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November 25, 2025
TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey Supreme Court held that the state failed to show that its expert’s testimony on shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma (SBS/AHT) was sufficiently reliable to go before a jury in two separate cases, affirming an appellate court’s decision that dismissed charges filed against two fathers.
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November 21, 2025
By Jamie O’Neill and Abigail Damsky
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November 21, 2025
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.
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November 20, 2025
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.
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November 19, 2025
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.
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November 19, 2025
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.
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November 19, 2025
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.
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November 18, 2025
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.
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November 18, 2025
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.
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November 14, 2025
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.
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November 13, 2025
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.
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November 12, 2025
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.
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November 11, 2025
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.
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November 11, 2025
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.
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November 11, 2025
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.
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November 10, 2025
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.
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November 07, 2025
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.
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November 06, 2025
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.
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November 05, 2025
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.”
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November 04, 2025
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.
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October 31, 2025
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.
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October 31, 2025
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.
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October 30, 2025
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.
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October 28, 2025
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.
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October 27, 2025
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.