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Mealey's Personal Injury

  • June 12, 2025

    Experts On Firearms, Suicide Risks Can Testify In Suit By Walmart Employee’s Family

    GREENBELT, Md. — A Maryland federal magistrate judge agreed to limit testimony from experts retained by the family of a Walmart employee who killed himself with a gun he purchased at the Walmart where he worked, finding that the experts cannot offer legal conclusions or use specialized legal terminology in their testimony.

  • June 09, 2025

    Texas Jury Awards $9.45 Million For Fall Into Unlit Empty Hotel Fountain

    DALLAS — A Texas jury awarded a man $9,451,000 in compensatory and exemplary damages after finding a hotel he had been staying in liable for injuries he suffered falling into an empty fountain that was level with surrounding ground but concealed by darkness and a lack of illumination.

  • June 03, 2025

    Panel Affirms $475K Judgment For Personal Injury Plaintiff In Wire Fraud ‘Scam’

    SAN DIEGO — In what it said was a case of first impression, a California appellate court affirmed a lower court’s judgment for a personal injury plaintiff in a dispute with a restaurant and its employees over who bears the risk of loss when an “imposter” caused a $475,000 personal injury settlement to be wired to an unknown third party instead of the plaintiff, finding that evidence shows that “red flags should have alerted” the restaurant and the employees “to the fraud, and that there were none that should have alerted plaintiff.”

  • May 30, 2025

    Unsafe Marlboros Lights Made Smoker Increase Habit Before Cancer, Jury Told

    WOBURN, Mass. — The widower of a smoker told a Massachusetts state court jury during opening arguments in a wrongful death lawsuit against tobacco company Philip Morris USA Inc. (PM) and local retailers that the defendants sold defective Marlboro Lights that the decedent thought were healthier but which kept her hooked on smoking until she developed fatal lung cancer and died at age 64. VIDEO OF THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.

  • May 30, 2025

    Michigan Supreme Court: Attorney Fee Sanction Allowed Under Then-Court Rule

    LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Supreme Court has reversed dismissal of a $169,512 attorney fee sanction in a dental malpractice case, saying the trial court correctly applied a court rule allowing such an award that was in effect during the pendency of the case.

  • May 23, 2025

    Depo-Provera MDL Judge Says Complaints Must Identify Requisite Injury And Product

    PENSACOLA, Fla. — The Florida federal judge overseeing 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, outlined what complaints must contain to be included in the MDL and identified potential deficiencies in complaints that have been filed.

  • May 22, 2025

    Louisiana Federal Judge Limits Medical Causation Testimony In Accident Case

    NEW ORLEANS — A medical expert retained in a car accident case may be qualified to opine on certain injuries, but portions of his testimony are inadmissible as unreliable under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Louisiana federal judge found.

  • May 21, 2025

    ‘Death-Penalty’ Sanctions Over Discovery Not Merited, Texas Supreme Court Finds

    AUSTIN, Texas — A trial court abused its discretion by issuing discovery sanctions in the form of striking the defendant’s pleadings in a vehicular negligence suit, the Texas Supreme Court ruled, holding that there was no evidence of bad faith or intentional concealment that would justify a “death-penalty” sanction that essentially causes a party to lose the case.

  • May 21, 2025

    Expert Can Testify On Reasonableness Of Medical Costs, Miss. Federal Judge Says

    JACKSON, Miss. — A man who alleges that he was injured in a traffic accident lost his bid to exclude an expert retained by a company who disputed the reasonable costs of the man’s necessary medical treatment as a result of the collision when a Mississippi federal judge denied his motion to exclude.

  • May 16, 2025

    Man Hurt In Accident Loses Bid To Exclude Defense’s Expert In Texas Crash Suit

    SAN ANTONIO — A Texas magistrate judge denied two motions to exclude experts retained in an automobile accident without prejudice, finding that the trial court should be “able to consider specific objections to aspects of their testimony as they arise at trial and/or through any motions in limine.”

  • May 15, 2025

    Colorado Supreme Court: Driver’s Medical Records Protected By Privilege

    DENVER — A truck driver who is the defendant in a wrongful death suit properly claimed physician-patient privilege in his emergency room medical records, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled, including facts about the underlying auto accident that may not specifically relate to the treatment of his injuries.

  • May 14, 2025

    Tennessee High Court: Peer- Review Privilege Waived In Items Disclosed To Family

    KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Acknowledging that discussions and materials from a hospital’s quality improvement committee (QIC) over a patient's care and death were privileged under state law as a form of peer-review privilege, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that this privilege was waived in any materials disclosed to a decedent’s family at a subsequent meeting.

  • May 09, 2025

    Boston Court Enters $13M Judgment In Favor Of Dead Smoker’s Estate

    BOSTON — The Suffolk County, Mass., Superior Court on May 8 entered judgment in favor of a dead smoker’s estate worth more than $13 million in compensatory and punitive damages after a jury found in favor of the estate on its claim that a tobacco company’s “power of coercion conspiracy” caused the smoker’s lung cancer and death. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.

  • May 09, 2025

    Alabama Supreme Court Remands Soup Burn Negligence Suit For Further Discovery

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Inconsistencies and questions in the record about the identity of the owner and operator of a market and deli where purportedly scalding soup was purchased demonstrate that a plaintiff’s requested deposition of the defendant’s owner is crucial to her case, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled, concluding that a trial court exceeded its discretion by denying the plaintiff’s motion to continue a summary judgment hearing for the purpose of conducting such discovery.

  • May 07, 2025

    Plaintiffs’ Experts Allowed In Baby Formula MDL But 1st Bellwether Case Dismissed

    CHICAGO — Experts retained by parents suing the manufacturers of infant formula that they allege caused preterm infants to develop necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) can testify in the multidistrict litigation in an Illinois federal court, the judge overseeing the MDL ruled, but in a separate order the same day, she granted a manufacturer summary judgment in the first bellwether case set for trial.

  • May 07, 2025

    Judge Declares Mistrial, Calls For Retrial Of Punitives In Ethylene Oxide Case

    LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — A state court judge in Georgia on May 6 declared a mistrial in the punitive damages phase of a trial but let stand a compensatory damages verdict of $20 million in a lawsuit brought by a man who contends that a medical sterilization plant is liable for causing his cancer because it emitted ethylene oxide (EtO) into the environment.

  • May 06, 2025

    Judge: 1 Expert Out, Another Expert’s Testimony Limited In Marine Injury Case

    NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge barred a marine expert retained by a man who alleges that he was injured while working aboard a vessel from testifying and limited testimony from an expert retained by the vessel’s owner and operator, finding that the excluded testimony at issue is inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.

  • May 06, 2025

    Georgia Enacts Measure Changing Discovery, Damages In Injury, Death Actions

    ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a wide-ranging bill substantially amending how the state’s courts handle civil practice, discovery and tort liability in the state; the measure stays discovery when a party moves for dismissal prior to filing an answer, limits the ability of injured parties to argue at trial about the amount of noneconomic damages in bodily injury and wrongful death cases and limits the recovery of attorney fees.

  • May 05, 2025

    Family Can’t Secure New Trial In Rhode Island Asbestos Case

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — While the evidence could have supported a verdict in favor of a mesothelioma sufferer's family and there were some anomalies at trial, the plaintiffs largely failed to object, and the jury was not improperly influenced into finding for the a fiber supplier, a Rhode Island justice said in denying a new trial and judgment as a matter of law.

  • May 05, 2025

    Supreme Court Refuses Case About Jury Trial Sought in Camp Lejeune Water Crisis

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 5 refused to hear an appeal in which two individuals challenged 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.

  • May 02, 2025

    Ala. Federal Judge: Expert Who Opines Defective Ladder Caused Injuries Excluded

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An Alabama federal judge on May 1 granted summary judgment to a ladder manufacturer after finding that testimony by an expert retained by a man who alleges that defects to the ladder caused him to be injured is inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • 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.