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Mealey's Personal Injury

  • August 20, 2025

    COMMENTARY: A Survey Of State Laws Regulating Third-Party Litigation Funding

    By Mark A. Behrens and Christopher E. Appel

  • August 25, 2025

    Machine Maker Secures Summary Judgment After Judge Says Experts Are Out

    CHICAGO — Summary judgment for the manufacturer of a drain cleaning machine is appropriate in a case brought by a man who claims that a defect in the machine caused his injuries, an Illinois federal judge held Aug. 22 after finding that the testimony from two experts retained by the injured man is unreliable and irrelevant.

  • August 22, 2025

    Panel: Ga. Trial Court Erred Allowing FELA Case To Proceed Without Expert Testimony

    ATLANTA — A Georgia trial court erred in refusing to grant summary judgment to Norfolk Southern Railway Co. because its employee, who claims that strenuous work on the railroad caused his injuries, lacked expert testimony to prove medical causation, the state appeals court held in reversing.

  • August 22, 2025

    Illinois Enacts Consent-To-Jurisdiction Law For Toxic Tort Suits

    SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Under legislation signed into law by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, foreign corporations registering to do business in the state will have consented to general jurisdiction in toxic tort suits.

  • August 21, 2025

    No Contract Existed Between University And Student Who Died In COVID-19 Isolation

    NEWARK, N.J. — Finding that the parents of a college sophomore who died from an epileptic seizure while in a university COVID-19 isolation dormitory failed to allege the existence of a valid contract between the student and the university, a New Jersey federal judge on Aug. 20 granted the university’s motion and dismissed with prejudice the parents’ lawsuit seeking damages for breach of contract.

  • August 20, 2025

    Expert On Injuries Out, But Judge Says Dashcam Video Not Enough For Summary Judgment

    LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge denied a motion for summary judgment in a car accident case after finding that “genuine factual disputes exist regarding” whether a trucking company and its driver are responsible but ruled that an expert retained by a passenger cannot testify as to injuries because her opinions are speculative and unreliable.

  • August 18, 2025

    Monsanto: $175M Glyphosate Award Broke With Precedent, Warranting Review

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — Monsanto Co. has filed a petition for review in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court arguing that a lower court “broke with decades of precedent” when it affirmed a $175 million jury award to a couple in a glyphosate cancer lawsuit.  Monsanto maintains that the lower court’s decision amounts to “fashioning a new legal standard under which the most coercive ex parte pressure to reach a verdict will never be found prejudicial.”

  • August 14, 2025

    Expert Can Testify That Marijuana Use, Not Defective Helmet, Caused Brain Injuries

    SHERMAN, Texas — A neuropsychologist who opines that a man’s cognitive and neurological impairments were, at least in part, caused by his use of marijuana and not solely the result of wearing an allegedly defectively designed motorcycle helmet during an accident can testify after a Texas federal judge rejected the man’s efforts to bar her testimony under Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403.

  • August 12, 2025

    Depo-Provera MDL Judge Rejects Bid To Modify Common Benefits Guidelines

    PENSACOLA, Fla. — A Florida federal judge denied a motion to modify an order, which established common benefit preliminary procedures and guidelines, filed by a law firm that represents one plaintiff in 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.

  • August 11, 2025

    $3.5M Class Settlement OK’d In Assisted Living Facilities Misrepresentation Suit

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California approved a $3.5 million class action settlement and injunction between the operator of assisted living communities and a resident resolving claims that the operator misrepresented to residents its capability of adequately providing care services.

  • August 07, 2025

    Judge Finds Proposed Expert Testimony Irrelevant After Certain Claims Dismissed

    TACOMA, Wash. — After granting a motion to dismiss a man’s negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) claim, a Washington federal judge found that testimony from experts retained by a man who sued after his wife died from surgical complications is admissible as irrelevant under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.

  • August 05, 2025

    2 Smokers With Cancer Sue Tobacco Companies, Retailers In Hawaii State Court

    HONOLULU — A smoker with lung cancer and a smoker with bladder cancer filed separate personal injury complaints in Hawaii state courts against tobacco companies and retailers, both seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the defendants for concealing the risks of smoking and getting them addicted in the 1960s and 1970s.

  • August 01, 2025

    Tobacco Settlement Doesn’t Bar Smoker’s Punitive Damages Claim, Hawaii Judge Says

    WAILUKU, Hawaii — A Hawaii state court judge declined to dismiss a lawsuit filed by an elderly smoker with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who brought a products liability and fraudulent misrepresentation lawsuit against tobacco companies and a local retailer, writing that Hawaii’s entry into the 1998 master settlement agreement (MSA) with tobacco companies does not preclude individual smokers from seeking punitive damages.

  • July 31, 2025

    Split Panel Reverses $8.1M Verdict For Smoker’s Kids Over Jury Instruction Error

    MIAMI — A split Florida Third District Court of Appeal panel on July 30 reversed a trial court’s final judgment worth $8.1 million in compensatory damages in favor of the children of a dead smoker, finding that the court’s instructions on fraud-related findings from the Engle trial were improper and remanded for a new trial.

  • July 30, 2025

    Massachusetts Jury Awards $42 Million In Asbestos Case Against Johnson & Johnson

    BOSTON — A Massachusetts jury on July 29 found Johnson & Johnson negligent and that it breached the implied warranty of merchantability and awarded a couple $42,608,300 for the husband’s mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos in Johnson & Johnson consumer talc in what sources said is believed to be the largest asbestos verdict in state history.

  • July 29, 2025

    Delaware Jury Awards $9 Million In Asbestos Shotgun Shell Case

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware jury awarded $9 million to a farmer’s estate and family in what is believed to be the first asbestos-related shotgun shell mesothelioma case to go to a verdict.

  • July 29, 2025

    Hearing Set To Confirm Satisfaction Of $9.3M Judgment For Smoker’s Death

    A Florida state court judge on July 28 set a hearing on an unopposed motion by tobacco company R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (RJR) to confirm the satisfaction of a more than $9.3 million judgment awarded against it by a second jury for causing the death of a smoker from coronary artery disease (CAD) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), while on the same day a pending appeal of the judgment was stayed.

  • July 28, 2025

    Split N.Y. Panel Dismisses Tort Claims Against Meta In Grocery Store Shooting Suit

    ROCHESTER, N.Y. — In four consolidated appeals, a split New York appeals court on July 25 reversed a lower court ruling denying dismissal to Meta Platforms Inc. and other social media companies sued for various tort claims by survivors and family members of victims killed in a 2022 grocery story shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., finding that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides immunity to these defendants for the tort claims against them.

  • July 28, 2025

    Los Angeles Jury Awards $48.8M To Man Struck By City Garbage Truck In Crosswalk

    LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles jury awarded a man who has been in a coma since he was struck by a city garbage truck almost $49 million in damages after the city stipulated to its liability and a trial was conducted solely on the question of damages.

  • July 25, 2025

    Florida Panel Revives Smoker With Lung Cancer’s Nicotine Defect Lawsuit

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The First District Florida Court of Appeal reversed a trial court’s dismissal with prejudice of a second amended complaint against two tobacco companies filed by a smoker with lung cancer, writing that the smoker deserves a chance to plead additional facts in support of her strict liability claim.

  • July 18, 2025

    6th Circuit Affirms Hip Implant Device Manufacturer’s Summary Judgment Award

    CINCINNATI — A lower court properly granted a manufacturer of a hip implant device summary judgment after finding that a man’s expert witnesses to support his claim that the device was defective were properly excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held.

  • July 15, 2025

    Judge Limits Some Experts In Case Alleging Defective Gas Container Caused Fire

    PENSACOLA, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida agreed to limit testimony from certain experts retained by a woman who alleges that a faulty gas container caused a gas vapor to ignite, causing serious burn injuries.

  • July 15, 2025

    Family: AI Output Speech Questions Interesting, But Not Appeal Worthy

    ORLANDO, Fla. — First Amendment questions surrounding artificial intelligence outputs may be “controversial, important, or potentially influential for courts” but do little to further negligence and wrongful death litigation tying a child’s suicide to use of specially created AI characters and do not rise to the level requiring interlocutory appeal, a family told a federal judge in Florida in opposing immediate appeal on a ruling covering the First Amendment and aiding and abetting claims.

  • July 15, 2025

    Monsanto Seeks Missouri High Court Review Of $549.9M Roundup Damages Award

    JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Monsanto Co. has filed a petition with the Missouri Supreme Court seeking review of an appellate decision that upheld a combined $549.9 million punitive damages award for three plaintiffs who argued that exposure to the herbicide Roundup caused their cancers.  Monsanto contends that review is warranted because there are “fundamental separation of powers concerns” with respect to a statute that is designed to ensure that a defendant is not forced to pay repeated punitive verdicts arising from the same alleged misconduct.

  • July 14, 2025

    7th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Suit Against Battery Maker For E-Cig Explosion

    CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of personal injury claims brought by a minor against a Korean battery maker for injuries suffered when lithium-ion batteries intended for use with an e-cigarette device exploded in his pocket, finding that the Korean company did not purposefully avail itself of the Indiana market for batteries while noting that other courts around the country addressing exploding vape cases have split on the issue.