Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese, incorporated in New York, has its principal place of business in New York City. Church of the Nativity is a New York City parish under the Archdiocese. Marist Brothers, a religious order, serves at Church of the Nativity. Mt. St. Michael’s is a private religious high school in New York City. From 1977, when Elliott was eight years old, through 1983, Galligan, a brother of the Marist Order, taught at Mt. St. Michael’s and performed services at the Church. Galligan allegedly abused Elliott, a citizen of New Jersey, at locations in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Delaware, when the two travelled together. Elliott filed suit in the Superior Court of Delaware. Defendants removed to federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship. The district court held that it lacked personal jurisdiction over two of the institutional defendants and that the statutes of limitations (Delaware Child Victim's Act) barred claims against all institutional defendants. The Third Circuit dismissed an appeal. The district court failed to state that it had determined that there was no just reason for delay, so the order did not properly certify the judgment under Rule 54(b).

Barnabas rented a van from Budget and gave Dewindt permission to use it without listing her as an authorized driver on the rental agreement. Dewindt was driving down a steep hill when the brakes failed. Dewindt attempted to stop by driving onto an uphill driveway. The van crashed into a tree, injuring the passengers. Barnabas was not in the van. The district court entered summary judgment for Budget. The Third Circuit reversed and remanded on claims of strict liability, breach of warranty, and loss of consortium. The district court erroneously relied on cases decided under the Second Restatement of Torts which does not recognize strict liability claims against lessorss. Strict liability under the Third Restatement would reach Budget as lessor/distributor of the allegedly defective van. The Third Circuit had certified the question and the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands responded that Virgin Islands local courts should apply sections 1 and 20 of the Third Restatement and allow lessors to be held strictly liable for injuries resulting from a defective product. The district court should also determine whether plaintiffs may rely on warranties in the rental agreement with Budget.

Plaintiff, 12 years old, was bitten by a barracuda while playing in shallow water near Buck Island Reef National Monument. Buck Island is accessible only by watercraft and is open to the public for recreational activities. When boat owners apply for a permit to visit, they receive a brochure detailing hazards. There are also signs posted on the Island, warning of the same hazards. The warnings indicate that barracuda should be treated with caution, but are not usually aggressive toward humans. The government was aware of only one incident in 22 years involving a barracuda bite near Buck Island. Plaintiff filed suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 2671, alleging negligent failure to warn. The district court dismissed, citing the discretionary function exception to the FTCA. The Third Circuit affirmed. No statute, regulation, or policy mandated any particular method for warning about marine hazards. The National Park Service has discretion regarding whether to provide warnings and the extent of any such warnings, in light of the information available.

Plaintiff, a maintenance director, had a stroke and began leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. 612(a)(1) in January 2008. He received disability benefits from Unum. The doctor cleared him to return to work starting on May 1, with conditions that he not work more than four hours per day or lift loads in excess of 20 pounds. The administrator notified plaintiff that part-time work was not available. The doctor cleared him to work full-time, but did not change the lifting restriction. On April 20, the employer terminated plaintiff's employment and notified him that he would not be rehired with lifting restrictions. Until July 2008, when the restrictions were lifted, he received benefits from Unum. The district court rejected claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, and the FMLA. The Third Circuit affirmed. The FMLA does not require an employer to provide reasonable accommodation to facilitate return to an equivalent position following leave. Entitlement to restoration requires that the employee be able to perform essential job functions without accommodation. Having represented to Unum that he was disabled, plaintiff was estopped from claiming that he was able to perform all essential functions.

In 2005, an inmate filed a pro se lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 2671, alleging personal injuries caused by defendants' exposing him to second-hand smoke. The district court dismissed, but news of the dismissal did not reach him for almost a year because of a prison transfer. The district court denied untimely motions to reopen the time for appeal and for reconsideration. The Third Circuit affirmed, holding that it could not relax the timing requirements for filing a motion to reopen the time for appeal under FRAP 4(a)(6), even for prison delay, because those requirements are governed by statute and are jurisdictional. The situation is not one in which time lost due to prison delays can be excluded. While prison delay may make an untimely motion for reconsideration timely, that motion was delayed by clerks' office errors, not by prison delay.

Petitioner, a bookkeeper, part-time receptionist, and house-cleaner, developed reflexive sympathetic dystrophy after she fell. After reducing her hours, she stopped working in April 2008. Her application for disability benefits and SSI was denied in June 2008. In June 2009, she had a hearing before an ALJ, who denied her applications, finding that she was not disabled because she had the residual functional capacity to perform sedentary work with certain limitations and that jobs meeting those criteria were available. Eight months later, the Appeals Council denied review. The district court held that the ALJ's RFC determination was not supported by substantial evidence. The Third Circuit reversed, holding that the ALJ adequately explained the decision and properly relied on a 2008 report by the state agency medical consultant.

Decedent was treated at a non-profit clinic, by volunteer physicians. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deemed those physicians to be Public Health Service employees (Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. 233(o)), immune from suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346, 2671-2680. A suit against the U.S. was the exclusive remedy for alleged malpractice at the clinic. Decedent also treated at a facility where physicians did not enjoy those protections. Her estate sued the U.S., the clinic, the other facility, the doctors at that facility, and their physicians' group. The district court granted summary judgment for the clinic, predicated on immunity under the New Jersey Charitable Immunity Act (NJCIA), and ultimately dismissed. The Third Circuit affirmed, except for remanding with respect to the physicians' group. The trial court properly held that the U.S. was immune from suit under the NJCIA, which provides that a similarly-placed private employer would be entitled to the defense. The court properly held that the treatment provided constituted emergency medicine, so that N.J. Stat. 2A:53A-41 applied and one of plaintiff's experts was not qualified to testify. The court erred in not considering treatment by a physicians' assistant in considering claims against her employer, the physicians' group.

The company issued the family auto insurance when they lived in New Jersey. The family moved to Pennsylvania, and made the company aware of the permanent relocation, before being involved in a traffic accident in Pennsylvania that killed one member of the family and injured others. The policy of the other driver has paid its limit. New Jersey law limits personal injury protection claims to $250,000 per person; under Pennsylvania law the family would be entitled to "stacked" underinsured motorist benefits. The district court granted the company declaratory relief, finding that New Jersey law applied to the contract. The Third Circuit remanded holding that Pennsylvaniaâs choice-of-law rules do not apply, but that New Jersey choice-of-law rules point to Pennsylvania law as governing the dispute. The court affirmed the grant of summary judgment to the company on a counterclaim alleging that it engaged in a bad faith denial of insurance coverage.

Named plaintiffs are residents of a residential area of about 2000 people. Defendants, chemical companies, operated a facility one mile north of the area. Plaintiffs allege that defendants dumped wastewater into a lagoon that seeped into an aquifer where it degraded into vinyl chloride, a carcinogen. The district court denied certification of a class seeking medical monitoring for village residents exposed to airborne vinyl chloride between 1968 and 2002, and a liability-only issue class seeking compensation for property damage from the exposure. The Third Circuit affirmed. The district court acted within its discretion in finding plaintiffs would be unable to prove a concentration of vinyl chloride that would create a significant risk of contracting a serious latent disease for all class members. A single injunction or declaratory judgment could not provide relief to each member of the class, due to individual issues unrelated to the monetary nature of the claim. Each person's work, travel, and recreational habits may have affected their level of exposure. Certification of a liability-only issue class could unfairly impact defendants and absent class members.

Plaintiff was injured while driving a rental car on a defendant's Virgin Islands property. Her suit against two Virgin Islands companies was dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction based on a determination that plaintiff was domiciled in the Virgin Islands at the time, notwithstanding her insistence that she was domiciled in Texas. Plaintiff owned a house in Texas, but had been living in an apartment and working on "indefinite" work assignment in the islands for seven months. She was born in the islands and has friends and relatives there as well as in Texas. The Third Circuit remanded, stating that the court did not give adequate consideration to plaintiff's declaration that she intended to return to Texas upon completion of her work assignment.