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Mealey's Personal Injury

  • April 30, 2025

    Fisher-Price, Mattel: Del. Judge Erred In Admitting Experts Based On Other Case

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Fisher-Price Inc. and its corporate parent, Mattel Inc., are urging a Delaware state court to reconsider its denial of several motions seeking to exclude testimony from experts retained by a couple suing over the death of their daughter, who died after being placed in the now recalled Rock ’n Play Sleeper, arguing that the court erred in deferring and adopting decisions reached in another case involving the same product.

  • April 29, 2025

    Supreme Court To Hear Case Over Federal Jurisdiction In Tainted Baby Food Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 28 agreed to hear a case in which a baby food manufacturer says a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that a district court improperly denied remand to plaintiffs who had sued the company alleging that it contaminated its products with heavy metals “directly conflicts with decisions of other courts of appeals,” ignores Supreme Court precedent concerning federal jurisdiction and “egregiously wastes judicial and party resources with no apparent benefit.”

  • April 25, 2025

    Experts Allowed In Crash Suit, Judge Says, Also Ruling On What Can Be Said At Trial

    BOSTON — A Massachusetts federal judge ruled on a series of motions relating to the exclusion of expert testimony and other evidence in a lawsuit stemming from a car accident, with the judge finding that experts retained by a woman who alleges that she was injured can testify on the extent of her medical needs and the costs associated with that treatment.

  • April 25, 2025

    Judge Denies Motion To Exclude Medical Expert From Testifying On Inmate’s Injuries

    FRESNO, Calif. — An expert retained by a nurse in a civil rights violation case to opine on how a woman was injured while incarcerated can testify, a California federal judge ruled, though specifying that the expert cannot offer testimony that would be considered legal conclusions.

  • April 24, 2025

    Expert’s ChatGPT Usage Not Grounds To Exclude, Judge Says

    LONG ISLAND, N.Y. — An expert’s use of artificial intelligence ChatGPT to confirm his opinions in a product defect case does not warrant his exclusion nor does his lack of an engineering degree mean that he doesn’t qualify as an expert, a federal judge in New York said April 23 in denying a tool retailer’s motion.

  • April 22, 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, March and April 2025 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.

  • April 18, 2025

    Florida Panel Turns Away Tobacco Companies’ ‘Survivor’ Challenge To $2.1M Verdict

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Fourth District Florida Court of Appeal panel on April 17 affirmed a jury’s $2.1 million compensatory damages verdict to a smoker’s daughter, which was challenged by two tobacco companies on the grounds that the daughter is not the smoker’s “survivor” under the Wrongful Death Act and therefore is entitled to only $7,000.

  • April 17, 2025

    Petitioners: Supreme Court Must Hear Camp Lejeune Case To Resolve Pending Claims

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two individuals who are challenging a lower court’s decision that they are not entitled to a jury trial in their case against the U.S. government related to water contamination at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina have filed a reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that it should grant review of the ruling because the lead question in the matter is “central to resolving hundreds of thousands of pending claims under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA).”

  • April 15, 2025

    Arkansas Federal Judge Says Woman’s Experts Can Testify In Slip-And-Fall Case

    FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Two experts retained by a woman who alleges that she was injured after falling in an Outback Steakhouse restaurant can testify, an Arkansas federal judge held, finding that the company’s arguments for their exclusion went to weight and not admissibility under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • April 15, 2025

    Skechers Seeks Coverage For Injury Claims Caused By Shoes’ Lack Of Slip-Resistance

    LOS ANGELES — Skechers USA Inc. sued its commercial liability insurer in a California court for breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and unfair competition, alleging that the insurer has a duty to defend it against an underlying action contending that class members were harmed by actual physical accidents caused by the insured’s shoes’ lack of slip-resistance or by the fact that the shoes were unusable.

  • April 14, 2025

    Insured Dismisses 1 Insurer In Coverage Dispute Over Earplug Product Liability Claims

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Plaintiffs and one of their liability insurers filed in a Delaware court a stipulation and proposed order of voluntary dismissal with prejudice of all claims between them in a coverage lawsuit arising from an underlying earplug product liability multidistrict litigation that resulted in a $6 billion settlement and millions of dollars in defense costs.

  • April 14, 2025

    Attorneys General Urge Asbestos Trusts To Hold Off On Claim Document Destruction

    Attorneys general from 15 states in an April 11 letter to 10 asbestos bankruptcy trusts express their concern that the trusts’ document retention policies would result in the destruction of data detailing compensation payments and other documents about past claims that could be discoverable and relevant to ongoing and future litigation.

  • April 09, 2025

    COMMENTARY: The Ultimate Social Inflation Survival Guide: Containing Rising Claims Costs In A World Rife With Economic Inflation, Litigation Funding, Nuclear Verdicts, And Anti-Corporate Sentiment

    By Scott M. Seaman

  • April 10, 2025

    Mich. Appeals Court: No Error In Limiting Expert’s Testimony In Lawn Care Accident

    LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Court of Appeals on April 9 affirmed a defense verdict for a landscaping business accused of negligence that caused a man’s injuries, finding no error in the trial court’s decision to partially exclude portions of the man’s expert’s testimony.

  • April 10, 2025

    Widow Sues Medical Device Manufacturers, Alleges Defect Caused Husband’s Death

    JACKSON, Miss. — A widow sued the manufacturers of a device used during a heart catheterization procedure for wrongful death and other claims in a Mississippi federal court, alleging that the manufacturer knew that the device “had safety issues relative to preventing or detecting an air embolus.”

  • April 10, 2025

    Jury Awards More Than $3B In Damages For Injuries From Bottled Water Product

    LAS VEGAS — A Nevada jury has awarded a group of plaintiffs $3,078,585,000 in combined compensatory and punitive damages against Real Water Inc. and its affiliates for injuries caused by a product called “Real Water.”  The bottled drink was claimed to be healthier than regular water because it was “alkalized water infused with negative ions,” but in fact it caused liver damage as a result of elevated levels of toxins that made the product unsafe for human consumption.

  • 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.”