Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint against Defendant, a medical doctor, alleging claims based on medical negligence, Defendant’s failure to obtain informed consent, and battery. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendant as to the medical battery claim. After a trial as to Plaintiffs’ informed consent claim, the jury returned a verdict for Defendant. The First Circuit affirmed in part and vacated and remanded in part, holding (1) the district court properly dismissed Plaintiffs’ battery claim; but (2) the district court erred by excluding expert testimony that a fine-needle aspiration biopsy was a viable non-surgical alternative to a surgical biopsy. View "Bradley v. Sugarbaker" on Justia Law

Defendant, a company that provides skycap services to airlines, was defending against a class action lawsuit when Plaintiff, one of the skycaps that Defendant had employed, brought an individual suit against Defendant, alleging unlawful termination. Specifically, Plaintiff alleged that Defendant fired him for his role in helping to organize the class action. A jury rendered a verdict in favor of Plaintiff, and the district court awarded damages and attorney’s fees and costs. Both parties appealed. The First Circuit (1) affirmed the verdict in favor of Plaintiff and the awarded of damages and attorney’s fees; (2) affirmed the district court’s decisions not to treble the emotional-distress damages award that the district court had ordered on remittitur and not to grant prejudgment interest on the emotional-distress damages; but (3) vacated the district court’s elimination of front-pay damages. Remanded. View "Travers v. Flight Services & Systems, Inc." on Justia Law

These interlocutory appeals were from a district court order that, inter alia, compelled a law firm (Mintz Levin) to produce documents relating to a fraud allegedly committed by David Gorski in his operation of Legion Construction, Inc. in order to qualify for and obtain government contracts. Gorski and Legion appealed the portion of the order that required attorney-client privileged documents connected with Mintz Levin’s representation of Legion to be produced under the crime-fraud exception. The government cross-appealed the portion of the district court decision to exclude communications between Gorski and his personal attorney from the production order. The First Circuit (1) dismissed Gorski’s appeal for want of appellate jurisdiction, holding that the Court did not have jurisdiction over Gorski’s appeal but did have jurisdiction over Legion’s appeal and the government’s cross-appeal; (2) affirmed the production order as to Mintz Levin, holding that a prima facie case for the crime-fraud exception had been made; and (3) vacated the district court’s decision to exclude Gorski’s communications with his personal attorney from the production order, holding that the district court employed incorrect legal reasoning with regard to these documents. View "United States v. Gorski" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed this lawsuit against two Town of Wareham police officers, the police chief, and the Town, claiming (1) the officers arrested him without probable cause and used excessive force in pushing him into a police vehicle while trying to disperse an unruly crowd, and (2) the police chief and Town were liable because they had known of, or recklessly disregarded, prior false arrests and use of excessive force by the arresting officers and other officers in the police department. The district court bifurcated the trial, requiring Plaintiff to first try his claims against the individual officers. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the officers, and thereafter, the district court dismissed the claims against the Town and its police chief. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the trial court did not err (1) in excluding all prior complaints against one of the officers and in bifurcating the trial; (2) in denying Plaintiff’s motion for a new trial; and (3) in denying Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend his complaint three years after he filed his initial complaint. View "Lund v. Henderson" on Justia Law