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Mealey's Personal Injury

  • November 21, 2025

    Judge: Experts Can Testify In Case Alleging Shopping Cart Collapse Led To Injuries

    OMAHA, Neb. — A Nebraska federal judge rejected dueling motions to exclude testimony from the other party’s expert in a personal injury case stemming from injuries a woman suffered after a shopping cart broke, finding that both experts meet admissibility standards and that objections to their testimony can be resolved through cross-examination.

  • November 20, 2025

    Judge Limits Expert’s Testimony, Bars Him From Offering Legal Conclusions

    SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge in Utah ruled that a trucking safety expert can testify on behalf of a man who was injured in a bicycling accident with a semi-truck but he cannot opine on who had the right of way at the time of the accident.

  • November 19, 2025

    Panel: Whether Immunity Applies To COVID-Era Hospital Death Is For Jury

    ATLANTA — Concluding that a fact finder could determine that a hospital and hospital personnel were not engaged in emergency management activities that would provide immunity for their conduct in the treatment of a man who did not have COVID-19 but presented to and died in a hospital during the pandemic, a Georgia appellate panel reversed grants of summary judgment by a trial court in favor of the hospital and personnel in a medical malpractice lawsuit brought by the man’s daughter.

  • November 19, 2025

    Judge: No Standing To Sue For Vaccine Injuries Via Declaratory Judgment

    MONROE, La. — Ruling that a declaratory judgment will not bind parties to future lawsuits and, thus, will not provide redressability, a Louisiana federal court dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit by several people injured by the COVID-19 vaccine seeking a declaration that the immunity provisions of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act are unconstitutional so that they could sue vaccine manufacturers in tort.

  • November 19, 2025

    Expert Testimony Properly Excluded In Rollover Accident Case, 6th Circuit Says

    CINCINNATI — Testimony from an expert whose “methodology boils down to ‘Trust me, I analyzed it’” was properly excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 in a personal injury case involving an off-road sport utility vehicle, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, affirming a defense win for the manufacturer.

  • November 18, 2025

    Smoker’s Estate Moves For New Trial After $350K Verdict Reduced To $0

    KONA, Hawaii — A smoker’s estate on Nov. 17 filed a motion in Hawaii state court to vacate a jury’s general damages award in his favor and for a new trial solely on general damages, after the court entered final judgment reducing the jury’s verdict of $350,000 in compensatory damages to $0 based on comparative fault and prior settlements by co-defendants.

  • November 18, 2025

    Reconsideration Of Lack Of Standing Ruling Denied In COVID Vaccine Injury Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge denied the motion to alter or amend judgment of a man seeking to force the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT) so he can be compensated by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) after the judge granted the government’s motion to dismiss for lack of standing.

  • November 14, 2025

    J&J Asks Court To Delay Judgment After $966M Asbestos-Talc Verdict

    LOS ANGELES — Johnson & Johnson defended its request that a California court not enter judgment on an asbestos verdict that included $950 million in punitive damages, arguing that it would be unfair to make what it calls a clearly unconstitutional award enforceable.

  • November 13, 2025

    Md. Federal Judge: Treating Physician Cannot Testify That Accident Made TMJ Worse

    BALTIMORE — A treating physician cannot testify that a car accident exacerbated a woman’s existing temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ) because that conclusion is speculative and not based on a reliable methodology, a Maryland federal judge held.

  • November 12, 2025

    Pharmacy Files Answer To Massachusetts Smoker’s Lung Cancer Suit

    SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Walgreens of Massachusetts LLC on Nov. 11 filed an answer in Massachusetts federal court to a lawsuit originally brought in state court against it and tobacco companies by a 58-year-old smoker diagnosed with lung cancer who seeks damages for his cancer and for the companies’ alleged violations of a consumer law.

  • November 11, 2025

    Panel: New York Officials Had Qualified Immunity For COVID Nursing Home Orders

    NEW YORK — A panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of a New York federal court that dismissed a lawsuit against New York state officials and nursing homes brought by survivors of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 after state executive orders prevented nursing homes from denying admission to patients having or suspected of having COVID-19.

  • November 11, 2025

    Class Suit Says UPS, GE And Boeing’s Recklessness Caused November Plane Crash

    LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Recklessness by United Parcel Service Inc., General Electric Co. and Boeing Co. caused the Nov. 4 crash of a UPS MD-11 cargo aircraft as it attempted to depart a Louisville airport for Hawaii, airport neighbors allege in a putative class complaint filed in a federal court in Kentucky.

  • November 11, 2025

    Insurer Seeks Reimbursement Of Punitive Damages Award Paid On Behalf Of Insured

    PHILADELPHIA — An insured is required to reimburse its insurer for the insurer’s payment of a punitive damages award entered against the insured in an underlying asbestos bodily injury suit because punitive damages are uninsurable pursuant to the terms of the policy and applicable law, the insurer says in a complaint filed in Pennsylvania federal court.

  • November 10, 2025

    Ga. Panel Majority Vacates, Remands $13.7M Attorney Fee Award In Malpractice Suit

    ATLANTA — A panel majority of the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated and remanded a trial court’s $13.7 million attorney fee award entered in favor of the claimants in a medical malpractice suit after determining that the trial court abused its discretion because the award included attorney fees that were incurred on appeal, which is not supported under Georgia’s offer of settlement statute.

  • November 07, 2025

    Massachusetts High Court Hears Arguments In $1B Tobacco Verdict Appeal

    BOSTON — Attorneys for Philip Morris USA Inc. (PM) urged the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to order a new trial for a smoker’s estate based on a jury’s “excessive” $1 billion punitive damages award and to consider if such trials should be bifurcated, while justices asked if the trial court’s reduction of the punitive damages to $56 million by remittitur was already a sufficient remedy.

  • November 07, 2025

    Panel Affirms $475K Punitive Award For Smoker’s Estate Despite Ratio Arguments

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Fourth District Florida Court of Appeal panel on Nov. 6 issued a per curiam affirmance of a $475,000 punitive damages verdict awarded to a smoker’s estate, which a tobacco company had argued on appeal should be subject to reversal or remittitur because it is 11 times greater than the compensatory damages awarded.

  • November 06, 2025

    Couple Seeks Damages For A Plethora Of Injuries From Explosion At Fracking Site

    MINOT, N.D. — A couple has filed an amended complaint in North Dakota federal court seeking compensatory and punitive damages for a traumatic brain injury and other ailments suffered by the husband, who was injured when storage tanks at a hydraulic fracturing site exploded.

  • November 05, 2025

    Kentucky High Court: Ruling Cut Off Plaintiff’s Jurisdictional Discovery Rights

    FRANKFORT, Ky. — Issuing a partial reversal and remand, the Kentucky Supreme Court said there was enough evidence that an out-of-state handgun manufacturer that faced a product liability lawsuit fell within Kentucky’s long-arm statute, but the record is insufficient as to due process because the manufacturer’s “failure to timely meet its discovery obligations until shortly before the trial court’s ruling deprived [the appellant] of an ‘ample opportunity’ to conduct and complete jurisdictional discovery.”

  • November 04, 2025

    Ga. Appeals Court Finds Wrong Standard Applied In Exclusion Of Causation Experts

    ATLANTA — A Georgia trial court applied the incorrect standard for determining the admissibility of expert testimony on general causation in a case alleging that exposure to ethylene oxide caused cancers and birth defects, a Georgia appeals court ruled in a consolidated appeal, vacating an order that allowed testimony from one expert but barred it from two others.

  • October 31, 2025

    Tobacco Company Wins New Mexico Retrial In Smoker’s Cancer Death Suit

    SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico state court jury returned a defense verdict in favor of a tobacco company and local retailer, rejecting all claims brought against them by a dead smoker’s daughter for causing her father’s death from laryngeal cancer through the marketing, manufacture and sale of defectively designed cigarettes.

  • October 31, 2025

    J&J Appeals After New Trial Effort Denied In $25M Asbestos-Talc Case

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Johnson & Johnson filed a notice that it would appeal a Connecticut verdict in which the judge awarded $10 million in punitive damages and declined to grant a new trial in the wake of a $25 million asbestos-talc verdict against the company and various related entities.

  • October 30, 2025

    Florida Jury Awards $20 Million In Asbestos-Talc Mesothelioma Case Against J&J

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida jury awarded $20 million to a man for his father’s death from mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos in Johnson & Johnson talc-based consumer products, sources told Mealey Publications.

  • October 28, 2025

    Judge: Stay Request In Vaccine Harm Case Covered By Blanket Deadline Extensions

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Oct. 27 denied as moot a stay sought by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a lawsuit by a man seeking to force HHS to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT) so he can be compensated by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), noting that the district’s chief judge had extended all filing deadlines in the district past the end of the funding appropriations lapse.

  • October 27, 2025

    Pollution Exclusion Bars Coverage For Rat Bite Fever Lawsuit, Insurer Says

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — No coverage is owed for an underlying lawsuit filed by a tenant of an insured who alleges that she and her child sustained bodily injuries as a result of a rat infestation in her rental unit because the policy’s organic pathogens exclusion and total pollution exclusion bar coverage for the underlying suit, an insurer says in an Oct. 24 complaint filed in Florida federal court.

  • October 27, 2025

    Government Seeks Shutdown-Related Stay In Case By Man Hurt By COVID Vaccine

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government on Oct. 24 sought a stay from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit by a man seeking to force the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT) so he can be compensated by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), citing the ongoing government shutdown due to lack of funding appropriations.