Tort Law

Landmark sleep apnea ruling helps plaintiffs collect $6M in Greyhound crash

A court-ordered sleep apnea test of a Greyhound Lines bus driver is said to have paved the way for a $6 million settlement in a Texas rollover crash case. This was the first such overnight assessment ever OK’d by a trial court and upheld on appeal, according to attorney Ryan…

Mar 10, 2016 5:00 PM CST

Home Depot to pay nearly $20M over 2014 data breach that affected more than 40M customers

A 2014 data breach that affected more than 40 million credit and debit cardholders is going to cost Home Depot nearly $20 million in consumer compensation in order to resolve a federal lawsuit. Without admitting liability, the company has agreed to improve data security plus pay $13 million in reimbursement…

Mar 8, 2016 4:10 PM CST

Jury awards $55M to sportscaster Erin Andrews in lawsuit over nude video

After about eight hours of deliberation, a Nashville jury on Monday awarded $55 million to sportscaster Erin Andrews in her lawsuit over a nude video taken from an adjoining hotel room by a stalker. While the jury found Michael David Barrett 51 percent responsible for taking the videos through a…

Mar 7, 2016 5:15 PM CST

Appeals court OKs $3M whistleblower award to fired university attorney

An Illinois appellate court on Wednesday OK’d a $3 million whistleblower award to a former Chicago State University attorney who said he was fired and discredited because he insisted on following the law. With accrued interest, the award will be closer to $5 million, reports the Chicago Tribune (reg. req.).…

Mar 4, 2016 9:00 AM CST

Top state court OKs artist’s UPS suit over missing paintings, says federal law doesn’t trump

When artist Ivana Vidovic Mlinar sent two paintings from Florida to a New York art exhibit in 2005, she didn’t buy insurance even though she says they were worth $30,000. Packed at a shipping store, they were sent via UPS. At some point a UPS representative opened the mailing tube…

Mar 3, 2016 4:45 PM CST

Chadbourne settles suit by investors burned by convicted Ponzi schemer

Chadbourne & Parke has settled a suit claiming a former partner aided fraud by convicted Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford. Terms of the settlement with defrauded investors are undisclosed, the Am Law Daily (sub. req.) reports. Stanford’s former lawyer, Thomas Sjoblom, worked at Chadbourne before joining Proskauer Rose. Sjoblom and…

Mar 1, 2016 11:36 AM CST

Personal injury lawyers turn to neuroscience to back claims of chronic pain

Personal injury lawyers see neuroscience as a way to document their clients’ pain if and when it might be contested. The problem, many scientists say, is that the research, while showing much promise, is still in its nascent stage. Read this ABA Journal feature recently honored by the American Society of Business Publication Editors.

Mar 1, 2016 4:30 AM CST

Detroit agrees to pay $100K to man whose dog was killed in police shooting caught on dashcam

The city of Detroit has agreed to pay a $100,000 settlement to a man whose dog was fatally shot by police outside his home last year, the plaintiff’s lawyer says. The pet, a Dogue de Bordeaux named Babycakes, was on a 10-foot steel cable attached to a fence outside the…

Feb 26, 2016 8:40 AM CST

Family of teen hospitalized in medical diagnosis conflict files malpractice and civil rights suit

The family of a Connecticut teen put in the custody of the state of Massachusetts for more than a year and hospitalized against their wishes has filed a medical malpractice and civil rights suit against Boston Children’s Hospital and four physicians. Weeks before Justina Pelletier was misdiagnosed at Children’s with…

Feb 25, 2016 4:00 PM CST

Jury awards $183M to firefighters’ families in fatal ‘Black Sunday’ blaze; NYC owes $140M

After a decade of courtroom battle over a fatal “Black Sunday” blaze that resulted in the immediate deaths of two New York City firefighters and severely injured four others, a state-court jury on Monday awarded $183 million to five of the victims and their families. The family of the sixth…

Feb 23, 2016 4:05 PM CST

St. Louis jury says J&J must pay $72M to family of dead woman in landmark talcum powder cancer case

The first case to go to trial among some 1,200 claims currently faced by Johnson & Johnson alleging a link between its talc-containing products and cancer obviously did not turn out the way the pharmaceutical giant would have wished. After three weeks of trial and five hours of deliberation, a…

Feb 23, 2016 2:15 PM CST

Woman who OK’d $900K settlement in phone call with her lawyer is bound by it, federal judge rules

The mother of a 22-year-old man shot to death in 2014 by police in a Utah city is bound by her oral agreement to a $900,000 settlement, a federal judge has ruled. Susan Hunt initially agreed to the pact in a recorded phone call with her lawyer. But she then…

Feb 23, 2016 1:05 PM CST

Questioned in fatal shooting of state trooper, innocent man files civil rights suit

An ambush shooting in which a Pennsylvania state trooper was killed and his partner seriously wounded outside the Blooming Grove barracks was also bad news for Jeffrey Hudak. That’s because Hudak’s estranged wife had a relationship with the injured trooper. So he was initially considered a possible suspect, aggressively questioned…

Feb 19, 2016 1:05 PM CST

Los Angeles sues developer for $20M, says building was unprotected against fire caused by arson

Corrected: The city of Los Angeles filed a $20 million lawsuit Thursday against the developer of an apartment building then under construction that was burned to the ground in a massive 2014 fire. Taxi driver Dawud Abdulwali, 56, has been charged with setting the Da Vinci Apartments fire. However, the…

Feb 18, 2016 2:55 PM CST

Bill Cosby’s wife will have to give deposition, judge rules

Bill Cosby’s wife, Camille, will have to give a deposition in a defamation suit against the comedian, but she may refuse to answer questions about her private conversations with her husband, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni ruled Thursday in a suit by eight women who…

Feb 12, 2016 9:28 AM CST