Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

On April 10, 2017, Cedric Anderson entered his wife’s classroom at an elementary school, which was part of the San Bernardino City Unified School District (the district). Anderson shot and killed his wife, a student, and himself in front of a class of students. Plaintiffs-appellants C.I. (minor), J.I. (guardian ad litem), D.B. (minor), J.B. (guardian ad litem), B.E.Jr. (minor), B.E.Sr. (guardian ad litem), J.A.G. (minor), J.G. (guardian ad litem), M.M. (minor), M.T.M. (guardian ad litem), M.P. (minor), E.B. (guardian ad litem), M.R. (minor), and D.R. (guardian ad litem) filed suit against defendants-respondents district and Y.D. (the school’s principal), alleging, inter alia, negligence and dangerous condition of property. Defendants moved for summary judgment on the grounds they owed no duty to plaintiffs because Anderson’s actions were unforeseeable, the school property was not a dangerous condition because there was no defect, and Anderson was not using the school property with due care. The trial court agreed, and judgment was entered in defendants’ favor. On appeal, plaintiffs contended defendants had a duty to take reasonable steps to protect students from criminal activity, and the district created a dangerous condition by failing to lock the front office door and equip classrooms with doors that locked. Finding no reversible error in the trial court judgment, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "C.I. v. San Bernardino City Unified School Dist." on Justia Law

Carl Schwartz filed suit against King County, Washington (County) for the catastrophic injuries he suffered when he collided with a bollard the County installed on the Green River Trail. The County moved for summary judgment dismissal, arguing that Washington’s recreational use immunity statute, RCW 4.24.210, precluded liability and that the statute’s exception for known dangerous artificial latent conditions did not apply. The trial court agreed and granted summary judgment for the County. The Court of Appeals disagreed and reversed summary judgment. The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals, finding Schwartz presented evidence showing a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the bollard was a known dangerous artificial latent condition, so the trial court erred by granting summary judgment for the County. The case was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Schwartz v. King County" on Justia Law

This is an appeal from a district court’s grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Plaintiff sought a declaratory judgment that Defendant Biloxi H.M.A., L.L.C., doing business as Merit Health Biloxi (“Merit Health”), a hospital, has a duty to disclose that it charges a “facility fee,” also referred to as a “surcharge,” to all emergency room patients who receive care at its facility. The district court, making an Erie guess informed by the Mississippi Supreme Court’s references to, and partial application of, the Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 551, determined that Merit Health did not have a duty to disclose because the surcharge was not a “fact basic to the transaction”, and it, therefore, granted the motion to dismiss.   The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded. The court explained that in applying relevant legal precepts, the court thinks that the Mississippi Supreme Court would hold that Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged facts that Merit Health had a duty to exercise reasonable care to disclose the surcharge. First, Plaintiff alleged that the surcharge was a material fact. Second, Plaintiff alleged that Merit Health was aware that patients like her were unaware of the surcharge, but nonetheless failed to disclose it. Third, Plaintiff alleged that she had a reasonable expectation of disclosure because Merit Health holds itself out to be a “caring community-based organization” and patients like her expected Merit Health to disclose the surcharge based on the confidence and trust that they placed in the hospital. View "Henley v. Biloxi H.M.A." on Justia Law

At issue were several statements in articles published by Morgan Simon on Forbes.com that connected CoreCivic to the detention of separated families at the U.S. border and characterized its lobbying efforts as pushing for punitive criminal and immigration laws. Simon’s firm is Candide Group. CoreCivic filed suit against Simon and Candide Group (collectively “Candide”) for defamation and defamation by implication. Candide made a special motion to strike CoreCivic’s complaint under California’s antiSLAPP Act, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code Section 425.16.   The Ninth Circuit held that the special motion provision of California’s anti-SLAPP statute applied in federal court, and affirmed in part the district court’s order granting Candide Group, LLC’s motion to strike the defamation complaint. The panel held that the court’s prior precedents control. In United States ex rel. v. Lockheed Missiles &Space Co., the court held that California’s anti-SLAPP statute applied in federal diversity actions because there was “no ‘direct collision’” between the statute and the relevant rules, and the twin purposes of Erie favored its application.   The panel turned to the merits of Candide’s anti-SLAPP motion. Because CoreCivic did not contest on appeal that the suit implicated Candide’s First Amendment rights, the panel needed only to determine–applying the 12(b)(6) standard–whether CoreCivic stated a claim for defamation under California law. The panel concluded that CoreCivic failed to plausibly plead a defamation or a defamation by implication claim based on statements about its connection to the separation of immigrant families at the U.S. border, and affirmed the district court’s dismissal of those claims. View "CORECIVIC, INC. V. CANDIDE GROUP, LLC" on Justia Law

Jana Mortensen sought treatment from Dr. Jeffrey Baker at The Healing Sanctuary, LLC, after a hysterectomy failed to resolve symptoms for ongoing pelvic pain. Mortensen alleged Dr. Baker prescribed Mortensen a 14-day course of “ozone treatment” to be self-administered intravaginally at home. Mortensen allegedly breathed in ozone gas while administering the treatment, which she alleged caused her permanent pulmonary and cardiac injuries. Mortensen filed a complaint against Dr. Baker and The Healing Sanctuary (collectively “Dr. Baker”), claiming medical malpractice. Dr. Baker moved for summary judgment, arguing that Mortensen could not prove causation. The district court conditionally granted Dr. Baker’s motion for summary judgment after finding Mortensen had not raised a genuine issue of material fact; however, the court gave Mortensen a specified time to secure expert testimony on causation. Mortensen did not comply with the deadline. The district court entered summary judgment, denying Mortensen’s second request for additional time. The district court also denied her motion to reconsider. Mortensen appealed. The Idaho Supreme Court reversed, finding the district court erred in excluding certain statements. As a result, Dr. Baker was not entitled to summary judgment because the excluded testimony created a genuine issue of material fact. View "Mortensen v. Baker" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a sheriff’s department employee, had an affair with the wife of a county administrator. The mistress allegedly conducted a smear campaign against Plaintiff’s wife and, when the affair ended, against Plaintiff as well. The sheriff’s department fired Plaintiff and a local prosecutor declined to prosecute the mistress for harassment. Suspecting the county administrator had a hand in both actions, Plaintiffs sued the mistress, the county administrator, and a host of other county officials for violating state and federal law. The district court entered a summary judgment in favor of the officials and certified that judgment as final even though claims against the mistress remained pending.   The Eleventh Circuit dismissed the appeal, finding that the district court abused its discretion when it determined that the summary judgment warranted certification under Rule 54(b). The determination in this case that there was no just reason for delay rested on a single factual finding—that “[t]his litigation could potentially remain pending for quite a lengthy time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” The court wrote that there is no indication that the delays here would cause anything other than inconvenience. Indeed, if pandemic-related delays alone justified an immediate appeal, Rule 54(b) certifications” would cease to “be reserved for the unusual case. View "Chase Peden, et al v. Glenn Stephens, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was severely injured in a crash while he was driving a Peterbilt semi-truck. He sued the truck’s manufacturer, PACCAR, Inc. (PACCAR), alleging that the truck’s defective design caused his injuries. A jury returned a verdict in PACCAR’s favor. His estate appeals, arguing that the district court committed several evidentiary errors at trial.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court held, 1.) Plaintiff's expert's second report was untimely under the discovery orders in the case, and the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding it; 2.) the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that plaintiff had failed to show the good cause required under Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4) to modify the scheduling order after the court declared a mistrial; 3.) Plaintiff failed to preserve his challenge to Defendant's "state-of-the-art" defense.Applying plain error review to Plaintiff's challenge to Defendant's "state-of-the-art" defense, the court held the district court did not plainly err in admitting the testimony as the witnesses were testifying based on their extensive industry experience, and noted that Iowa law permits industry custom as evidence of the state of the art. View "Elizabeth Zick v. Paccar, Inc." on Justia Law

Appellants lost over $850,000 when an alleged BB&T employee and a co-conspirator impersonated them, changed their passwords, and transferred the money out of their BB&T bank accounts. Appellants sued BB&T under contract and tort theories. The district court dismissed the tort claims as duplicative of the contract claim, concluding that Appellants’ demand was time-barred because BB&T’s standard bank account contract limited the time to assert a demand from the statutory one-year period to just 30 days. In the alternative, the district court entered summary judgment for BB&T because it concluded the bank had and had followed commercially reasonable security procedures.The Eleventh Circuit vacated (1) the district court’s order dismissing the complaint and (2) the district court’s order entering summary judgment for BB&T on the remaining counts in the Fourth Amended Complaint, finding, as a matter of law, that Appellants’ claim for statutory repayment is not time-barred. View "Jesus Alonso Alvarez Rodriguez, et al v. Branch Banking & Trust Company, et al" on Justia Law

In July 2017, Jeremy Thornhill said that he had injured his back while working. He sought workers’ compensation benefits from his employer, Walker-Hill and its insurance carrier, Zurich American Insurance Company of Illinois (collectively, Employer/Carrier), but the Employer/Carrier denied that Thornhill had sustained a compensable injury. Ultimately, the parties agreed to compromise and settled pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 71-3-29 (Rev. 2021). Thornhill submitted the settlement to the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission for approval. After examining the application, the Commission approved the settlement and dismissed Thornhill’s case with prejudice. Pursuant to the settlement, Thornhill signed a general release,” which reserved his right to pursue a bad faith claim. Believing he had exhausted his administrative remedies, Thornhill filed a bad faith suit against the Employer/Carrier. The Employer/Carrier moved to dismiss, arguing that Thornhill had not exhausted administrative remedies—and that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction—because the Commission never made a factual finding that he was entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. The trial court granted the motion on that basis. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, finding that Thornhill indeed exhausted his administrative remedies and that the circuit court had jurisdiction to hear his bad faith claim. Finding no reversible error in the appellate court’s decision, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. View "Thornhill v. Walker-Hill Environmental, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, the heirs and executor of the estate of Viviana Ruscitto, filed complaints seeking compensatory and punitive damages on numerous counts after Ruscitto’s death from leiomyosarcoma, a rare cancer that cannot be reliably diagnosed preoperatively, following the hysterectomy she underwent at defendant Valley Hospital with the use of a power morcellation device. Ruscitto sought treatment for uterine fibroids from defendant Howard Jones, a gynecologic surgeon at the hospital with whom Ruscitto met four times before she underwent surgery. Approximately six months before Ruscitto’s surgery, the FDA issued a Safety Communication discouraging the use of power morcellation. Valley Hospital administrators and Dr. Jones exchanged emails about the continued use of power morcellation. They considered factors including that “without the morcellator these cases would be open instead of laparoscopic, which “increases morbidity”; the fact that “the numbers at Valley” did not support the “1 sarcoma in 350 operations” number suggested by the FDA; and the role of informed consent. A “power morcellation group” was convened to draft an informed consent form. A form was prepared and approved by the legal department but was never implemented or used prior to Ruscitto’s surgery. One month after her surgery, the FDA issued an updated communication explicitly warning against the use of power morcellators in the majority of cases. Valley Hospital then discontinued use of the power morcellation device. Plaintiffs brought claims against several defendants, including Dr. Jones and the Valley Hospital administrators, and defendants sought partial summary judgment dismissing the punitive damages claim. The trial court denied the motions, and the Appellate Division denied leave to appeal. The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded a reasonable jury could not find by clear and convincing evidence that punitive damages were warranted based on the facts of this case, and partial summary should have been granted. View "Rivera v. Valley Hospital, Inc." on Justia Law