Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff sued the City of Little Rock under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. 12133, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 ("Rehabilitation Act"), 29 U.S.C. 794a(a)(2), when she was injured at the Little Rock Zoo where her rental scooter tipped over on an incline. At issue was whether plaintiffs may recover compensatory damages under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act without showing a "heightened standard" of intentional discrimination. Also at issue was whether the rental fee charged by the zoo for the scooter was an impermissible surcharge under applicable ADA regulations. Further at issue was whether the district court erred in concluding that plaintiff lacked standing to challenge the zoo's liability waiver imposed after her accident. The court affirmed the judgment and held that plaintiff was not entitled to recover compensatory damages where she failed to show intentional discrimination through proof of deliberate indifference or otherwise. The court also held that the surcharge was not illegal where the zoo was not "required" to provide scooters to disabled visitors. The court further held that plaintiff lacked standing to challenge the waiver of tort liability the zoo enacted after her injury where she failed to show an adequate injury in fact.

Appellant brought a products liability lawsuit against appellee after appellant's left arm was amputated below his elbow as the result of a farming accident on a 1998 New Holland Model 648 hay baler. A jury found in favor of appellee and appellant appealed challenging six of the district court's evidentiary rulings. The court affirmed the judgment and held that the district court did not abuse it's discretion by admitting two jury verdicts favorable to appellee in other cases involving accidents substantially similar to appellant's where appellant's opening statements and theme increased the probative value of the verdicts; by excluding other accidents involving appellee's hay balers where admitting similar-incident evidence threatened to raise extraneous controversial issues, confuse the issues, be more prejudicial than probative, and create a trial within a trial for each previous incident; by excluding expert testimony of the pinch point and the baler tire where the evidence was minimally probative, cumulative, and would have unnecessarily confused the issue; and by admitting the total number of Series 6 balers manufactured where admitting the total number provided context for the jury to consider the substantially similar incidents. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding photographs and exhibits that had limited probative value and would unduly confuse the jury. The court further held that the district court did not err in excluding expert witness testimony regarding the Engineering Code of Ethics where such testimony was irrelevant because there was no legal force or effect to those rules and no foundation.

Plaintiffs sued DAP, Inc. ("DAP") on behalf of herself and the decedent's minor children when decedent suffered second and third-degree burns on 80% of his body and ultimately died from an accident that occurred when he dropped a can of DAP Weldwood Gel Formula Contact Cement ("DAP cement") on the floor of his home and attempted to clean the spill which caused the DAP cement to ignite and caused a flash fire. At issue was whether the label on the DAP cement complied with the Federal Hazardous Substances Act ("FHSA"), 15 U.S.C. 1261, for failure to warn and whether the DAP cement label failed to exhibit adequate precautionary measures describing the action to be followed or avoided under section 1261(p)(1)(F). The court affirmed summary judgment and held that the risk of fire from an accident spill of DAP cement was not a principal hazard that the FHSA required the label to affirmatively make. The court also held that the FHSA did not require the DAP cement label to warn consumers against spreading the product after a spill as a precautionary measure.