Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

In this appeal, Greater Omaha Packing Company (GOPAC) asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate a jury's unanimous finding that GOPAC supplied Fairbank Reconstruction Corporation with E. coli-tainted beef, which Fairbank then packaged and shipped to two supermarkets in Maine, resulting in two women who bought meat there becoming seriously ill. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that there was no basis upon which to upset the jury's verdict, as (1) the evidence was sufficient for a reasonable jury to conclude that GOPAC's meat was contaminated and that such meat was included in the packages the two women purchased; and (2) the trial court did not err in admitting a video deposition of GOPAC's former expert witness. View "Fairbank Reconstruction v. Greater Omaha Packing Co." on Justia Law

The parties in this case were Plaintiff, Madeleine Candelario del Moral, and Defendant, UBS Financial Services, Inc. of Puerto Rico (UBSPR). The lead issue argued here arose from a Puerto Rico judge's verbal order in a divorce contest between Plaintiff and her ex-husband, David Efron. The order vacated a multi-million dollar attachment Plaintiff obtained against Efron's UBSPR accounts. A courtroom clerk later wrote that vacating order up in a document called "minutes," which never got signed by a judge or properly noticed to Plaintiff and Efron. Claiming that the minutes were facially defective, Plaintiff insisted that UBSPR was negligent in letting Efron withdraw millions from certain accounts. The circuit court agreed and granted Plaintiff's motion as to liability. Acting own his own initiative, the circuit court judge (Judge) granted Plaintiff summary judgment on her damages claim too, even though she had expressly limited her motion to the threshold liability issue. The First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the summary judgment for Plaintiff because there were genuine issues of material fact precluding summary judgment. Remanded for trial. View "Candelario-Del-Moral v. UBS Fin. Servs., Inc. of P.R." on Justia Law

Plaintiff was severely injured in a workplace accident and sued Trail King, the custom manufacturer of the trailer involved in the accident. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a jury's finding that Defendant had not been negligent nor in breach of any warranty. In the trial court in that diversity case, Plaintiffs belatedly attempted to amend their complaint to add another claim, one under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A for unfair and deceptive trade practices. The trial judge denied the motion, finding the effort to amend untimely. Plaintiffs did not appeal this denial in their earlier appeal. This case concerned whether Plaintiffs may now maintain an independent suit for the ch. 93A claims against Trail King. The district court dismissed the claims with prejudice, finding that the doctrine of claim preclusion applied. Plaintiffs appealed, arguing that ch. 93A, 9(8) provides an exception to the normal rules of res judicata. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that under the facts of this case, Plaintiffs may not now bring this ch. 93A claim because of the failure to appeal from the denial of the motion to amend. View "Hatch v. Trail King Indus., Inc." on Justia Law

Mark and Carol Menard appealed from a district court order dismissing their complaint for failure to state a claim and denying their motion to amend the complaint. Mark Menard (Menard) was permanently injured while crossing through a railroad freight yard. The district court ruled that his complaint against CSX Transportation, Inc. for recklessness and negligence failed to assert sufficient facts to overcome his status as a "trespasser" and thereby state a claim under Massachusetts law. The First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the district court's judgment and remanded to allow Menard to explain to the district judge what basis he had to believe that narrow discovery was warranted for his peril-and-negligence allegation, which would prove an exception to the trespasser rule. View "Menard v. CSX Transp., Inc." on Justia Law

Employee was terminated from his job at a Walgreens store in Puerto Rico after a two-week absence from his job due to a medical condition. Following his termination, Employee and his wife (Wife) sued Walgreens, alleging that Employee was fired in retaliation for conduct protected by the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), that his termination was wrongful under Puerto Rico law, and that the loss of Employee's job caused Wife to suffer compensable emotional distress. The district court granted summary judgment for Walgreens on Wife's claim and the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the other Puerto Rico law claim. The FMLA claim went to trial, and a jury found in Employee's favor, awarding compensatory damages. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the district court in all respects, save its rejection of Wife's Puerto Rico law claim. Because the claim presented an important and unresolved issue of Puerto Rico law that the Court declined to address in the first instance, the Court certified the question to the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and reserved judgment on this particular issue pending its response. View "Pagan-Colon v. Walgreens of San Patricio, Inc." on Justia Law

in this trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract case, defendant Chance Mold Steel Co. (Chance) appealed from a permanent injunction and from a jury award of damages. The injunction, based on a finding of contract breach, prohibited Chance from selling, displaying, manufacturing, or assisting others in manufacturing a number of ergonomic computer mouse products. The injunction barred sale of specific products that were materially identical to products Chance had previously manufactured for Contour Design, Inc. (Contour) and a new product known as the ErgoRoller. Chance challenged the scope of the injunction and contended that the jury improperly awarded lost profits damages. The First Circuit Court of Appeals (1) reversed the injunction as applied to the ErgoRoller, holding that the record did not support the finding that Chance breached the contract in producing the ErgoRoller; (2) affirmed the scope of the injunction as applied to the other enjoined products; and (3) affirmed the damages award. View "Contour Design, Inc. v. Chance Mold Steel Co., Ltd." on Justia Law

Fernandes injured his back when he stepped into a hole in the floor of a tire "shed," an old shipping container, which was on property leased by AGAR to Fernandes's employer, Penske Truck Leasing. He sued AGAR on the theory that it owed him a duty of care to maintain and repair the tire shed under the lease. The district court granted summary judgment to AGAR under Massachusetts law. The First Circuit affirmed, finding that, under the lease, Agar had no duty to repair or maintain the shed.

Plaintiff's decedent was shot and killed by a man wielding a stolen handgun. Plaintiff claimed that the gun owner's negligent storage of the weapon and his failure timely to report its theft proximately caused the decedent's death. The district court rejected the claims. The First Circuit affirmed. Applying New Hampshire law, the court stated that the record, even construed in the light most favoring the plaintiff, does not show either a particularized risk of harm or a degree of foreseeability sufficient to animate an exception to the general rule that there is no duty to protect others from third-party criminal predations.

In consolidated negligence actions under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. 51, against two railroad defendants, a former employee, alleged cumulative, or wear-out, injuries to the neck, knees, left elbow and thumb, and accidental injury to the left forearm while driving a spike. The district court entered judgment for defendants. The First Circuit affirmed. The aggravation claims were untimely, and no fact-finder could reasonably have inferred that plaintiff became aware of a work connection with his knee pain and neck injury only after mid-September of 2004. The court rejected claims based in negligence, alleging inadequate tools and failure to obtain ergonomic studies of the activities required to perform plaintiff’s jobs and upheld admission of evidence of malingering.

A worker, injured at a construction site while working for a subcontractor, sued the developer. The developer submitted the claim to the insurer, which obtained a declaratory judgment that it was not required to indemnify or defend. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that a Contractors Exclusion clause was unambiguous and precluded coverage for any injuries arising out of operations performed for the insured by independent contractors.