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

Mealey's Personal Injury

April 08, 2025
Judge: Woman’s Expert Meets Requirements To Testify In Medical Malpractice Suit

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal judge denied efforts from two doctors who moved to exclude a woman’s expert from opining on the standard of care in a medical malpractice suit, finding that the expert adequately satisfied the state’s the “locality requirement.”
April 04, 2025
Florida Jury Returns Defense Verdict In Suit Against Tobacco Company

MIAMI — A Florida state court jury returned a defense verdict in an Engle lawsuit brought against a tobacco company by the estate of a smoker who died after being diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) after finding that the smoker’s illness did not manifest within the mandatory timeframe to be an Engle class member. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
April 02, 2025
Missouri Appeals Court Finds Expert Wrongly Excluded In Forklift Injury Case

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A divided Missouri appeals court on April 1 ruled that a trial court erred in finding that testimony from an expert in a forklift injury case was inadmissible and reversed a summary judgment award, but two judges filed dissents, contending that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.
April 01, 2025
Judge Dismisses Settled Wrongful Death Suit Against Tobacco Companies

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge ordered the dismissal with prejudice of all remaining claims against a tobacco company brought by the family members of a dead smoker who accused the company of causing the smoker’s death from laryngeal cancer, following the parties’ announcement of a settlement and the earlier dismissal of claims against two other tobacco companies.
March 31, 2025
11th Circuit: Battery Expert Properly Excluded In Deadly Tesla Case

ATLANTA — An estate of a man who died in a fiery crash in a Tesla lost his appeal in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which affirmed a district court’s ruling that excluded the battery expert’s supplemental affidavit and his opinion about the alleged cell wall thickness defect.
March 31, 2025
Government Says Flint FTCA Bellwether Plaintiffs Have Not Established Liability

DETROIT — The U.S. government on March 28 filed a reply brief in support of its motion to dismiss a $722.4 million Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) lawsuit against it related to the lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint, Mich., contending that the bellwether plaintiffs have not established liability under Section 324A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts and have not established analogous private liability under Section 324A and, therefore, their claims should be dismissed.
March 31, 2025
Judge: Taxotere Plaintiffs Failed To Timely Identify Correct Manufacturer

NEW ORLEANS — The Louisiana federal judge overseeing the Taxotere hair loss multidistrict litigation granted two motions to dismiss, finding that the women in those cases failed to properly file their complaints against the proper manufacturers within the applicable statute of limitations.
March 27, 2025
Judge Limits Testimony Of Expert In Cases Alleging Man Died After Leaving Hospital

ALEXANDRIA, La. — An expert retained by a medical center cannot opine on whether a hospital action violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) but is otherwise qualified to testify, a Louisiana federal judge held.
March 27, 2025
High Court Hears Oral Arguments On FCC Authority Under Nondelegation Doctrine

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 26 heard oral arguments in consolidated cases filed by the Federal Communications Commission and telecom providers urging reversal of an en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that a subsidy program violates the “private nondelegation doctrine.”
March 26, 2025
Supreme Court: ATF May Treat ‘Ghost Gun’ Parts As Firearms Under Gun Control Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on March 26 reversed a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling invalidating a rule promulgated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), effectively broadening the Gun Control Act’s (GCA) definition of “firearm” to include parts of “ghost guns,” which can readily be assembled into weapons but, before the rule, were considered by some manufacturers to not require serial numbers or a firearms background check before sale.
March 25, 2025
AI Chatbot Is A Product, Outputs Not Protected Speech, Mother Contends

ORLANDO, Fla. — The First Amendment protects speech and not the predictive text outputs by an artificial intelligence chatbot, but even if those outputs constituted speech, speech protections would not apply to the type of harmful chatbot outputs that led a teenager to commit suicide, a mother told a federal judge in Florida in opposing dismissal while arguing that Google LLC and its related entity can be held liable.
March 25, 2025
Experts Featured In Mealey's Daubert Report

Entries are in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony. Experts appeared in the January, February and March 2025 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.
March 25, 2025
Treating Doctors’ Opinions On Injury Causation Are Unreliable, Judge Finds

DETROIT — Two treating physicians for a woman who alleges that she was injured when a charter bus on which she was a passenger collided with a semitruck cannot testify on causation after a Michigan federal judge found their opinions to be unreliable.
March 25, 2025
Sig Sauer Loses En Banc Review Bid For Experts Ruling In Gun Design Defect Case

CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied an en banc hearing to review its ruling that while a district court properly excluded expert testimony on causation, it erred in excluding design defect testimony and reversed an award of summary judgment, rejecting a gun manufacturer’s argument that the ruling that expert testimony on causation is not needed in a complex design defect case “misapprehended Kentucky law.”
March 24, 2025
11th Circuit Dismisses Complaint Accusing Depo-Provera MDL Judge Of Misconduct

ATLANTA — The chief judge of the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that the “voluntary corrective actions” by the judge overseeing the Depo-Provera multidistrict litigation who faced a complaint that her encouragement of women to apply for leadership positions in the MDL constituted impermissible bias and judicial misconduct “warrant the conclusion of this proceeding.”
March 21, 2025
Jury Awards $40M To Estate Of Smoker Hooked After Getting Samples As Teen

WOBURN, Mass. — A Massachusetts state court jury awarded more than $40 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the estate of a dead smoker who began smoking after receiving free samples as a teenager and who developed lung cancer after smoking for 37 years, finding punitive damages warranted against two tobacco companies that it said engaged in “malicious” and grossly negligent” conduct. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
March 20, 2025
Expert In Car Crash Case Can Testify On Future Lost Wages, Not Future Medical Care

SEATTLE — An expert retained in a personal injury suit stemming from a car accident can opine on a man’s future loss earnings but is prohibited from “parroting the opinion of a non-testifying expert” on future medical costs, a Washington federal magistrate judge said.
March 20, 2025
Wyoming High Court Affirms Dismissal For Failure To Pay Attorney Fee Sanction

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A trial court did not abuse its discretion or violate a personal injury plaintiff’s rights under the Wyoming Constitution by ordering her to pay defense attorney fees and costs as a sanction for violating a motion in limine or in dismissing her case with prejudice when she failed to pay the sanction as ordered, the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled.
March 18, 2025
Plaintiffs Leadership Named For Depo-Provera MDL

PENSACOLA, Fla. — The Florida federal judge overseeing the Depo-Provera multidistrict litigation, a group of cases alleging that a long-lasting injectable contraceptive caused women to develop intracranial meningiomas, a type of brain tumor, has appointed Christopher Seeger of Seeger Weiss LLP as plaintiffs’ lead counsel.
March 14, 2025
University Denies Existence Of Contract With Student Who Died In COVID-19 Isolation

NEWARK, N.J. — In response to the amended complaint filed by the estate and parents of a college sophomore who died from an epileptic seizure while in a university’s COVID-19 isolation alleging breach of contract and of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, the university on March 13 moved a New Jersey federal court to dismiss the complaint, contending that there was no valid contract between it and the student.
March 14, 2025
Associations Urge High Court Reversal Of Ruling Finding Nondelegation Violation

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Telecom provider petitioners and broadband association petitioners filed reply briefs on March 13 in the U.S. Supreme Court, urging reversal of an en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that a subsidy program violates the “private nondelegation doctrine” after the high court granted two petitions for a writ of certiorari and consolidated cases concerning whether Congress violated the nondelegation doctrine by authorizing the Federal Communications Commission to delegate to a private entity.
March 12, 2025
Juul, Florida Settle Youth Marketing Suit For $79M

TAMPA, Fla. — Florida and e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. entered into a consent judgment in Florida state court under which Juul will pay $79 million over several years to resolve state claims that it unlawfully marketed its popular e-cigarette products to youth, months after a state court judge denied Juul’s motion to dismiss the state’s claims against it.
March 12, 2025
‘Paucity Of Evidence’ Linking Disorders To Gardasil Vaccine Bars Preemption Defense

STATESVILLE, N.C. — The manufacturer of the Gardasil vaccine could not unilaterally add warnings to the vaccine’s label, the North Carolina federal judge overseeing the Gardasil multidistrict litigation ruled, finding that the bellwether plaintiffs’ sole remaining claim is preempted by federal law.
March 11, 2025
Smoker’s Widow Says Judge Wrongly Reduced Verdict By $4.5M

MIAMI — The widow of a smoker who died from lung cancer argues in a March 11 initial brief to the Florida Third District Court of Appeal that a trial judge wrongly reduced judgment in her favor down to $11.5 million from the $16 million a jury awarded her after entering a post-trial directed verdict on her fraud claims, asserting that the jury’s fraud findings should have been upheld.
March 10, 2025
Federal Judge Enters $24B Judgment Against China For COVID-19 Economic Damage

CAPE GIRDEAU, Mo. — A Missouri federal judge on March 7 entered a default judgment in favor of the state of Missouri in the amount of almost $24.5 billion in the state’s lawsuit against the People’s Republic of China, other Chinese governmental entities, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences alleging that the defendants covered up the existence and danger of COVID-19 and hoarded personal protective equipment (PPE) to the detriment to the citizens of Missouri.