.

  • November 07, 2025

    Massachusetts High Court Hears Arguments In $1B Tobacco Verdict Appeal

    BOSTON — Attorneys for Philip Morris USA Inc. (PM) urged the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to order a new trial for a smoker’s estate based on a jury’s “excessive” $1 billion punitive damages award and to consider if such trials should be bifurcated, while justices asked if the trial court’s reduction of the punitive damages to $56 million by remittitur was already a sufficient remedy.

  • November 07, 2025

    Panel Affirms $475K Punitive Award For Smoker’s Estate Despite Ratio Arguments

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Fourth District Florida Court of Appeal panel on Nov. 6 issued a per curiam affirmance of a $475,000 punitive damages verdict awarded to a smoker’s estate, which a tobacco company had argued on appeal should be subject to reversal or remittitur because it is 11 times greater than the compensatory damages awarded.

  • November 06, 2025

    Couple Seeks Damages For A Plethora Of Injuries From Explosion At Fracking Site

    MINOT, N.D. — A couple has filed an amended complaint in North Dakota federal court seeking compensatory and punitive damages for a traumatic brain injury and other ailments suffered by the husband, who was injured when storage tanks at a hydraulic fracturing site exploded.

  • November 05, 2025

    Kentucky High Court: Ruling Cut Off Plaintiff’s Jurisdictional Discovery Rights

    FRANKFORT, Ky. — Issuing a partial reversal and remand, the Kentucky Supreme Court said there was enough evidence that an out-of-state handgun manufacturer that faced a product liability lawsuit fell within Kentucky’s long-arm statute, but the record is insufficient as to due process because the manufacturer’s “failure to timely meet its discovery obligations until shortly before the trial court’s ruling deprived [the appellant] of an ‘ample opportunity’ to conduct and complete jurisdictional discovery.”

  • November 04, 2025

    Ga. Appeals Court Finds Wrong Standard Applied In Exclusion Of Causation Experts

    ATLANTA — A Georgia trial court applied the incorrect standard for determining the admissibility of expert testimony on general causation in a case alleging that exposure to ethylene oxide caused cancers and birth defects, a Georgia appeals court ruled in a consolidated appeal, vacating an order that allowed testimony from one expert but barred it from two others.

  • October 31, 2025

    Tobacco Company Wins New Mexico Retrial In Smoker’s Cancer Death Suit

    SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico state court jury returned a defense verdict in favor of a tobacco company and local retailer, rejecting all claims brought against them by a dead smoker’s daughter for causing her father’s death from laryngeal cancer through the marketing, manufacture and sale of defectively designed cigarettes.

  • October 28, 2025

    Judge: Stay Request In Vaccine Harm Case Covered By Blanket Deadline Extensions

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Oct. 27 denied as moot a stay sought by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a lawsuit by a man seeking to force HHS to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT) so he can be compensated by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), noting that the district’s chief judge had extended all filing deadlines in the district past the end of the funding appropriations lapse.

  • October 27, 2025

    Government Seeks Shutdown-Related Stay In Case By Man Hurt By COVID Vaccine

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government on Oct. 24 sought a stay from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit by a man seeking to force the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT) so he can be compensated by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), citing the ongoing government shutdown due to lack of funding appropriations.

  • October 27, 2025

    7th Circuit Says Experts Did Not Prove Causation, Affirms Summary Judgment

    CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for Lands’ End Inc. and Lands’ End Outfitters Inc. (together, Lands’ End) in a suit brought by airline employees who alleged that their uniforms caused symptoms such as rashes, headaches and hair loss, finding that none of the employees’ experts proved causation and that the employees also failed to abide by the warranty's terms.

  • October 27, 2025

    Minnesota Panel Affirms Jurisdiction Over Battery Maker For Vape Explosion

    ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota Court of Appeals panel affirmed a trial court’s finding of jurisdiction over a South Korean battery maker in a personal injury lawsuit brought against it by a man who says he was burned when one of its lithium-ion batteries acquired for use with an e-cigarette device exploded in his pocket, rebuffing the battery defendants’ argument that they did not intend their batteries to be used with vapes.

  • October 24, 2025

    Part Of $48.8M Jury Award Will Be Tossed Unless Man Hit By Truck Accepts Reduction

    LOS ANGELES — Finding a jury’s award of $25 million in future noneconomic damages — part of a $48.8M total award — to a man who has been in a coma since he was struck by a city garbage truck “grossly disproportionate to the evidence” and likely prompted by improper argument by counsel, a California judge granted the city’s motion for a new trial as to the issue of past and future general damages unless the man accepts a remittitur reducing future noneconomic damages to $3 million.

  • October 22, 2025

    Amici Say Punitive Damages Reform Needed In Appeal Of $1B Tobacco Verdict

    BOSTON — Several parties filed amicus curiae briefs to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in a tobacco company’s appeal regarding a state court jury’s award of $1 billion in punitive damages to the family of a smoker who died from lung cancer in 2017, later reduced to $56 million by remittitur, with some recommending reforms such as bifurcated trials to reduce the risk of “excessive” verdicts.

  • October 20, 2025

    Judge: Experts Who Opine Apartment Complex Owners Are Liable For Death Can Testify

    COLUMBUS, Ga. — Experts who support a woman’s claim that negligence by the operators of an apartment complex directly caused a fire that killed a man can testify, a federal judge in Georgia ruled, also rejecting a motion from the complex for partial summary judgment.

  • October 20, 2025

    Man Hurt By COVID Vaccine Seeks Reconsideration Of Dismissal For Lack Of Standing

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man seeking to force the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT) so he can be compensated by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) on Oct. 17 moved a District of Columbia federal court to alter or amend its order granting the government’s motion to dismiss.

  • October 20, 2025

    Jury Awards $12.7M To Driver, Passenger Injured In Collision With Lawn Care Truck

    TACOMA, Wash. — A Washington state jury awarded more than $12.7 million to a man and his son who suffered severe injuries when a truck driven by a lawn care company employee made a left turn in front of the man’s car.

  • October 17, 2025

    Delaware Judge Tosses Suit Against Snap, Verizon, Apple Related To Assault Of Child

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware state court judge dismissed with prejudice a suit filed by a woman and her daughter against Snap Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Apple Inc. and the man convicted of sexually assaulting the daughter after communicating with her on Snapchat, asserting that the corporate defendants played “a critical role in facilitating the harm,” finding that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) provides immunity for the “third-party communications” between the man and the daughter.

  • October 17, 2025

    Federal Judge In Okla. Says Expert Can Testify In Suit Alleging Man Died In Custody

    OKLAHOMA CITY — An emergency room physician can opine on whether a jail’s staff met the medical needs of a man who died in custody but cannot offer legal conclusions, a judge held in Oklahoma federal court.

  • October 16, 2025

    OpenAI Says Hawaii Man’s Complaints About AI Not Grounds For Injunction

    HONOLULU — A man’s allegations about potential future harms Hawaii faces from artificial intelligence do not suffice for injury purposes and are at best not redressable by enjoining OpenAI Inc. from operating in the state, the company told a federal judge.

  • October 15, 2025

    High Court Will Address Whether Freight Brokers May Be Sued For Negligent Hiring

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court granted a petition for writ of certiorari filed by a person injured in a truck crash to address the question of whether a common-law action for negligent selection, including negligent hiring, of a motor carrier or driver by a freight broker is preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA), which preempts state laws related to a service of a broker with respect to the transportation of property but does not restrict the safety regulatory authority of states with respect to motor vehicles.

  • October 15, 2025

    1 Of Several Doctors Dropped From COVID-Era Connecticut Malpractice Claim

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — In a medical malpractice lawsuit alleging that a patient’s head injury was misdiagnosed as gastroenteritis during the COVID-19 pandemic, the patient withdrew her complaint against one of the physicians who attended to her in a Connecticut hospital.

  • October 15, 2025

    California Governor Vetoes 1 Chatbot Safety Measure As Other AI Bills Become Law

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill imposing some restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence and providing some civil penalties for noncompliance while vetoing a more restrictive chatbot measure that would have required such technology to be unable to encourage self-harm, suicidal ideation, violence, the use of illegal substances or disordered eating.

  • October 14, 2025

    U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Review Grindr User’s Claims Of ‘Wrong’ Ruling In CDA Suit

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 14 denied a petition for certiorari filed by an individual alleging that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was “wrong” in affirming a lower court’s ruling dismissing with prejudice as barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) the man’s negligence, product liability and federal sex trafficking suit against the operators of the Grindr app, Grindr Inc. and Grindr LLC, related to injuries the man sustained while using the app.