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May 28, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Four adults representing seven minor bellwether plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the U.S. government over groundwater contamination from a jet fuel spill filed a reply brief in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals contending that a $598,633.15 damages judgment should be vacated and remanded for recalculation because similarly situated minors received “sharply different” awards without a stated methodology, rendering the awards “internally inconsistent.”
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May 26, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 26 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari in a case brought by Union Carbide Corp. and an affiliate in which they argued that the court should review a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion pertaining to the correct legal standard for the admissibility of an expert under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 in an ethylene oxide (EtO) injury case.
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May 26, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Experts retained by a man charged with vehicular homicide should be allowed to testify that the cause of death was not from the accident but from a lethal dosage of morphine administered to the 94-year-old woman as part of palliative care for her advanced dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and there is no need to hold a hearing to determine whether that testimony is relevant, the New Jersey Supreme Court held.
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May 26, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — A South Carolina federal judge erred in dismissing a slip-and-fall case after ruling that a man was required to present expert testimony on causation to link his injury to a convenience store’s negligence, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in reversing a summary judgment award.
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May 26, 2026
NEW YORK — An expert can opine that a kitchen appliance was defectively designed and resulted in a woman being injured, a New York federal judge held, rejecting claims from the manufacturer that “the expert failed to employ appropriate techniques to reach the rather unremarkable conclusion that gravity still works.”
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May 22, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — There was no abuse of discretion in excluding an expert in a slip-and-fall case after finding that the expert based his opinions on the store’s condition two years after the incident and that his testimony would not assist a jury, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, affirming a defense jury verdict for Walmart Inc.
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May 18, 2026
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota appellate court on May 15 reversed a summary judgment award for a dentist in a malpractice suit after finding that a lower court erred in finding that a man’s expert’s affidavit did not meet the statutory requirements for a dental malpractice suit and that the expert’s testimony was inadmissible.
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May 18, 2026
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Despite determining that the plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery in a toxic chemical exposure case was untimely, a federal magistrate judge in Kansas ruled on the merits of the motion and denied it as “overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not proportional to the needs of the case” because it sought documents spanning a 65-year period. The magistrate judge ruled that discovery was limited to a 10-year period dating from the filing of the complaint in 2015.
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May 18, 2026
HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii has dismissed and closed one of three consolidated cases stemming from groundwater contamination following a jet fuel spill at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, ruling that the claims are barred under the Feres doctrine, which holds that the federal government is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for injuries to service members “resulting from, or ‘incident to,’ active-duty military service.” The plaintiffs in the case at hand were active-duty service members at the time of the fuel spill in 2021.
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May 15, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — ChatGPT advised a 19-year-old college student to take a combination of drugs that ultimately led to his accidental overdose death, his parents allege in a California lawsuit alleging strict liability, negligence, practice of medicine without a license and violation of the California unfair competition law (UCL).
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May 15, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The dynamic outputs created by artificial intelligence chatbots are not suitable targets for products liability actions, and a father has not alleged any basis for his California unfair competition law (UCL) claims, Google LLC and Alphabet Inc. argue in a May 15 motion seeking to dismiss a suit attempting to hold them liable for his son’s suicide.
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May 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Reasoning that common-law standards and duties of care are part of a state’s authority to regulate motor vehicle safety, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on May 14 held that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA), which preempts state laws related to the services 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, does not preempt common-law actions for negligent hiring of a motor carrier or driver by a freight broker.
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May 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Plaintiffs who won $549.9 million in punitive damages in a Roundup injury case in Missouri state court have filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Monsanto Co.’s petition for a writ of certiorari, arguing that under Missouri law, strict liability for design defect is a stand-alone claim for which a party can be liable, “irrespective of any warnings given.”
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May 12, 2026
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Phoenix Ikner’s extensive conversations with ChatGPT would have tipped off any reasonable person to the fact that he was planning a mass school shooting, but OpenAI entities either ignored the warning signs or never implemented the measures needed to recognize them, a widow claims in the latest lawsuit tying OpenAI entities to a shooting.
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May 11, 2026
MIAMI — A Florida state court jury returned a defense verdict in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (RJR) by a smoker’s estate that previously was required to amend its pleadings and remove its Engle claims after the court ruled that the estate had not proven that the decedent met the requirements for Engle class membership.
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May 11, 2026
CHICAGO — Ruling that a former pitching prospect’s claims of negligence and violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in requiring that he be vaccinated for COVID-19 and in treating the symptoms that resulted from the vaccination and ultimately ended his career were time-barred, an Illinois federal judge granted without prejudice a motion to dismiss by the Chicago White Sox (CWS) and Major League Baseball.
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May 08, 2026
NEW CASTLE, Del. — A group of 1,005 e-cigarette users from 49 states and Puerto Rico bringing products liability, fraud, negligence and warranty claims and defendant Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) filed a stipulation in Delaware state court on May 7 proposing a method for the court to allow the plaintiffs, who all opted out of class actions against JLI, to file 80 new complaints with approximately 20 plaintiffs each after a judge ordered severance due to improper joinder.
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May 05, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge on May 4 ruled that an expert can testify about the relative safety of a speed bump that a woman allegedly tripped over in a Costco parking lot and denied the store’s motion for summary judgment.
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May 01, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — Experts retained by the estate of a man killed during a workplace accident can testify on the decedent’s pain and suffering and the economic impact his death had on his family, a Pennsylvania federal magistrate judge held in separate April 30 orders, rejecting calls from a machine’s manufacturer to exclude their testimony as inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
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May 01, 2026
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York appeals panel held that an insured demonstrated that an underlying complaint arising from construction site injuries suggested a reasonable possibility of coverage under a workers’ compensation and employers liability insurance policy and that the insurer failed to raise a triable issue of fact in opposition, affirming a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of the insured.
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April 30, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Samuel Altman and various OpenAI entities took no action even as employees warned them that a ChatGPT user posed a real-world threat. It was a prescient warning brought to life when just months later the user allegedly killed eight people as part of a school shooting in British Columbia, families claim in a series of seven complaints filed April 29 alleging negligence, strict product liability and violation of the California unfair competition law (UCL).
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April 30, 2026
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York federal judge dismissed with prejudice a second amended complaint after finding that an administrator of an estate of a woman who allegedly died as a result of her insulin pump malfunctioning failed to adequately plead claims for negligent defective design and wrongful death.
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April 29, 2026
GALVESTON, Texas — A California doctor accused of wrongful death for mailing a man’s pregnant girlfriend abortion-inducing drugs moved to dismiss the complaint, telling a Texas federal court that the man does not have standing to sue and that he has failed to state a claim.
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April 29, 2026
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — A Massachusetts federal judge on April 28 remanded a lawsuit filed by a 58-year-old smoker with lung cancer against three tobacco companies and two retailers to state court, finding the tobacco defendants failed to establish fraudulent joinder of one of the retailers and that the plaintiff’s misidentification of the retailer in the pleadings was an “excusable misnomer.”
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April 29, 2026
MIAMI — Several tobacco companies and a pro-business nonprofit law firm separately filed amicus curiae briefs urging the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to uphold a federal judge’s vacatur of the Food and Drug Administration final rule requiring graphic warnings on all tobacco products pursuant to the Tobacco Control Act (TCA), with the tobacco companies arguing that the rule was issued improperly under the TCA and the nonprofit saying it violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.