Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

This case involved a wrongful-death claim filed by Michael Rondini ("Rondini"), as personal representative of the estate of Megan Rondini ("Megan"), to recover damages for the death of his daughter Megan, who committed suicide almost eight months after she was allegedly sexually assaulted while enrolled as a student at the University of Alabama. Rondini sued Megan's alleged assailant, Terry Bunn, Jr., in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division, claiming that Bunn's alleged sexual assault and false imprisonment of Megan proximately caused her death. After Bunn moved for summary judgment, the federal court certified a question to the Alabama Supreme Court on whether Rondini's wrongful-death claim was viable under Alabama law. Both Rondini and Bunn framed their arguments around the Alabama Supreme Court's decision in Gilmore v. Shell Oil Co., 613 So. 2d 1272 (Ala. 1993). The Alabama Supreme Court responded by stating suicide would not, as a matter of law, absolve an alleged assailant of liability. “The statement in Gilmore that suicide is unforeseeable as a matter of law, was made in the context of a negligence case and does not apply in an intentional-tort case involving an allegation of sexual assault. … traditional negligence concepts like foreseeability and proximate cause, which form the backbone of the negligence analysis in Gilmore, have a more limited application in intentional-tort cases.” The Court held that a wrongful-death action could be pursued against a defendant when there is substantial evidence both that defendant sexually assaulted the decedent and that the assault was a cause in fact of the decedent's later suicide. “In such cases, it is unnecessary to analyze whether the decedent's suicide was a foreseeable consequence of the sexual assault; liability may attach without regard to whether the defendant intended or could have reasonably foreseen that result.” View "Rondini v. Bunn" on Justia Law

Laura Register appealed the grant of summary judgment entered in favor of Outdoor Aluminum, Inc., as to her claim alleging retaliatory discharge. Register worked as a laborer for Outdoor Aluminum. As part of her employment, Register laid out metal material, drilled or punched holes in the material, and deburred and cut the material. Register punched holes in the metal material with a hydraulic-press machine. The hydraulic press became misaligned and was not punching through the metal. When Register attempted to fix the press, the press exploded, causing a two-inch long and half-inch thick piece of metal to strike Register on the head above her right eye and temple. Register reported the incident to her supervisor, Roger Wise. As a result of the incident, Register's neck and head were injured and she had headaches, blurred vision, dizziness, balance problems, and pain. Register sought workers' compensation benefits and medical treatment from Outdoor Aluminum. Approximately a year after Register’s accident and subsequent medical treatments, Outdoor Aluminum management expressed concern with the length of Register’s rehabilitation. In June 2017, a nurse case manager reported to Outdoor Aluminum that Register had been released to full duty with zero impairment by one doctor; by July, Register had not returned to work under advice of another doctor. Because she had not returned to work, and based on the nurse case manager’s report, Outdoor Aluminum terminated Register. In 2018, Register sued Outdoor Aluminum seeking workers' compensation benefits and damages for retaliatory discharge. The parties engaged in discovery. In May 2020, Outdoor Aluminum moved for summary judgment, arguing Register could not show that her workers' compensation claim was the sole motivating factor behind the termination of her employment. The Alabama Supreme Court reversed, finding Register presented substantial evidence that there were genuine issues of material fact that should have been resolved by a jury. View "Register v. Outdoor Aluminum, Inc." on Justia Law

In September 2016, defendant Trend Motors, Ltd. (Trend), provided defendant Mary Aquilar with a loaner vehicle for her personal use while her vehicle was being serviced. Aquilar’s negligent operation of the loaner vehicle caused it to strike plaintiff Tyrone Huggins’s car. Huggins sustained serious injuries as a result. GEICO insured Aquilar through an automobile policy. Trend held a garage policy with Federal Insurance Company (Federal) that insured Trend’s vehicles for up to $1,000,000 in liability coverage. The definition of an “insured” in the Federal policy purported to extend liability coverage to Trend’s customers using Trend’s vehicles only if the customer lacked the minimum insurance required by law. Huggins filed a complaint seeking compensation for the injuries and loss of income he suffered as a result of the accident. Federal disclaimed liability, arguing that Aquilar did not fit the policy’s definition of an insured because she held $15,000 in bodily injury coverage through GEICO. The trial court held that the Federal policy’s definition of an insured constituted an illegal escape clause and held Federal to the full policy limit of $1,000,000 in liability coverage. The Appellate Division declined to review the trial court’s ruling. The New Jersey Supreme Court concurred with the trial court’s ruling that the provision in the garage policy at issue constituted an illegal escape clause which could not be used to evade the minimum liability requirements for dealership vehicles set by the Chief Administrator of the Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC). The Court ordered the reformation of Federal’s policy to the $100,000/$250,000 dealer-licensure minimum liability coverage required by N.J.A.C. 13:21-15.2(l). View "Huggins v. Aquilar" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Hardee's after their six-year-old son was electrocuted by an exposed, electrified wire at one of defendant's restaurants and died. Hardee's moved for dismissal based on the doctrine of forum non conveniens, which the district court granted.The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal, concluding that, although its sister circuits take varying approaches to timeliness, under either approach, Hardee's filed a motion that was sufficiently untimely to warrant reversal. In this case, for 18 months, Hardee's knew the essential facts supporting its motion to dismiss. The court explained that the assertion that Missouri is an inconvenient forum for Hardee's rings hollow because of its long delay in filing its motion to dismiss based on forum non conveniens. The court concluded that, under these facts, the motion should have been filed earlier than 18 months after plaintiffs filed their complaint and earlier than the end of the discovery period prior to trial. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Hersh v. CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc." on Justia Law

TRC Fabrication, LLC, (TRC) purchased steel tubing from Brown Strauss Steel Co. (Brown Strauss), a company located in Fontana, California. Under the sales contract, Brown Strauss sold the tubing “free on board” to TRC. Brown Strauss contracted with Jay Transport, a trucking company based in Rigby, Idaho, which in turn engaged Dale Kelly, an independent owner-operator of a semi-truck to transport the tubing. Kelly hauled the tubing to Idaho Falls and delivered the load to TRC. When employees of TRC began to unload the tubing from the trailer, a forklift operator dropped the steel tubing, which then slid across the pavement and struck Kelly, seriously injuring his right leg, ankle, and foot. Kelly and his wife Nancy filed a complaint against TRC, seeking to recover damages for negligence and loss of consortium. After TRC filed a motion seeking summary judgment, the district court granted the motion and dismissed the Kellys’ complaint. The district court concluded that Idaho’s worker’s compensation law extended statutory immunity to TRC and limited the Kellys’ recovery to workers’ compensation benefits. The question this case presented for the Idaho Supreme Court's review was whether the immunity afforded a statutory employer applied to TRC to bar the Kellys' complaint for damages. The Supreme Court reversed the district court’s order granting summary judgment, vacated the judgment entered, and remanded the case for further proceedings: the district court erred in concluding that TRC was Kelly’s category one statutory employer. View "Kelly v. TRC Fabrication LLC" on Justia Law

Savannah Dail and Cindy Dail ("the Dails") petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus to direct the Montgomery Circuit Court to dismiss the claims asserted against them by Brittany Jordan, in her individual capacity. In 2017, the parties were involved in an automobile accident involving several other vehicles. In 2019, Jordan filed a complaint on behalf of herself and Caden Jordan, her minor child, asserting claims of negligence and wantonness against Diane Tyner, the individual driving the automobile that collided with the rear of Jordan's automobile. In 2020, Jordan filed an amended complaint asserting additional claims against the Dails. Responding to the Dails' motion to dismiss, Jordan claimed that, although the Dails were listed on an incident and offense report concerning the accident, the report did not indicate that they were at fault and that Jordan did not learn of the Dails' fault in the accident until discovery had been conducted. The Alabama Supreme Court found that because Jordan's amended complaint did not relate back to the filing of the original complaint pursuant to Rule 15, Ala. R. Civ. P., it granted the petition and issued the writ. View "Ex parte Savannah and Cindy Dail." on Justia Law

A husband and wife sued medical care providers after the wife suffered a seizure, allegedly due to a doctor’s decision to abruptly discontinue her medication. The superior court granted summary judgment to the medical care providers, ruling that the couple’s only expert witness, a pharmacist, was unqualified to provide testimony about the matter at issue because he was not a doctor of internal medicine and was not board-certified in the doctor’s field or specialty. The couple appealed. After review, the Alaska Supreme Court concurred with the trial court that the pharmacist’s testimony was not sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact about the relevant standard of care. The Court therefore affirmed the grant of summary judgment to the health care providers. View "Beistline v. Footit, and Banner Health Inc., D/B/A Fairbanks Memorial Hospital" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Intuitive for injuries following a surgical procedure, seeking money damages. After a two-day Daubert hearing, the district court agreed with Intuitive's position and excluded the testimony of plaintiff's expert.The Eleventh Circuit reversed, concluding that the district court erred in its application of the Daubert test and thus improperly entered summary judgment in favor of Intuitive. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in finding that perceived deficiencies in the expert's testimony rendered him unqualified to provide expert testimony in this case. In light of Quiet Tech. DC-8, Inc. v. Hurel-Dubois UK Ltd., 326 F.3d 1333, 1342 (11th Cir. 2003), the court concluded that the expert is qualified to perform a differential etiology on a patient who suffered a thermal injury during a hysterectomy performed with a da Vinci robot not because of his familiarity with the robot, but because of his familiarity with differential etiologies in the context of gynecological procedures. As such, the district court applied the incorrect legal standard, and thus abused its discretion.Even if the court were to ignore the district court's manifestly erroneous ruling that conflated the reliability and qualifications prongs, the court would still be obliged to reverse, as the district court imposed an admissibility standard on expert qualifications that was "too high." The court concluded that the district court improperly based its evidentiary determinations on the weight and persuasiveness of the evidence, and that Federal Rule of Evidence 702 does not impose any such requirements. Therefore, the expert was qualified to testify regarding the standard of care in hysterectomy procedures and the cause of plaintiff's injuries. On remand, the court directed that the case be assigned to a different judge. View "Moore v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff Nathan Petersen Plaintiff injured himself while operating the Raymond Model 4200 stand-up counterbalance lift truck (“Raymond forklift”). The Raymond forklift had an open compartment. So it did not fully enclose the operator’s lower extremities. When Plaintiff lost control of the Raymond forklift, his left leg slid out of the open compartment and he crushed it against warehouse racking. Plaintiff argued the district court impermissibly closed the door on the strict products liability claim he brought against Defendant Raymond Corporation (“Raymond”) alleging it defectively manufactured a forklift. In support of his claim he sought to offer expert testimony that the forklift would be safer if it had a literal door on it. The district court found the expert’s testimony unreliable and excluded it. It then granted a related motion for summary judgment in Raymond’s favor. Plaintiff appealed. "The district court serves as a gatekeeper, shutting the door on unreliable expert testimony." Finding the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the testimony, the Tenth Circuit affirmed judgment. View "Petersen v. Raymond Corporation" on Justia Law

Melissa Oster and N.B. appealed two orders denying motions for a new trial after a jury awarded a verdict in N.B.’s favor. Oster and her daughter, N.B., were staying at a residence owned by Kevin Terwilliger. Josh and Samantha Terwilliger were formerly married and lived at the residence. Samantha Terwilliger (nka Seewalker), was Oster’s cousin. In 2015, N.B. was playing with another child outside the Terwilliger residence while Oster and Seewalker were in the house. Josh and Kevin Terwilliger were not present. A horse on the Terwilliger property kicked N.B. in the head, seriously injuring her. The parties disputed the nature and extent of N.B.’s injuries. At trial, both sides provided testimony of expert medical witnesses to establish the extent of N.B’s injuries. A jury returned a verdict i favor of N.B. The jury did not award Oster damages and found her 45% at fault for N.B.’s accident. The jury attributed 0% fault to Kevin Terwilliger. Of the remaining fault, 30% was attributed to Josh Terwilliger and 25% to Seewalker. After the trial, two motions for a new trial were filed on behalf of N.B., not Oster. The district court denied the motions. N.B. and Oster appealed. Finding no reversible error, the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the district court's orders denying the motions for a new trial. View "N.B. et al. v. Terwilliger, et al." on Justia Law