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

Mealey's Personal Injury

August 07, 2023
Judge Excludes 1 Expert, Rules On Allowed Testimony In Candle Injury Case

PHOENIX — An Arizona federal judge ruled on five motions relating to expert testimony and who is to blame for a man’s serious injuries allegedly caused when fragrance in a candle caused a flashover.
August 03, 2023
Panel Affirms Order Denying Arbitration In Negligence Suit Against Care Home

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina appellate court on Aug. 2 affirmed a lower court’s order denying a nursing home’s motion to dismiss, to compel arbitration and to stay in a suit against it alleging negligence related to a resident’s incurring a hip fracture, finding that the resident’s agent acting pursuant to a health care power of attorney (HCPOA) lacked the authority to enter the arbitration agreement on his behalf.
August 03, 2023
Judge: Expert Opining On Hand Injury From Frozen Chicken Can Testify

SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge denied a motion to exclude an expert witness testifying on injuries a man sustained after allegedly cutting his hand on metal shears inside a bag of frozen chicken after finding that objections to the testimony can best be addressed through cross-examination.
August 03, 2023
New York Care Homes Appeal Orders Requiring Monitors In $83M Medicare Fraud Suit

NEW YORK — Less than a week after a New York state justice issued orders requiring independent monitors in an $83 million Medicare and Medicaid fraud suit, multiple nursing homes and their owners and operators appealed, arguing that the monitors are unnecessary and would disrupt their business.
August 03, 2023
Defendant’s Representation Satisfies Judge At Juror Harassment Hearing

LOS ANGELES — The judge overseeing an order to show cause hearing on juror harassment in the wake of an $8.8 million asbestos verdict said he would not take any further action in light of a defendant’s representation that there would be no more unsolicited contact with jurors at their homes.
August 03, 2023
Judge Partially Excludes Safety Expert’s Testimony In Slip-And-Fall Case

TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida federal judge agreed to limit testimony from a safety expert retained by a man who says he slipped on a wet floor in a Target store but denied a motion to exclude the man’s life care planning expert.
August 02, 2023
Asbestos Defendant Says Recent Authority Supports Causation Specificity Argument

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Recent out-of-state rulings support the conclusion that the presence of visible dust does not satisfy the causation standard in Connecticut, which instead requires specificity regarding the dose of asbestos, a defendant told a state court judge in a statement of supplemental authority in support of a motion to set aside a verdict.
August 01, 2023
Pennsylvania Federal Judge OKs Experts In Design Defect Case Against Caterpillar

PITTSBURGH — A missing piece of evidence does not warrant exclusion of experts’ testimony, but a Pennsylvania federal judge agreed to bar testimony on one opinion that is irrelevant to a man’s suit alleging that a faulty design of construction equipment caused his injury.
July 28, 2023
Florida Supreme Court Won’t Review Dismissal Of Smoker’s Kids’ Claims

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court declined to accept jurisdiction over a petition filed by the children of a dead smoker seeking review of a split appellate panel’s ruling affirming the dismissal of their claims for noneconomic damages as a nonfinal, nonappealable ruling.
July 28, 2023
Summary Judgment Granted In Alleged Defective Medical Device Case, Expert Excluded

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal judge ruled that a retained expert in a defective medical device case “either did not measure the suture or her measurements of the suture are impossible” and excluded the testimony and found that without her testimony, summary judgment is appropriate.
July 27, 2023
Experts Properly Admitted In Chemical Exposure Case, Wisconsin Court Says

MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin trial court did not err in allowing expert testimony during a trial in which a worker says he was injured from exposure to the chemical diacetyl, a state appellate court ruled, upholding a $5.3 million jury award.
July 26, 2023
Texas Panel Finds Jurisdiction Over Korean Battery Maker In Exploding Vape Case

HOUSTON — A Texas appellate panel on July 25 affirmed a trial court’s jurisdiction over a South Korean battery maker and its U.S. subsidiary in a personal injury lawsuit brought by a man who claims that he was burned after the battery exploded in his e-cigarette device, citing recent Texas Supreme Court precedent.
July 25, 2023
Nebraska High Court Reverses, Deems Suit Filed After Estate Reopening Timely

LINCOLN, Neb. — A unanimous Nebraska Supreme Court reversed and remanded an appellate court’s determination that a lower court correctly dismissed a woman’s negligence suit against the estate of a man involved in an automobile accident with her, finding that the woman’s second amended complaint “relates back to the date of the first amended complaint,” which was filed within the applicable statute of limitations.
July 21, 2023
California Jury Awards $18.8M Against J&J For Man’s Mesothelioma

LOS ANGELES — A California jury hit Johnson & Johnson with an $18.8 million verdict in an asbestos-talc case freed from the company’s related bankruptcy stay and held it 100% liable for the 25-year-old’s mesothelioma.
July 21, 2023
Protesters Reach $13.7M Settlement With New York City For Arrests, Use Of Force

NEW YORK — A putative class of individuals who participated in protests in New York City following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police filed a motion in a federal court in New York seeking preliminary approval of a settlement of up to $13,731,000 with the city and individual New York Police Department (NYPD) defendants.
July 20, 2023
Federal Judge Allows Detainees’ Pandemic Cleaner Poisoning Claims To Proceed

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Putative class claims first filed in March by detainees who say they were poisoned by a cleaning solution the facility operator used multiple times an hour between February 2020 and April 2021 as a purported safety measure against COVID-19 “fall within the heartland of delayed discovery cases,” a federal judge in California ruled, denying a motion to partially dismiss the complaint based on the purported applicable statute of limitations.
July 17, 2023
Jury Hits Monsanto With $72M Verdict In Seattle-Area School PCB Injury Lawsuit

SEATTLE — A jury in a Washington state court on July 14 awarded two individuals a total of $72 million for injuries caused by exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) produced by Monsanto Co. that were present in a Seattle-area school.
July 14, 2023
6th Circuit Affirms Remand In COVID Death Suit, Says No PREP Act Preemption

CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s remand of a negligence and COVID-19 wrongful death suit to state court, finding that the nursing home defendants failed to establish preemption under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act by not providing evidence of a federal agency delegating authority to the defendants to act on the agency’s behalf.
July 14, 2023
Insurer’s Time To Answer Extended In Coverage Row Over Claims Against Care Home

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — A North Carolina federal magistrate judge issued text-only orders extending time for an insurer and its insured to answer a nursing home’s breach of contract suit for failure to defend and indemnify the nursing home in an underlying negligence action.
July 14, 2023
Cruise Line And Passenger Reach Settlement, Agree To Dismiss Slip-And-Fall Case

MIAMI — A Florida federal court on July 14 entered a final order of dismissal with prejudice pursuant to the parties’ joint stipulation and settlement in a cruise line passenger’s suit alleging that the cruise line was negligent in the passenger’s treatment after he suffered a fall and stroke and was transported to a hospital in Puerto Rico for further treatment.
July 14, 2023
Podiatrist Properly Excluded In Defective Shoe Design Case, 2nd Circuit Says

NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 13 rejected a man’s bid to reverse summary judgment awarded to Nike Inc. in his suit alleging that a defectively designed sneaker caused his knee injury after finding no error in the exclusion of his expert witness.
July 13, 2023
California High Court: State Law Claims Are Expressly Preempted By Medicare Act

SAN FRANCISCO — A unanimous California Supreme Court on July 13 affirmed that a Medicare Part C beneficiary’s state law wrongful death, negligence and elder abuse claims based on allegations that his HMO breached a duty of care are preempted by the preemption provision of the Medicare Act.
July 13, 2023
Expert Opining On Aircraft Fuel Usage, Inspections Can Testify In Crash Suit

DETROIT — The sole remaining defendant in a suit stemming from a fatal aircraft crash lost its bid to exclude a causation expert after failing to show “that the several discrete opinions challenged in the motion have ‘no factual support’ in the record presented,” a Michigan federal judge ruled.
July 13, 2023
Estate Rep Appeals Judgment For Insurer, Care Home In Medicare Coverage Dispute

PITTSBURGH — An estate representative has appealed a federal district court’s decision granting judgment for an insurer and skilled nursing facility to the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after the lower court found that the representative failed to show that a Medicare Advantage plan’s failure to cover continued care in the skilled nursing facility caused injuries leading to the amputation of a patient’s leg.
July 13, 2023
9th Circuit Says COVID Suit Lacks PREP Act Preemption, Federal Jurisdiction

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s remand to state court of a COVID-19 death suit filed by legal representatives of a decedent against the nursing home they allege was responsible for her death, finding that the lower court correctly determined that it lacked “federal subject matter jurisdiction under the doctrine of complete preemption” because the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act “is not a complete preemption statute.”