Mealey's Personal Injury : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Personal Injury

July 11, 2024
Care Facility, Owner Seek High Court Review Of Ruling Affirming Arbitration Denial

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A California skilled nursing facility and its owner/operator filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of a California Supreme Court ruling affirming the denial of their efforts to compel arbitration of an elder abuse and negligence suit filed against the petitioners related to a former resident’s fall and injuries.
July 10, 2024
Tobacco Company Not Liable For Smoker’s Laryngeal Cancer Death, Jury Says

MIAMI — A Miami-Dade County, Fla., 11th Judicial Circuit Court jury issued a verdict awarding no damages and finding a tobacco company not liable for claims that it defectively designed Virginia Slims cigarettes and caused a smoker’s death from laryngeal cancer. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
July 09, 2024
Court Deputy Files Scheduling Order In Malpractice Suit Against Rehab Home

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — At the direction of an Arkansas federal court clerk, a courtroom deputy filed an order outlining deadlines for discovery and a proposed trial date in a man’s medical malpractice suit against the nursing and rehabilitation center he alleges failed to provide him with the appropriate standard of care for his pressure ulcers, leading to infection and colostomy surgery.
July 09, 2024
Ohio Panel Reverses Judgment For Care Home, Finds Fact Questions Remain For Jury

CANTON, Ohio — An Ohio appellate court on July 8 reversed and remanded a lower court’s ruling that granted summary judgment to a nursing home in a wrongful death and negligence suit against it, finding that questions of fact remain for a jury regarding whether “proper monitoring” of a former resident’s urinary tract infection (UTI) would have prevented her death from sepsis.
July 09, 2024
Smoker’s Estate Opposes Florida High Court Review Of Engle Residency Requirements

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A smoker’s estate argues in an answer brief that the Florida Supreme Court should not review an appellate panel’s opinion affirming a $2.5 million verdict against two tobacco companies for the smoker’s death from lung cancer, writing that the panel’s holding that she was an Engle member despite also residing in New York does not conflict with any other case.
July 08, 2024
Federal Magistrate Judge Recommends Reduced Attorney Fees In CoolSculpting Case

ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal magistrate judge in Florida recommended that attorney fees for counsel who successfully defended a company in a design defect case be reduced from the counsel’s request after finding “that employing 15 attorneys and four paralegals for this matter, and requesting over $1 million in fees for a 13-month period, to be excessive on its face.”
July 08, 2024
Merck Says 3 Gardasil Cases Must Be Dismissed On Jurisdictional Grounds

STATESVILLE, N.C. — Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC tells the court overseeing the Gardasil multidistrict litigation that plaintiffs opposing its motion to dismiss “yet again ask this Court to interpret the Vaccine Act in a way that, so far as Merck is aware, no court ever has.”
July 05, 2024
Causation Expert Found Unreliable By Wash. Federal Judge In Slip-And-Fall Suit

SEATTLE — Because a woman’s causation expert “is not an expert in analyzing surveillance video,” she cannot testify in a slip-and-fall lawsuit because her opinion on the exact moment a woman’s knee hit the ground is not reliable under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Washington federal judge held.
July 05, 2024
Texas Appeals Court: Biomechanical Engineer Testimony Properly Excluded

DALLAS — While Texas courts do allow biomechanical engineers to offer expert testimony in car accident cases, a trial court did not err in excluding an expert who did not offer any evidence that the injuries allegedly sustained in a crash were inconsistent with the physical forces created in the collision, a state appeals court ruled in affirming a $700,000 verdict.
July 03, 2024
Objectors Say $600M Ohio Train Deal Is ‘Unconstitutional,’ Cite EPA Whistleblower

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Two plaintiffs in the class action against Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and Norfolk Southern Corp. (Norfolk Southern, collectively) related to toxic chemicals spilled during the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, have filed separate objections to a $600 million settlement, saying it is “unconstitutional” because evidence of liability and damages has been suppressed or withheld and information from a whistleblower at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exposes “shocking efforts” by the EPA to “avoid learning the truth immediately after” the derailment.
July 03, 2024
Judge Approves Death Settlement Against Care Home, Apportions Distributions

ST. LOUIS — A Missouri federal judge on July 2 approved a confidential settlement agreement in a wrongful death suit filed by a decedent’s daughter against a nursing home, finding “that the balance of interests in this case favors” keeping the settlement terms confidential and that the daughter’s proposed apportionment to all three of the decedent’s children “is just and fair.”
July 03, 2024
Death Suit Against Memory Care Facility Assigned To Magistrate For Mediation

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri federal magistrate judge on July 2 was assigned to alternative dispute resolution (ADR) through a notice of inclusion in a mediation program in a wrongful death suit filed the previous day against a memory care facility and a related entity asserting that the defendants acted negligently in failing to implement safety procedures and provide adequate staffing to prevent a former’s resident’s “avoidable” fall, which purportedly led to his death.
June 28, 2024
COMMENTARY: Courts Must, As Recently Reminded, Follow The Law In Rule 702 Expert Testimony Determinations

By Erin Sheley
June 28, 2024
High Court Overrules Chevron Deference, Changes Standard For Regulatory Review

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 28 voted 6-3 to overrule the doctrine of Chevron deference as incompatible with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in two cases arising out of federal fishing regulations, changing governing precedent for federal courts reviewing agencies’ regulatory actions.
June 28, 2024
N.J. Jury Awards $600K To Estate In Wrongful Death Suit Over Improper Restraint

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A New Jersey state court jury returned a $600,000 verdict against a behavioral health facility and its employees related to the death of a patient who incurred blunt force trauma to his head and spine when he was improperly restrained, attributing 35% fault to the mental health technician who restrained the decedent and 65% fault to his supervisor.
June 28, 2024
Oregon Court Reverses $10M Asbestos Award Based On California Workers’ Comp Law

PORTLAND, Ore. — A trial court erred in granting a plaintiff partial summary judgment after concluding that it was the defendant’s burden to demonstrate that California’s workers’ compensation exclusivity provision applied to an asbestos case, the Oregon Court of Appeals said in an unpublished opinion, reversing a $10 million loss-of-consortium award.
June 27, 2024
Asbestos Defendant Says Proper Bond Will Be Filed After Asbestos Verdict Dispute

LOS ANGELES — Parties to a more than $3 million judgment in an asbestos case appear to have resolved a dispute over the bond required for an appeal, with the defendant saying a proper bond should be filed before a hearing next month.
June 27, 2024
Parties Settle Wrongful Death Suit Over Alligator Attack In 55-Plus Community

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The personal representative of the estate of a Florida retirement community resident who died after an alligator attacked her near her home settled a wrongful death suit filed in a Florida state court against the company operating the community, asserting that the woman’s death resulted from the company’s negligence in failing to remove the alligators or to warn of the danger caused by them.
June 27, 2024
Federal Judge: Both Parties’ Causation Experts Are Out In Boating Injury Case

NEW ORLEANS — Reports by dueling experts who offer opposite opinions on who is at fault for a boating accident “are deficient in identical ways,” a Louisiana federal judge ruled, granting both parties’ motions to exclude.
June 27, 2024
Deputies, Man Settle Excessive Force Claims After Judge Allows Expert Testimony

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge ordered that a case alleging excessive force by police be dismissed after being told that the parties had reached an agreement two days after ruling that an expert retained by the defendants could testify that the police deputies acted in accordance with policing standards and protocols.
June 26, 2024
Utah Appeals Court Orders New Trial After Finding Expert Wrongly Excluded

SALT LAKE CITY — An expert retained by a woman in a medical negligence suit in a Utah state court was wrongly excluded from offering an opinion on causation, a state appeals court ruled, reversing a grant of judgment as a matter of law and remanding for a new trial.
June 21, 2024
Experts Can Testify In Car Accident Case; Arguments ‘Fodder For Cross-Examination’

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An expert’s failure to consider certain data is not grounds for exclusion but “best presented on cross-examination and resolved by a jury,” a federal magistrate judge in New Mexico ruled, denying a motion to exclude filed in a case stemming from injuries from a car accident.
June 14, 2024
Norfolk Southern: Third-Party Defendant’s Bid To Seal Is ‘Misleading On The Facts’

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and Norfolk Southern Corp. (Norfolk Southern, collectively) filed a brief in Ohio federal court arguing that it should deny a motion to seal expert reports filed by a third-party defendant in the litigation stemming from alleged injuries from the release of toxic chemicals at the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, arguing that the motion to seal is “misleading on the facts.”
June 14, 2024
Panel: Lower Court Wrongly Found Arbitration Binding In Suit Against Care Home

CLEVELAND — An Ohio appellate court on June 13 reversed and remanded a lower court’s ruling that found an arbitration agreement binding for a survivorship claim in a suit filed against a nursing home by the administrator of the estate of a former resident, finding that the lower court erred in requiring arbitration of the claim because the administrator lacked authority to enter into the arbitration agreement.
June 14, 2024
Florida Jury Awards $16M To Dead Smoker’s Widow And Son

MIAMI — A Florida state court jury in a June 13 Phase 2 verdict awarded $10 million in punitive damages against a tobacco company, which will be added to its previous compensatory damages award of $6 million, for causing a smoker’s addiction to nicotine and death from lung cancer. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.