Monday, February 27, 2006
DEFENSE VERDICT FOR LAND ROVER BY SNELL & WILMER
Lee Mickus, a partner with Snell & Wilmer, the Network’s Arizona member, recently won a defense verdict on behalf of Land Rover in Wood County, Texas after a seven day jury trial.
Plaintiff was injured in an on-road rollover crash involving a Land Rover Discovery Series II. Plaintiff sustained several broken ribs and fractures to her arm, knee and hip during the multiple-rollover accident.
Plaintiff argued that the vehicle was defectively designed in that it lacked a reasonable level of stability. In closing argument, Plaintiff’s counsel asked for an award of $1.25-$3 million. The jury returned a defense verdict in 41 minutes, rejecting Plaintiff’s design defect allegations.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
MORGENSTEIN & JUBELIRER WINS 5-WEEK PRODUCT LIABILITY TRIAL
After a five week trial by Morgenstein & Jubelirer's Jean Bertrand and Alex Catalona, and four days of jury deliberation, a San Francisco jury returned a defense verdict for client Owens-Illinois, Inc. on consumer expectation and failure to warn causes of action. The jury deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial as to the remaining negligence cause of action.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
NIXON PEABODY'S ORTEGO AND WELLER WIN JURY VERDICT IN FIDUCIARY FINANCIAL ADVICE CASE
Congratulations to Joe Ortego and Jim Weller. On February 16, following a three week trial, a Nassau County jury entered a verdict in favor of their clients on claims alleging breach of fiduciary duty and negligent misrepresentation.
AIG insured the defendants.
The firm’s clients provide estate and financial planning services to high net worth individuals. The plaintiff in the case, one of the largest real estate developers on Long Island, sought more than $10 million in damages claiming that he had been deceived and defrauded in connection with certain estate planning advice.
Joe and Jim were closely assisted at trial by Joan Herman and were provided with additional substantial support by Aaron Halpern, Santo Borruso, Mary O’Connor and Joan Laskoff.
Monday, February 13, 2006
NEW ORLEANS' DEUTSCH KERRIGAN & STILES REVERSES $154 MILLION PUNITIVE DAMAGE JUDGMENT
Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles' Joseph McReynolds and Robert E. Kerrigan, Jr. prevailed on rehearing before the Louisiana Supreme Court in reversing a $154 million punitive damage judgment against a French parent corporation, Air Liquide, S.A., for workplace injuries sustained by three employees of its American subsidiary. Affirming the jury’s verdict would have meant parent corporations could be found to have “assumed a duty of safety,” under the Good Samaritan Doctrine, enshrined in the Restatement (Second) of Torts, §324A, merely by “failing” to issue or enforce recommendations that may have relevance to workplace safety at their subsidiaries.
The crux of plaintiffs’ case was Air Liquide’s distribution of a document to certain subsidiaries around the world in 1984. The document recommended the use of barrier walls around certain gate valves in air separation plants, a practice not prevalent in America because of differences in plant design. Air Liquide did not acquire its American subsidiary until 1986 and appears not to have sent the document to its American subsidiary after acquiring it. Plaintiffs argued that distribution of the document was itself a Good Samaritan undertaking and that Air Liquide’s failure to send it or enforce it in America made the French parent liable for the American workers’ injuries caused by an explosion at an American designed plant in 1994.
In its original decision, issued in May, 2004, the Supreme Court applied a de novo standard of review to reverse the jury’s verdict because the trial court had failed to instruct the jury on the Good Samaritan Doctrine. The high court granted rehearing to reconsider the appropriateness of using a de novo standard of review. After deliberating for a year, the court re-instated its original decision. Finding “no need to decide whether de novo is the appropriate standard of review,” the court held that even “under the manifest error standard, the jury’s verdict cannot stand and must be reversed.”
As do all states, Louisiana places responsibility for workplace safety on the employer, and not the parent company. Use of the Good Samaritan Doctrine in this instance threatened the integrity of universally accepted workers’ compensation schemes and undermined the immunity provisions that are the cornerstones of the law of corporations by imposing on parent corporations safety obligations that they otherwise quite reasonably would have assumed were the responsibility of their employer subsidiary.
Worse, if work safety is a policy goal, upholding the verdict would tend to produce a “dumbing down” of parent-subsidiary communications and interactions that likely would produce the opposite effect. Rather than promoting a free and unfettered exchange of good safety ideas between parent and subsidiary companies that would improve workplace safety, parent corporations would be encouraged to remain ignorant of, or silent about, safety practices. Worker safety will not be advanced by legal decisions that discourage parent corporations from offering good safety advice for fear of incurring tort liability for merely uttering them.
Apart from the immediate effect of relieving defendants from an exorbitant punitive damage award, the court’s decision affirms the fundamental principles of employer and stockholder immunity that underlie Louisiana’s twin policies of worker compensation and corporate investment – policies that, in the aftermath of Katrina, are more vital than ever to the state’s economy and that for over a century have served a universally accepted and approved social policy of absolute employer liability for workplace injuries in exchange for tort immunity.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
DEFENSE VERDICT FOR JOHN DEERE BY GIBBONS DEL DEO'S PHILADELPHIA OFFICE
Frederick E. (“Derek”) Blakelock, a partner in the Philadelphia office of Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C., the Network’s Pennsylvania member firm, recently obtained a defense verdict on behalf of Deere & Company in the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County (PA) after a seven-day jury trial.
The case arose from an accident that occurred when the blade of a John Deere Model 644G Wheel Loader caught on a raised railroad track during a snowplowing exercise. Plaintiff operator sustained severe head and face injuries, including cognitive impairment, hypersomnia and alleged permanent disability, when he was thrown against the windshield and posts upon impact. Plaintiff unsuccessfully alleged that Loader was defectively designed and accompanied by inadequate warnings.
Plaintiff sought special damages in excess of $3.8 million before the jury. Plaintiff’s final settlement demand of $1.75 million was rejected by John Deere. The jury determined that the Loader was not defective under Pennsylvania strict liability principles.
Derek Blakelock practices in the areas of product liability (including consumer products, agricultural and industrial equipment, and toxic torts) and commercial litigation (including breach of restrictive covenants in employment agreements and sale of businesses, commercial contract and fraud claims, and other business disputes). He has extensive experience in all aspects of litigation, including arbitration, mediation, evidentiary hearings, trials and appeals in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
