Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

Sixteen days after Defendant, a dentist, learned Plaintiff, an inmate of Illinois’s Stateville prison, was complaining of a tooth abscess, Defendant diagnosed an abscessed molar, prescribed penicillin to bring the infection under control, and extracted the molar. Plaintiff sued the dentist and a prison guard (together, Defendants), charging them with deliberate indifference to his abscess. The district judge granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants. The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the evidence of deliberate indifference by Defendants to Plaintiff’s serious medical need precluded granting summary judgment in their favor. Remanded. View "Dobbey v. Mitchell-Lawshea" on Justia Law

The law firm represented Goesel, a minor, and his parents in a personal-injury suit that settled before trial. The law firm needed judicial approval to finalize the settlement. The contingent-fee agreement entitled the firm to one-third of the gross settlement; all litigation expenses would be covered by the Goesels’ share. The court refused to approve the settlement unless litigation expenses were deducted off the top and one-third of the net settlement was allocated to the firm and rejected the firm’s attempt to count the cost of computerized legal research as a separately compensable expense rather than rolling it into the fee recovery. The Goesels declined to participate in an appeal, so the court appointed an amicus to argue in support of the decision. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Though the court enjoys substantial discretion to safeguard the interests of minors in the settlement of litigation, this discretion is not boundless. Here, the judge criticized aspects of the firm’s contingent-fee agreement that have received the express blessing of Illinois courts. Once these improper reasons are stripped away, the only rationale that remains—that “fairness and right reason” require that the Goesels receive 51% of the gross settlement amount rather than 42%—is insufficient to justify discarding a reasonable contingent-fee agreement. View "Williams, Bax & Saltzman, P.C. v. Boley Int'l (H.K.) Ltd" on Justia Law

Morady sold life insurance policies. Davis, a former lawyer, approached elderly African-Americans and paid them small amounts to become the nominal applicant-buyers of the policies, with Morady as the insurance agent, and to put the policies into an irrevocable trust, with Davis as trustee. The beneficial interest in the trust would be sold to an investor who would pay the remaining premiums and wait for the death of the insured. The insurer would not have sold the policies had it known that the premiums would be paid by an unrelated third party in the expectation that the policy would be transferred to him; its contracts with agents, including Morady, required them to conform to an “absolute prohibition against participation in any type of premium financing scheme involving an unrelated third party,” but the law allows an investor to purchase the beneficial interest in an existing life insurance policy. The net loss to Ohio National (beyond $120,000 commissions paid to Morady) was $605,000 in litigation expenses to void the policies. The total death benefits specified in the illegal policies amounted to $2.8 million. The Seventh Circuit agreed that Morady’s conduct constituted fraud and a breach of her contract and affirmed summary judgment, with damages of $726,000. View "Ohio Nat'l Life Assurance Corp. v. Davis" on Justia Law