Justia Products Liability Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, after being diagnosed with tardive dyskinesia (TD), filed suit against Lilly, manufacturer of the antipsychotic drug, Zyprexa, alleging personal injury and product liability claims. The district court concluded that Lilly adequately warned plaintiff's treating and prescribing physicians of the risk of developing movement disorders like TD. On appeal, plaintiff argued, inter alia, that the district court erred in excluding his expert opinion testimony that 15% of Zyprexa users will develop TD after three years of use. The court concluded that the district court was well within its substantial discretion to conclude that plaintiff had not provided sufficient scientific support for the opinion and to exclude the opinion. The court also concluded that the district court properly applied the learned intermediary doctrine in dismissing the failure-to-warn claim. Finally, assuming Arkansas law recognized an overpromotion exception, the exception would not apply in this case because plaintiff presented no evidence that any representation by a salesperson affected a prescribing doctor's decision to continue plaintiff on Zyprexa and because there was no reliable evidence that Zyprexa had significantly more risk of movement disorders than the drug reps allegedly said it had. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's complaint. View "Boehm v. Eli Lilly & Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought two separate actions alleging that Hazel Smart died as a result of a defective catheter used in her dialysis treatment at Greater Waterbury Gambro HealthCare. The trial court consolidated the two actions, which brought claims sounding in negligence, medical malpractice, loss of consortium, and products liability. During pretrial proceedings, the trial court imposed monetary sanctions on Plaintiffs for failure to comply with a discovery order. Plaintiffs appealed. The appellate court dismissed the appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding that the trial court's discovery order was not an appealable final judgment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the appellate court properly dismissed the appeal, as the trial court's order did not constitute an appealable final judgment.View "Incardona v. Roer" on Justia Law

Appellants filed a products liability action against Daimler-Chrysler Corporation after they were involved in a rollover collision while driving their Chrysler PT Cruiser. Appellants later filed a complaint for declaratory relief against Allianz Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft (“Allianz”), an international insurance company that provided insurance to Chrysler, alleging that Allianz had a duty to defend Chrysler in the underlying action. The district court granted summary judgment for Allianz and dismissed the complaint. Twenty months later, Appellants filed a complaint to vacate the summary judgment. The district court sustained Allianz’s motion to dismiss the complaint. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the time for exercise of the district court’s inherent power to vacate its judgment had expired; (2) the district court lacked jurisdiction to vacate its judgment because Appellants did not properly serve Allianz; and (3) the district court did not err in invoking its equity jurisdiction to vacate where Appellants had an adequate remedy at law. View "Carlson v. Allianz Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft" on Justia Law

On July 28, 2012, Michael Becker was injured when a Ford truck driven by his son, Phillip Becker, struck a light pole. Michael and his wife filed suit against Ford Motor Company. On August 26, 2013, Ford filed an answer claiming that the accident was caused by a person other than Ford. On October 1, 2013, the Beckers filed a motion to join Phillip as a party to whom fault could be apportioned and a motion to file an amended complaint. At issue before the Supreme Court was whether, after a defendant asserts a comparative fault claim against a non-party tortfeasor who was known to the plaintiff when the original suit was filed, Tenn. Code Ann. 20-1-119 permits the plaintiff to amend its complaint to assert a claim directly against the tortfeasor named by the defendant. The Court held (1) application of section 20-1-119 is not restricted to tortfeasors who were unknown to the plaintiff when its original complaint was filed; and (2) therefore, the statute permits a plaintiff to file an amended complaint against the tortfeasor named by the defendant within ninety days after the filing of the answer in which the defendant first asserts a comparative fault claim against the tortfeasor. View "Becker v. Ford Motor Co." on Justia Law

A three-year-old child found a cigarette lighter in his father’s truck and used it to loosen a button on his shirt. His shirt caught fire and he spent three weeks in the hospital, where he was treated for second and third degree burns to his face and chest and underwent several skin graft surgeries. A BIC cigarette lighter was found at the scene and delivered to the police. Who found the lighter, and where, is unclear. In a suit against the manufacturer, the jury found the lighter was not defective or unreasonably dangerous in a way that causally contributed to the injuries. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the court allowed inadmissible evidence of the failure of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to take action concerning the lighter and that the court erred by permitting BIC’s counsel to argue that the parents were to blame and refusing to instruct the jury to disregard such arguments. The court noted that the lighter admitted in evidence is presumed to be the one that caused the fire; it was worn, and the child safety guard had been removed.View "Cummins v. Bic USA, Inc." on Justia Law

Stollings lost his index finger and portions of other fingers in a table saw accident and sued Ryobi, the saw’s manufacturer, alleging defective design because it failed to equip the saw with either a riving knife, a small blade that holds the wood cut open to prevent kickbacks, or braking technology that automatically stops the saw blade upon contact with human tissue. Stollings contends either feature would have prevented the accident. A jury returned a verdict in favor of Ryobi. The Seventh Circuit vacated, finding that the court erred in failing to stop Ryobi’s counsel from arguing that Stollings’s counsel brought the case as part of a joint venture with the inventor of an automatic braking technology to force saw manufacturers to license the technology, and in admitting hearsay evidence to support that improper argument. The court also erred in excluding the testimony of one of Stollings’s expert witnesses and in giving the jury a sole proximate cause instruction where Ryobi was not asserting a comparative fault defense or blaming a third party.View "Stollings v. Ryobi Techs., Inc." on Justia Law

In 2010, P&G began marketing Pampers disposable diapers with “Dry Max technology.” Two months later, the Consumer Product Safety Commission began investigating whether the diapers caused severe diaper rash. The district court consolidated several law suits. In August 2010, the CPSC and Health Canada released reports, finding no connection between the diapers and diaper rash. Despite a pending motion to dismiss and before any formal discovery, the parties reached a settlement agreement, under which they agreed to seek class certification under Rule 23(b)(2), so that absent class members could not opt out. P&G agreed: to reinstate a refund program; to add to its label a sentence suggesting that consumers consult Pampers.com or call; to add basic diaper rash information to its website; and to contribute $300,000 to a pediatric resident training program and $100,000 to fund a program “in the area of skin health.” Named plaintiffs would release all of their Pampers-related claims and receive $1000 “per affected child.” Unnamed class members would not receive any award, would benefit only from the one-box refund, but would release “equitable” claims against P&G, and be permanently barred from future class actions against P&G. Class counsel would receive $2.73 million. The district court certified the class. The Sixth Circuit reversed, noting that the per-child payments provided a disincentive for named plaintiffs to care about the adequacy of relief afforded unnamed class members. View "Greenberg v. Procter & Gamble Co." on Justia Law

PETCO sought a declaration that ICNA had to defend and indemnify PETCO in an underlying litigation with Medtronic. Medtronic sued PETCO after an aquarium heater it had purchased from PETCO malfunctioned and started a fire at a Medtronic plant. The district court granted ICNA's motion for summary judgment and PETCO appealed. At issue was whether the aquarium heater satisfied a condition precedent to coverage under the policy. The court affirmed the district court's judgment on the ground that PETCO failed to identify any mandatory or voluntary safety standard with which the heater complied.View "PETCO Animal Supplies Stores, et al. v. Ins. Co. of North America" on Justia Law

Elliot, which provides construction and maintenance services, owns and leases bucket trucks. In 1996, Elliot entered into a lease with TECO, a manufacturer of such trucks, agreeing agreed to hold TECO harmless from liability arising from injuries resulting from use, operation, or transportation of the vehicle or its location or condition. In 2000, Large was injured while operating a truck, which his employer, Elliot, had leased from TECO. Large sued TECO. TECO’s successor in interest (Mobile) filed a third-party complaint against Elliot, seeking defense and indemnification pursuant to the lease. Mobile later settled with Large without Elliot’s participation, leaving the third-party complaint against Elliot as the only outstanding issue. After a change in Virginia law, Mobile again moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted, holding Elliot responsible to defend and indemnify Mobile. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting Elliot’s argument that a later invoice superseded the terms of the lease, eliminating Elliot’s duty to defend and indemnify except in the case that Elliot violated obligations under the invoice by failing to either adequately train Large in the use of the truck or to provide him with copies of the truck’s operation and maintenance manuals. View "Large v. Mobile Tool Int'l, Inc." on Justia Law

This case involved long-running multidistrict litigation concerning contamination of groundwater by the organic compound MTBE, which was used as a gasoline additive by Exxon and others. The court concluded that the state law tort verdict against Exxon was not preempted by the federal Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401; the jury's finding that the MTBE levels in Station Six Wells will peak at 10ppb in 2033 was not inconsistent with a conclusion that the City had been injured; the City's suit was ripe because the City demonstrated a present injury and the suit was not barred by the statute of limitations; the jury's verdict finding Exxon liable under state tort law theories was not precluded by the jury's concurrent conclusion that the City had not carried its burden, in the design-defect context, of demonstrating a feasible, cost-reasonable alternative to MTBE available to satisfy the standards of the now-repealed Reformulated Gasoline Program; Exxon's demand for a retrial because of an incident of juror misconduct was unavailing; the jury properly offset the gross damages award by amounts it reasonably attributed to cleanup of contaminants other than MTBE; and the City was not entitled to a jury determination of Exxon's liability for punitive damages. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment in its entirety.View "In re: MTBE Products Liability Litig." on Justia Law