Product Liability

  • September 11, 2026

    Attys Must Arbitrate $8 Oil To Fight $625K Sanction: 9th Circ.

    Class action lawyers slapped with six-figure sanctions for suing Walmart Inc. based on erroneous purchase information can't yet challenge the discipline, the Ninth Circuit ruled, suggesting they may first need to arbitrate grievances over an $8 bottle of avocado oil.

  • September 11, 2026

    Exploding Home Sauna Suit Clears Damages Concerns

    A New Jersey woman will get to proceed with her product liability lawsuit claiming an at-home sauna spontaneously exploded, after a federal judge accepted Friday her argument that a jury could award her tens of millions of dollars, so the amount in controversy would not fall below the statutory minimum.

  • September 11, 2026

    Volvo Averts EV Defect Suit Over Kansas Buyers' NJ Claims

    A New Jersey federal judge on Thursday dismissed a proposed class action brought by a Kansas married couple alleging that the rear auto brake and dashboard drive display features in certain Volvo electric vehicles are defective, finding there's no connection to the Garden State aside from the automaker's corporate headquarters.

  • September 11, 2026

    TikTok Let Minors See Harmful Content, Texas Judge Finds

    Texas scored significant wins in its lawsuit accusing TikTok of exposing children to harmful content while misrepresenting the app's safety, with a state judge ruling that the social media company violated state law by misleading consumers about its content-moderation practices and the effectiveness of its "restricted mode" feature.

  • September 11, 2026

    NRC Targets Red Tape In Broad Overhaul Of Reactor Regs

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday unveiled a proposed overhaul of its nuclear reactor licensing and oversight regulations, the agency's latest step to implement an executive order directing it to refocus on encouraging new nuclear power development.

  • September 11, 2026

    Qdoba Sued Over Jalapenos Tied To Salmonella Outbreak

    Fast casual Mexican restaurant chain Qdoba and Coast Citrus Distributors were hit with a proposed negligence class action in California federal court Thursday by two customers who allege they fell ill after consuming food containing jalapeno peppers supplied by the defendants that they say were contaminated with salmonella. 

  • September 11, 2026

    Abbott Can Move Baby Formula Death Suit Out Of Illinois

    An Illinois state appeals court on Friday ordered the dismissal of a product liability suit alleging Abbott Laboratories' Similac formula caused a premature Florida infant's fatal case of necrotizing enterocolitis, finding the case belongs in Florida rather than Chicago's Cook County.

  • September 11, 2026

    3M Wants Conn. Firefighter PFAS Suit Moved To Different MDL

    3M Co. has asked to peel PFAS "forever chemicals" claims by Connecticut firefighter unions and several individuals away from a recently empaneled Minnesota multidistrict litigation containing claims by municipalities who purchased firefighting turnout gear, arguing the unions' and individuals' allegations instead belong in an ongoing South Carolina MDL.

  • September 11, 2026

    Lemonade Gets Final OK For $10.5M Data Breach Settlement

    A New York federal judge has granted final approval to a $10.5 million settlement to end consolidated claims that Lemonade Inc. negligently exposed 190,000 people's driver's license numbers to cybercriminals.

  • September 11, 2026

    DC Circ. Probes DOT Authority To Withhold Calif. Funds

    A panel of D.C. Circuit judges grilled a Trump administration attorney Friday over the U.S. Department of Transportation's move to slash California's federal highway funding because of the state's commercial driver's licensing rules for nondomiciled drivers, wondering whether the agency had any authority to take the drastic measure.

  • September 11, 2026

    Solar Contractor, CBRE Unit Blamed In $1B LA Building Fire

    Lineage Inc., which owns a massive cold-storage facility in Los Angeles that caught fire in June, has sued a commercial solar operator and a CBRE Group subsidiary in California state court, blaming the incident on their negligence in reenergizing a defective rooftop solar array before critical safety checks were completed. 

  • September 11, 2026

    Amazon Sued By Injured Survivor Of Fatal Miami Plane Crash

    An airline contractor on Friday sued Amazon and several others in Florida state court, alleging negligence for serious injuries he suffered in a fatal crash earlier this month in which a cargo plane skidded off the runway at Miami International Airport and hit his work van. 

  • September 11, 2026

    Process Flaws Doom Group Home's $13.4M Death Appeal

    A Connecticut assisted-living facility failed to preserve or brief several issues that underpinned its appeal of a $13.4 million judgment over the death of a resident, an appellate panel held Friday in upholding a trial court victory for the man's mother.

  • September 10, 2026

    Zuckerberg Testifies List Of Kid-Glove Users Not A Problem

    Mark Zuckerberg strenuously disputed in testimony seen Thursday by a New Mexico jury that Facebook's internal list of parties whose content receives special treatment undercuts the company's public declarations that policy-violating content must be taken down without exception.

  • September 10, 2026

    Calif. Enacts Laws To Curb Addictive Feeds, AI Risks For Kids

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than a dozen kids online safety bills into law Thursday, expanding student data privacy laws while barring social media companies from offering teens personalized accounts with addictive features and requiring artificial intelligence companies to implement guardrails to prevent teen suicide and self-harm.

  • September 10, 2026

    RJ Reynolds Wants In On Suit Over FDA Vape Review Rule

    Vape and nicotine pouch subsidiaries owned by Altria and R.J. Reynolds are looking to upend the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's premarket authorization rule, claiming the agency is breaking the law by dragging out product reviews well past the statutory deadline, which delays their goods by years while illegal Chinese products flood the market.

  • September 10, 2026

    9th Circ. Clears Boeing Of Liability In Police Helicopter Crash

    The Ninth Circuit affirmed a ruling Wednesday tossing product liability litigation over a 2022 Huntington Beach Police Department helicopter crash that killed an officer and injured another, finding the victims' claims against Boeing and other aircraft-makers are time-barred under the General Aviation Revitalization Act's 18-year statute of repose.

  • September 10, 2026

    Fla. Panel Orders New Trial In $604K PGA Resort Fall Suit

    A Florida appeals panel has ordered a new trial and vacated a $604,000 jury verdict in a woman's trip-and-fall suit against PGA National Resort and Spa, saying the trial court wrongly treated an out-of-date administrative rule as binding law.

  • September 10, 2026

    Hess Corp. Says Insurers Must Cover Cancer Suits

    Hess Corp. has told a New Jersey federal court that insurers must defend and indemnify it against personal injury suits brought by employees of a transportation company who allege their exposure to benzene in Hess gasoline contributed to their cancer diagnoses.

  • September 10, 2026

    Fla. AG Pushes Liability For Chatbots' Role In Crimes

    Florida's attorney general — who has accused OpenAI of facilitating a deadly mass shooting at Florida State University — is now pushing for legislation that would impose heavy fines, payments to victims and monitorship on tech companies whose artificial intelligence chatbots participate in criminal activity.

  • September 10, 2026

    Unharmed Class Members Don't Sink US Steel Pollution Suit

    A Pennsylvania state judge denied U.S. Steel's bid to undo a class of residents surrounding the company's Clairton Coke Works on Wednesday, after the steelmaker argued that some class members attested they were not harmed by an increase in sulfur pollution after a 2018 fire.

  • September 10, 2026

    6th Circ. Says GE Asbestos Suit Belongs In Kentucky Court

    The Sixth Circuit sent a woman's suit against General Electric Co. over her husband's asbestos-related mesothelioma back to Kentucky state court, rejecting the company's argument that the man's military service warranted removal to federal court.

  • September 10, 2026

    DuPont, Spinoffs Ink Historic $590M PFAS Deal In NC

    DuPont and its spinoffs will pay $590 million to resolve claims they contaminated North Carolina's environment with forever chemicals, marking the largest total environmental damages recovery in the state's history, Attorney General Jeff Jackson and The Chemours Co. announced Thursday.

  • September 09, 2026

    NM Again Hauls Meta To Trial, This Time Over Privacy

    The state of New Mexico told a jury Wednesday that Facebook flagrantly misrepresented its privacy practices, including the one that let Cambridge Analytica harvest the data of 87 million mostly nonconsenting users, as the state goes to trial against the company for the third time in seven months.

  • September 09, 2026

    Pa. Ch. 7 Judge Pans NJ AG In Remanding 'Ghost Gun' Suit

    A Pennsylvania federal bankruptcy judge says an alleged seller of "ghost gun" kits improperly tried to remove a civil suit filed by the New Jersey Attorney General's office to his court, but chided the AG for assuming that her lawsuit was immune from the automatic bankruptcy stay.

Expert Analysis

  • What Trial Teams Should Know About AI Jury Research Tools

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    Using artificial intelligence for jury research is quickly becoming part of the litigation consulting landscape, and can be a useful part of a case assessment toolkit — but litigators must understand what these systems are built to measure, and what conclusions can reasonably be drawn from their output, say Bill Kanasky and Steve Wood at Courtroom Sciences.

  • Attorneys Using AI May Have Ethical Duty To Redact Docs

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    The trajectory of legal ethics guidance in recent years strongly suggests that as redaction technology becomes more accessible, the failure to use it when uploading highly confidential materials into artificial intelligence tools will become increasingly difficult to defend as reasonable, say attorneys at Lewis Brisbois.

  • Retailers Must Navigate State Innocent-Seller Law Patchwork

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    States' innocent-seller statutes can shield nonmanufacturing retailers from product liability claims to varying degrees, and by building the evidentiary record strategically throughout discovery, companies can improve their chances of obtaining summary judgment — but it is essential to stay abreast of the rapidly evolving policy environment, say attorneys at Chamberlain Hrdlicka.

  • State AI Safety Laws Raise New Liabilities For Healthcare Cos.

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    Healthcare and life science companies using third-party artificial intelligence tools should pay particular attention to the changing state-level legal landscape, where the rollout of multiple AI safety laws is introducing both new compliance obligations and potential consumer protection liabilities, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • Series

    Juggling And Unicycling Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Because I juggle (sometimes with fire) and ride the unicycle, friends and family used to joke that I should join the circus, but I pursued the practice of law instead and learned that my hobbies benefit my profession in several important ways, says Morgan Eddy at Smith Currie.

  • Expert Witness's ChatGPT Use Highlights New AI Risks

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    An expert witness's recent use of ChatGPT in multidistrict litigation involving 3M to formulate most of his opinion illustrates the lack of clear rules for how an expert may use generative AI in an opinion, expanding both offensive and defensive discovery considerations, says David Shargel at Bracewell.

  • FDA Closeout Letter Suggests Relaxing Stance On Wearables

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    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's recent decision not to pursue enforcement action against Whoop's wearable blood pressure tracker, read together with guidance released earlier this year, suggests a softer shift in the FDA's approach to regulating wearables, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • How Rogue AI May Shape Corporate Liability, Responsibility

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    Recent artificial intelligence cyber incidents offer a window into how companies deploying autonomous systems should document risk controls even when systems exceed their intended boundaries, as jurors may treat unexpected AI conduct as foreseeable evidence of inadequate safeguards, says Jorge Monroy at Verdict Insight Partners.

  • Series

    Ballet Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    A lifetime of learning and performing ballet taught me that success — whether in dance or practicing law — comes only through hours of thorough preparation, boundless energy and relentless effort, says Sharon Katz-Pearlman at Greenberg Traurig.

  • How Texas' Protein Powder Probe Reflects Prop 65's Influence

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    Texas' recently announced investigation into contaminants in protein powder illustrates how California's Proposition 65, with its hundreds of listed chemicals, safe harbor levels and consumer warnings, may have an influence on enforcement and regulation in other states, say attorneys at Buchalter.

  • Insurer Spoliation Ruling Flags Continuing Duty To Preserve

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    An Illinois federal court’s recent decision to impose spoliation sanctions on the insurer in H.D. Smith v. Cincinnati Insurance provides practical guidance for navigating long-tail coverage litigation, underscoring the importance of evaluating preservation obligations in light of the full life cycle of a dispute, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Series

    Taekwondo Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Taekwondo has taught me to recognize when to fight for a position and when to focus on finding a solution, and that the best outcomes are often achieved by solving problems — all of which has improved my work as a bankruptcy lawyer, mediator and Subchapter V trustee, says Amy Denton Mayer at Berger Singerman.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: August Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses seven recent rulings from cases involving Class Action Fairness Act jurisdiction, appellate jurisdiction, attorney fees and employment rights.

  • Del. Boeing Ruling Shows How Compliance Defeats Caremark

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    The Delaware Chancery Court's recent dismissal of shareholder litigation against Boeing's board in the wake of the Alaska Airlines door-plug blowout incident carries significant lessons for shareholders pursuing Caremark claims, and for corporate counsel advising boards on oversight obligations, says Brian Rostocki at Reed Smith.

  • When And How To Use 4 Types Of Cross-Exam Questions

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    Perceptions of a great cross-examination are often shaped by aggressive courtroom exchanges, but to be truly effective, this stage of trial requires strategically selecting confirmation, confinement, contrast or confrontation questions at key moments, says Allison Rocker at Baker McKenzie.

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