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Ruling dooms Florida tobacco lawsuits, Supreme Court justice says
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A decision by the Florida Supreme Court requiring tobacco plaintiffs to identify specific statements that convinced them to smoke will make it “virtually impossible” for such cases to succeed in the future, a dissenting justice said.
Court reverses $42.5 million tobacco verdict over juror's thoughts on addiction
MIAMI (Legal Newsline) - A Florida appeals court reversed a $42.5 million verdict against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, ruling the trial judge should have excused a juror who said she believed cigarettes are addictive.
Disney cruise worker hit by car in Bahamas sees court strike $4M verdict
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A Florida appeals court reversed a $4 million jury award – including $1 million in punitive damages -- to a Disney Cruise Line employee who was hit by a car in the Bahamas, finding punitive damages were unjustified and her economic expert presented an unreliable estimate of future medical expenses.
Paralyzed patient sues prominent Florida personal injury firm but is sent to arbitration
MIAMI (Legal Newsline) - A Florida man who was paralyzed from the neck down after spinal surgery has sued his lawyers at Morgan & Morgan, blaming them for botching a lawsuit against the company that made an implant that damaged his spinal cord.
Bellwether plaintiff in 3M ear plug MDL drops case, pays $18K in defense costs
PENSACOLA, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A plaintiff who was chastised by the judge earlier this year for his “unresponsiveness to counsel” dropped his lawsuit accusing 3M of selling defective military earplugs, avoiding a September bellwether trial intended to test the viability of thousands of similar cases.
Florida court upholds R.J. Reynolds' victory; Plaintiff shredded medical records prior to suing
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A Florida appeals court upheld a defense victory for RJ Reynolds in a case where the plaintiff told his law firm he’d shredded his wife’s medical records shortly before he sued the cigarette maker for causing her fatal cancer.
Shaq wins $400K court ruling against lawyer who represented shakedown artist
MIAMI (Legal Newsline) - A Florida appeals court has reversed a lower court’s ruling to restore more than $400,000 in sanctions ordered against a former employee of Shaquille O’Neal and his lawyer who pursued a racketeering and invasion of privacy lawsuit against the basketball star despite evidence it was a shakedown.
Conflict emerges over punitive damages in multimillion-dollar Florida tobacco cases
LAKELAND, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A Florida appeals court recently upheld a $3.5 million verdict against R.J. Reynolds over the smoking-related death of a woman but acknowledged its decision conflicted with another appeals court that would have limited punitive damages under a 1999 law.
Dead man can't recover $5 million for pain and suffering, Florida court rules
TALLAHASSEE - A man who died while a $5 million verdict in his favor in a wrongful death suit was still out on appeal recovers nothing, a Florida appeals court ruled, refusing to adopt a looser definition of the term “final judgment.”
Defendant 'gambled and lost' by telling jury about withheld medical records in bodybuilder's lawsuit
MIAMI (Legal Newsline) - A Florida appeals court reinstated the personal injury verdict a bodybuilder won despite having withheld until the week before trial evidence that he’d been treated by an orthopedic surgeon for the same type of injury he blamed on a car accident.
One of thousands of lawsuits against Philip Morris results in $21 million in punitive damages
ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) - A federal appeals court last week approved a $20.7 million punitive damages award against cigarette maker Philip Morris, saying even though it was just one of thousands of similar cases over the same corporate behavior, the judgment fell well within constitutional limits set by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nazi, '1984' comparisons by plaintiffs lawyer 'way over the line' but somehow not enough to strike $5.1M verdict
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A plaintiff lawyer who compared cigarette manufacturers to Nazis and his client to a torture victim in George Orwell’s novel “1984” “went way over the line” but not far enough to require a new trial, a Florida appeals court said in a decision urging judges to keep a tighter lid on inflammatory closing arguments.
GEICO settlement asks if 11th Circuit judges will follow directions, cut off payments to class action plaintiffs
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A federal judge in Florida who in August tentatively approved a class action settlement including $10,000 “incentive fees” to named plaintiffs will now have to decide if final approval is appropriate considering the appellate court immediately above him has since ruled such fees to be illegal.
Dissenter says Florida closed bar based on slim facts, including Business Insider article
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A dissenting judge on a Florida appeals court attacked his colleagues for failing to stay an order by state alcohol officials suspending a bar owner’s alcohol license for failing to follow COVID-19 orders.
Lawsuit: Eckert Seamans helped criminal scam investors
MIAMI (Legal Newsline) - A large regional law firm has been sued for allegedly facilitating a multimillion-dollar fraud by Par Funding, a company that extended high-interest loans to retail businesses but failed amid claims its principals squandered money and hid a founder’s criminal past.
Florida opposes class actions against bankrupt OxyContin-maker to preserve authority of states
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) - Florida has filed an objection to attempts by Native American tribes, hospitals, schools and lawyers for insurance consumers and opioid-addicted infants to file class actions against the estate of bankrupt Oxycontin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, saying their claims aren’t suited for class treatment.
While they wait on opioid jackpot, plaintiffs firms take federal loans during pandemic
Law firms leading multidistrict litigation against the opioid industry have borrowed as much as $102 million under the federal Paycheck Protection Program designed to preserve jobs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The law firms said the loans were needed to pay some 3,000 employees.
Oklahoma judge feeds the 'monster' with $572M opioid ruling against Johnson & Johnson
Sixteen years ago in a case involving gunmaker Sturm, Ruger & Co., a New York appeals court refused to apply public nuisance law against the manufacturer of a legal product, saying that doing so would transform nuisance law “into a monster that would devour in one gulp the entire law of tort.”
Private lawyers stand to make $90 million as judge hits Johnson & Johnson with $572M opioid ruling
NORMAN, Okla. (Legal Newsline) - A state judge in Oklahoma has blamed Johnson & Johnson for the state's opioid crisis and ordered it to pay $572 million in damages, extending public nuisance law beyond its traditional boundaries into what may become an all-purpose tool for government lawsuits against product manufacturers.
Multidistrict litigation swamps courts as rules struggle to catch up; Is reform on the way?
Multidistrict litigation – sprawling cases sometimes involving thousands of plaintiffs from all over the country – now represents more than half of the civil caseload in federal courts, according to a new survey, yet defendants complain the rules governing them are largely judge-made and haphazardly enforced.