Settling Before Trial Costs Shipbuilder In Insurance Coverage Dispute In Eleventh Circuit
Posted on Jan 11, 2015
In 2002, the crew of a passenger vessel was preparing for an extended lay-up period when the Captain cut the ship’s power to disconnect from its battery terminals and became trapped in the forward bulkhead door in a position that prevented rescuers from accessing the door’s emergency release mechanism. The Captain died in the incident and his estate brought a wrongful death action against the shipbuilder (Shipbuilder) and the marine engineering firm (Architect) alleging that the bulkhead door was unreasonably dangerous because it was designed and installed so that a person...
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Contribution, Indemnification, And Breach Of Contract Claims Under State Law Not Preempted By LIA
Posted on Jan 10, 2015
After a railroad settled four cases brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) with employees for injuries caused by allegedly defective equipment, the railroad filed an action against the company that manufactured the equipment and the company that had been hired to repair the equipment “in such a way as to prevent future seat failures” for state law indemnification, contribution, and breach of contract claims. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, however, dismissed the case on the grounds that all of the railroad’s claims...
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Plaintiffs’ Product Liability Expert Opinions Scrutinized By Federal Courts
Posted on Jan 9, 2015
Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska issued opinions addressing challenges to proffered plaintiffs’ expert testimony in product liability cases. In the Nebraska case, which involved injuries sustained from a fall off a ladder, the court excluded the plaintiff’s expert opinion that the fall was caused by a failure of the metal rivets in the ladder. In the Tennessee case, the court rejected the defendant motorcycle manufacturer’s challenge to the plaintiff’s expert’s...
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California Federal Court Prevents Product Liability Plaintiff From Changing Case Theory On Eve Of Trial
Posted on Jan 7, 2015
While installing an industrial switchboard, a California worker sustained serious injuries and brought suit against the switchboard manufacturer alleging defective design. Under California law, a tort claim for strict liability based on design defect can proceed under two theories: the risk-benefit test, which asks whether the benefits of the challenged design outweigh the risk of danger inherent in the design, or the consumer expectations test, which asks whether the product performed as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended and reasonably foreseeable...
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2014 Year in Review
Posted on Jan 6, 2015
Earlier today, we released the 2014 Safety Litigation Year in Review, which assembles our 20 most popular postings from the site’s inaugural year. The Year in Review document is available here.
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Speculation Of Future Property Damage From Pipeline Leaks Not Enough For Missouri Plaintiffs
Posted on Jan 6, 2015
A group of Missouri plaintiffs brought a putative class action seeking recovery for alleged property damages incurred as a result of several defendants’ ownership, maintenance, and control of a pipeline. The pipeline carried petroleum from 1952 to 1990. In 1994, the pipeline was sold to another company. As part of the sale, a document prepared by the selling company was created entitled “Products Spills for Assets Being Sold,” and which contained a list of remediated leaks for which the seller agreed to retain liability. In discovery, the defendants also produced a...
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“Any Exposure” Asbestos Theory Rejected By Illinois Federal Court
Posted on Jan 4, 2015
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois will exclude the opinions of two proffered experts who were going to testify to the “Any Exposure” theory of asbestos exposure in a personal injury case. That theory posits that any exposure to asbestos fibers at all constitutes an underlying cause of injury to the individual exposed. In excluding the testimony, the court emphasized that “the notion that it is theoretically possible that any amount of exposure could cause injury is different from an opinion that the particular level of dosage experienced by a...
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