Status: Massive and Accelerating The litigation against social media platforms over youth mental health injuries has become one of the most significant mass torts in a generation. As of February...
Status: Building Fast — Following the Social Media Playbook Video game addiction lawsuits are emerging as a distinct but closely related cousin of the social media litigation. The core legal theory...
Status: Sustained and Intense The federal government's prosecution of fentanyl trafficking and distribution continues at an extraordinary pace, and with it comes sustained, high-volume demand for...
A Docket That Won't Stop Growing The federal social media youth mental health MDL has grown from 620 cases in November 2024 to more than 2,300 in February 2026. The first bellwether trial — a school...
The Next Wave If the social media youth mental health MDL is the mass tort of the moment, video game addiction lawsuits may be the next one. Families across the country are suing Epic Games...
The Expert Witness at the Center of the Case In a federal fentanyl distribution-resulting-in-death prosecution, the most important witness is often not a law enforcement agent, a cooperating...
All good things must come to an end, and by October of last year it was clear to me that the time had come for me to retire after 18-plus years as senior case manager at Vident Partners. Under the...
The Supreme Court’s decision in Berk v. Choy is a major Erie / Rules Enabling Act case that sharply limits the reach of state “affidavit of merit” requirements in federal diversity actions. The story...
To be an expert witness, a person must demonstrate specialized knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education in a field relevant to the issues at hand in a legal case. Core Qualifications...
Video conference technology has significantly changed litigation practice. We may think of it solely in the context of expert witnesses, but the technology benefits parties and lay witnesses as...
1. NDMA Contamination and Cancer Risk Core Allegation: Plaintiffs allege that Zantac (ranitidine) is inherently unstable and can break down into N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), a probable human...
Qualified immunity may be asserted as a defense by providers of medical care in prisons and jails. In Wiertella v. Lake County, Ohio et al., 6th Cir., No. 24-3311, 6/24/2025), inmate Randy...
Our previous post concerned a knee replacement products liability lawsuit against DePuy. However, a recent review indicates that active cases against DePuy are rare at this time. The landscape of...
DePuy and several other manufacturers of knee replacement systems have collectively been the subject of thousands of product liability lawsuits. Litigation results have been mixed, and DePuy has...
I was not familiar with this term before reading Hill v. Emergency Medicine of Idaho and Dr. Stuart Clive (3/27/25). Perhaps the court wasn’t either, because the opinion repeatedly puts “hindsight...
Psychiatry has several recognized subspecialties that focus on different patient populations, clinical issues, or intersections with other medical fields. The main psychiatry subspecialties include:...
In January we posted a summary review of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) baby powder litigation. A striking new development warrants an update: Judge Christopher Lopez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for...
Medicare and Medicaid fraud represent a significant challenge to the financial integrity of the United States healthcare system. The real cost of such fraudulent activities is multifaceted,...
Consumer genetic testing services have revealed many such cases, which no doubt have resulted in some lawsuits, but Suprynowicz v. Tohan 1/14/2025) is the first one I’ve seen reported. In this...
Generative AI programs have a well-known tendency to “hallucinate” – that is, to simply fabricate information. Three weeks ago, federal district court judge Kelly Rankin sanctioned three Morgan &...
Physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) doctors, also known as physiatrists, are medical specialists who focus on improving the quality of life and functional abilities of patients with various...
In a previous post about health insurance fraud we wrote, “These fraudulent activities take a wide variety of forms, bearing witness to the inventiveness of those bent on health insurance fraud.” ...
A number of cosmetic (makeup) products – such as blush, eyeshadow, foundation, and liquid makeup – contain talc. In recent years, every major cosmetics manufacturer has been sued for alleged...
Real estate agents can be held liable under several legal theories, reflecting the complex nature of their professional responsibilities. Negligence is one of the most common grounds for lawsuits...
Medical directors play a crucial role at health insurance companies, serving as the bridge between the medical and insurance worlds. Their responsibilities are diverse and essential for ensuring...
Fifteen-year-old Nathan Bruno, a student at Portsmouth (Rhode Island) High School, committed suicide on February 7, 2018. The Portsmouth School Committee commissioned an independent investigation by...
Genetic testing and genetic screening are related but distinct approaches to identifying genetic variations and potential health risks. Genetic testing is focused on individuals. It is used to...
We recently posted a general overview of failure to warn cases, https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/2024/product-liability-%E2%80%93-failure-warn. That post concluded as follows: “These cases...
Vident Partners is almost at its 20th anniversary, having begun its long run in the expert referral business as Healthcare Litigation Support (HLS) in 2005. Focusing almost exclusively on medical...
A failure to warn case is a type of product liability lawsuit in which the plaintiff claims that a manufacturer, distributor, or seller failed to provide adequate warnings or instructions about the...
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), also known as the CMS Innovation Center, is a division within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Established by the...
The reference is to a 2021 post, https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/2021/shooting-fish-barrel. Opening paragraph: “That’s an unkind title, I know. But really, when the plaintiff’s attorney...
About four months ago, I blogged about the surprising (to me) prevalence of noncompete agreements in medicine. “[N]early half of primary care physicians in group practices and more than a third of...
In Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R., 162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928), which we all remember from our first-year torts class, Judge Benjamin Cardozo restated, in his uniquely pithy manner, the common law rule...
Health insurance fraud, broadly defined, is any deceptive practice by healthcare or healthcare-related providers (physicians, hospitals, clinics, diagnostic testing labs, certain allied health...
The plaintiff in a medical malpractice case engaged two experts, who were deposed in the course of discovery. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment; the plaintiff submitted affidavits...
Accountants play a key role in litigation by providing a range of specialized services that can support the legal process. Their expertise in financial matters allows them to offer insights and...
This subject was brought to my attention by a recent Washington Post article, It begins, as articles like this often do, by focusing on one person: Zacchery Belval, a designer from Connecticut who...
Neurology, the branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the nervous system, encompasses many subspecialties, but there is no consensus as to what they are. The...
A patient who goes to the emergency room, if conscious, is mostly concerned with getting care, not with untangling the contractual relationship between the hospital and the doctors who work there. ...
Patents are governed by a unique, highly specialized body of law. Patent attorneys must pass a special patent bar exam and register with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and patent appeals are...
“[N]early half of primary care physicians in group practices and more than a third of physicians employed at hospitals or free-standing clinics [are] bound by a noncompete agreement. The prevalence...
Radiology is the branch of medicine that uses imaging technology to diagnose (diagnostic radiology) and treat (interventional radiology) diseases and conditions. Diagnostic radiology encompasses...
In a recent post, https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/2023/medical-institutional-standard-care-and-liability-breach-independent-respondeat-superior, I discussed a case involving the death of a...
A forensic engineer is a professional who applies engineering principles and expertise to investigate and analyze a wide variety of incidents, accidents and failures. The goal of forensic...
This case is interesting for three reasons: The plaintiff engaged the wrong kind of expert; despite that fact, the jury returned a plaintiff’s verdict, which was reversed on appeal; and the opinion...
You can’t make this stuff up. From The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/12/emoji-corporate-lawsuits-court/676967/, 12/30/2023. A court in Washington, D.C., has been...
A comprehensive suicide prevention program for schools has three components: prevention, intervention, and postvention. My posts about the first two are at ...
Human factors experts can play a valuable role in personal injury lawsuits by explaining how a wide variety of factors may have contributed to an injury-causing incident. Here are some ways a human...
The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires any hospital that participates in Medicare and provides emergency services to provide (1) an appropriate medical screening...
Suicide is a reality in U.S. public schools. Prevalence data indicate that one suicide every 5 years and about 170 suicidal behaviors annually take place at a typical high school. Unfortunately,...
Many, if not most, states have different statutes (or different common law doctrines) that toll the applicable statute of limitations (SOL) in different circumstances. These circumstances include...
When we started in business in 2004, the primary sources for locating experts were listservs and personal recommendations from other attorneys. The Internet, already a notable source back then...
I trust no reader of our blog needs a summary of this well-known (not to say notorious) case. The indictment was handed down on August 14, 2023; trial is scheduled to begin on October 3, 2023. On...
Data show that many students think about suicide, many are exposed to it when someone they know attempts or completes suicide, and almost half of students who seriously consider suicide suffer in...
Today’s case, Johnson v. C.R. Bard, Inc. (7th Cir., No. 22-2610, 8/11/2023) involves injuries caused by an interior vena cava (IVC) filter. It caught my eye because in 2021 I referred three...
Although the COVID-19 emergency has ended, the pandemic’s harmful effect on the mental health of American youth is ongoing. A recent national survey of high school students by the CDC demonstrates...
Improving diagnosis in health care is a moral, professional and public health imperative, according to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine. However, little is known about the full scope of harms...
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is primarily used as a pain medication, particularly for severe and chronic pain. It is also used with other medicines immediately before or during surgery to...
In North Shore Medical Center v. Cigna Health and Life Insurance Co. (11th Cir., No. 22-10514, 5/25/2023), the court held that the plaintiff’s expert’s report created a triable issue of material...
A neurologist and a neuropsychiatrist are both medical professionals who specialize in the field of neurology, but there are some differences in their areas of expertise and the types of patients...
I was under the impression that the tobacco industry had settled all the claims against it. I was mistaken. The major tobacco companies settled with 46 states in 1998. Claims by individual smokers...
Toxicology is the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms, including humans. Toxicologists investigate the mechanisms of toxic effects, evaluate the risks and...
Barry N. Feldman, Ph.D., LICSW, is a nationally recognized educator, trainer, researcher, and clinical expert in the field of suicide intervention and prevention. He specializes in suicide-related...
I would have thought the answer was Yes – and not just because I’m in the expert referral business. But I’ve just learned that, in point of fact, the answer is a resounding No. In Laccetti v....
In Anderson v. The Raymond Corporation (7th Cir., No. 22-1872, 2/1/2023), the Seventh Circuit gives a master class on the correct analysis for admitting or excluding expert witness testimony under...
Today’s case is Bayes v. Biomet, https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/22/12/212964P.pdf (8th Cir., No. 21-2964, 9/21/2022), a lawsuit against the manufacturer of a failed metal-on-metal hip...
Reading today’s case took me back to Boston University Law School and my first-year civil procedure course, which was taught by one of those professors who yell angrily at students who are unprepared...
Frankel v. Deane (Md. 8/25/2022), https://www.mdcourts.gov/data/opinions/coa/2022/43a21.pdf, illustrates the legal issue that is the title of this post. It also illustrates what is technically a...
That is the title of a recent post by Professor Ilya Somin in The Volokh Conspiracy blog. The subtitle is, “The ruling authorizing the award is at odds with other federal court decisions holding...
In Ruan v. United States (No. 24-1410, 6/27/22), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1410_1an2.pdf, the Court addressed the mens rea requirement of the Controlled Substances Act as...
When surgery leads to a bad result, the plaintiff almost always files suit for medical malpractice. I say “almost always” because a recent Massachusetts case has reminded me that occasionally a...
Both before and during World War II, the Nazi government obtained vast quantities of Jewish-owned art and artifacts – mostly by outright expropriation, sometimes by coerced sale at a deep discount. ...
The defendants had a 5-foot rubber raft in their swimming pool. One of their guests at a holiday party dove off a diving board onto the raft, bounced off the raft and was propelled into the water,...
This is an obstetrical malpractice case. A caesarean section was delayed for several hours due to the negligence of both the treating physicians and the nurses, as result of which the baby sustained...
In the typical adversary setting, [some] excuses [for making misleading statements] might carry the day, even if not to counsel’s credit. Courts need to minimize the number of distracting sideshows...
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) establishes a cause of action for healthcare discrimination: “[A]n individual shall not, on the ground prohibited under [four existing federal nondiscrimination...
The case is Clanton v. United States of America (No. 20-2059, 7th Cir., 12/17/2021) and once again, the opinion’s opening paragraph summarizes it better than any of my several attempts: This case...
Two recent federal appellate court opinions have brought my attention to an issue that is literally a matter of life and death – namely, a change in the policy for allocating donated organs among...
Back in June, in a post about the first (as far as I know) case in which healthcare workers challenged a COVID-19 vaccination requirement, I wrote, “This could be the first of many cases in which...
This one could be headed to the Supreme Court. In Hepp v. Facebook (Nos. 20-2725 & 2885, 3d Cir., 9/23/2021), https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/202725p.pdf, the Third Circuit Court of...
This case is must reading for any trial lawyer (plaintiff or defense) who litigates product liability cases that rely on sophisticated expert testimony. In a workmanlike 35-page opinion (I did say...
That is the startling title of a recent article in the Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/paramedics-not-just-ambulance-drivers/619395/. The subtitle is, “The...
This could be the first of many cases in which employees object to their employer’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement – we’ll have to wait and see. In Bridges v. Houston Methodist Hospital (S.D....
That’s an unkind title, I know. But really, when the plaintiff’s attorney submitted a pharmacist’s affidavit in opposition to a physician’s motion for summary judgment (which was supported by a...
Back in the Before Time, one of my clients decided that the personal presence of expert witnesses in the courtroom was rarely necessary and hence rarely worth the expense. He used to fly around the...
The title of this blog post is the holding of a recent Tenth Circuit case, Tanner v. McMurray, https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/19/19-2166.pdf (10th Cir. 3/2/2021). All quotations below...
The novel coronavirus has profoundly altered the legal landscape over the past 12 months. Courts have been forced to change their operating procedures, restrict access, amend scheduling orders...
No, you wouldn’t. But a company called RXD Media apparently did, and after years of litigation is now permanently enjoined from any commercial use of the terms “ipad.” RXD Media, LLC v. Apple, Inc.,...
Readers of our blog have probably noticed that I have a special interest in sports-related legal issues (see https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/sports-law), which of course arises from my strong...
A couple of months ago, I wrote about the division of opinion among state courts as to whether Amazon can be held strictly liable for injuries caused by third-party sellers’ defective products. ...
Your response to that title is “Tell me something I don’t know,” right? This is black-letter law! Unfortunately, as every litigator knows, sometimes trial judges make decisions that are simply...
When I was a practicing trial lawyer, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (okay, so it was actually Rhode Island), our state supreme court recognized lack of informed consent as a basis for...
Like all of us, I have experienced bad times for our country over the course of my life. I can recall years of fear and misery. I can recall decades of chaos, drugs and war. I’ve lived through...
This is a tricky one. In Hirchak v. W.W. Grainger, Inc., https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/20/11/192642P.pdf (8th Cir. 11/17/2020), the plaintiff was injured at work when a web sling broke and...
Most of the attorneys who contact us are looking for a testifying expert. Presumably that’s because many experts won’t testify (for all kinds of reasons), but are willing to assist attorneys in...
As we prepare for Thanksgiving 2020, I think we all can be thankful that we are approaching the end of this strange year. At one point in late spring I researched the prophecies of Nostradomus to...
I’ve been in the expert referral business for 15 years, during which I’ve recommended consulting and testifying experts to hundreds of attorneys. I’ve had my share of misses – i.e., either the...
I recently had occasion to refer a neuro-ophthalmologist to Jason Rubin, a plaintiffs’ attorney in New York who is one of my regular clients. The plaintiff/patient had increased intracranial...
It’s been just two months (though it seems much longer in this era of what I call “COVID-induced time dilation”) since we first wrote about existing and anticipated litigation arising out of the...
Revisiting an old blog is often a useful exercise. For us at Vident, this particular post is always relevant, because our business is providing experts, and we’re always focused on the “why” as well...
This question was recently answered in the affirmative by California’s intermediate court of appeals in Bolger v. Amazon.com (4th App. Dist., Div. One, 8/13/2020), ...
The Yiddish word “chutzpah” is difficult to translate into English because Yiddish is a nuanced language, with many words that carry several shades of meaning as well as significant emotional...
Troy Payne is an attorney with over 13 years of experience as a federal law clerk, a law firm associate, and managing director of a digital forensics and analytics consultancy. His experience...
We are pleased to introduce Douglas J. Blair, an expert in the field of electronic medical records (EMR). Doug is a fellow of the American College of Medical Practice Executives and a Certified...
I’ve previously written about the surprising (to me) number of reported cases in which “the plaintiff failed to provide an adequate expert opinion on causation during discovery, resulting in summary...
We are pleased to announce that Barry N. Feldman, PhD has joined our panel of experts. Dr. Feldman is a nationally recognized educator, trainer, researcher, and clinical expert in the field of...
As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on the health, economies, and even political stability of nations, cities and towns across the globe. In America, it is also causing a growing...
If you’re a Star Trek fan (is there anyone who isn’t a Star Trek fan?), you’ve probably already seen this. But just in case you haven’t: This copyright infringement case marks the latest lawsuit...
If that headline made you blink, don’t worry – you read it correctly, and it accurately states what happened. The case is Markel v. Douglas Technologies Group, ...
Every conceivable segment of our lives has been impacted by COVID-19 and by our responses to it. In an effort to reduce the possibility of being exposed to the virus by touching an unsanitized...
Let me begin with a disclaimer. “[Bayer] Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann says decisions in the trials [i.e., the plaintiffs’ verdicts in the three bellwether cases] have been made on ‘a very...
Jeff Catalano, a longtime client of ours, is one of Massachusetts’s leading medical malpractice / products liability / personal injury attorneys. He recently wrote this article for his firm’s...
“What exactly is a medical toxicologist?” I have been asked this question by physicians and attorneys alike. The technical answer is that medical toxicology is a subspecialty officially recognized...
(Dr. Stephen Thornton is board certified in emergency medicine and medical toxicology and is one of Vident Partners’ leading experts in those fields. For more information about him, see ...
In this installment of my ongoing chronicle of sports-related litigation, https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/sports-law, I’m pleased to report on a recent decision that will be of particular...
In evaluating a complex medical malpractice case, where review by one or more specialists could be costly, the plaintiff’s attorney may want a preliminary flat-fee merit review (sometimes called a...
This recently-filed sexual assault case resonates, for three reasons: the event occurred on an airplane, which, while not unheard-of and certainly underreported, is relatively rare (see ...
As every trial lawyer knows, the admissibility of a vast array of evidence is committed to the trial court’s discretion. (Or “sound discretion,” as some appellate courts put it, though as far as I...
One of our clients has a term for unusual or hard-to-find experts – he calls them “pink unicorns.” We became aware of this phenomenon some years ago, even before we learned that felicitous phrase,...
Rule 702 of the Minnesota Rules Evidence provides that “[an expert’s] opinion must have foundational reliability.” This is the functional equivalent of Fed. R. Evid. 702’s requirement that testimony...
We’ve never blogged about a U.S. Supreme Court decision, though I did mention Feres v. United States in a post about recent legislation that created a long-overdue exception to the Feres doctrine –...
There is a split in the circuits on the important question of whether a medical opinion can be false within the meaning of the False Claims Act (FCA). I wrote about this last month, ...
Yes, Vident Partners is still open for business and actually functioning quite well. We all have home offices, as we have since the start of the company in 2005, so we’re fortunate to be able to...
Two class actions have been brought against GOJO, the maker of Purell hand sanitizer, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. ...
In my ongoing chronicle of sports-related litigation, https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/sports-law, I have previously had occasion to cite the work of Michael McCann, Sports Illustrated’s legal...
The importance of expert opinion (offered either by affidavit or in deposition testimony) in summary judgment practice cannot be overstated. We have previously written about this in a number of...
During the course of our nearly 15 years in the business, we’ve provided attorneys with consulting and testifying experts in over a hundred fields of expertise for many different types of litigation....
Appellate opinions usually begin with a very short introductory paragraph – just enough to orient the reader to the nature of the case and the outcome of the appeal. Here’s a typical example:...
The Rhode Island Supreme Court recently emphasized the requirement of expert opinion in an important class of premises liability cases – namely, those in which the plaintiff alleges that negligent...
Last April I wrote about the FDA’s decision to ban the use of surgical mesh devices for transvaginal repair of pelvic organ prolapse (“transvaginal mesh” or “pelvic mesh”). ...
Dr. Stephen L. Thornton is one of our top experts specializing in emergency medicine and medical toxicology. He consistently receives the highest praise from both plaintiff and defense attorneys....
As a baseball fan I always pay attention to the various sports websites, and a couple of weeks ago I saw an article that I read with amazement and some concern. A failed baseball player sued the New...
There’s real consumer fraud, and there’s imaginary consumer fraud. Becerra v. Dr Pepper/Seven Up, http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/12/30/18-16721_.pdf (9th Cir. 12/30/19), is a...
Attorneys who have never used an expert referral service may question the benefits of going that route, rather than continuing to find their own experts. Indeed, that very question has often been...
As the managing partner of Healthcare Litigation Support and (after our name change) Vident Partners, I’ve had the opportunity to assist in hundreds of medical malpractice cases. I’ve provided...
Surprisingly, the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently split 5-4 on this seemingly noncontroversial question. The case is Strauss v. Premera Blue Cross, ...
As Peter explained in last week’s post, https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/2019/blood-alcohol-hipaa-and-4th-amendment, in addition to our longtime (nearly 15-year) healthcare expert referral...
Vident Partners was founded as Healthcare Litigation Support in 2005. We originally focused on providing experts for medical malpractice and other personal injury litigation. Our consulting experts...
Article 1, Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution states: “All courts shall be open; and every man for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation shall have a remedy by due...
As I pointed out less than a month ago ( see my August 27th post), sports-related litigation is a growth business these days. The latest example is Antonio Brown’s anticipated grievance against the...
Today’s decision-makers require cogent translation from the emerging digital languages of Cybersecurity, privacy, computer forensics, and data analytics to the languages of business and law. ...
The case is Ashland Hospital Corp. v. Lewis, http://opinions.kycourts.net/sc/2018-SC-000276-DG.pdf (8/29/2019). The defendant, an interventional radiologist, performed a cerebral angiogram to...
In internal investigations and across substantive areas of litigation, we have encountered a new and unmistakable reality—data is not a loose collection of independent things like documents, devices...
Historically, professional sports has not been viewed as a field rich in opportunities for litigation (Flood v. Kuhn notwithstanding). Over the past few decades, however, there has been a...
The Kansas Supreme Court recently struck down a $250,000 statutory cap on noneconomic damages in all personal injury cases, holding that the statute violated the right to a jury trial guaranteed by...
Facebook, one of the three tech giants that have come to dominate both our business and personal worlds, is becoming increasingly controversial and faces significant challenges to its policies, and...
As in any professional malpractice litigation, the plaintiff in a legal malpractice case must present expert opinion testimony to establish that the defendant breached the standard of care. Unlike...
Vident Partners provides medical malpractice experts to both plaintiff and defense attorneys. And over the 15 years that we’ve been in business we’ve seen a wide variety of issues, most of which...
In Azmat v. Bauer, http://opinions.kycourts.net/sc/2016-SC-000560-DG.pdf, the Kentucky Supreme Court addressed an unusual but interesting issue concerning the unauthorized practice of law in the...
Last week I wrote about the FDA’s decision to ban surgical mesh for transvaginal repair of pelvic organ prolapse (POP). The FDA took this action only after tens of thousands of lawsuits were filed...
Fear of the unknown. Over a combined six decades of Cybersecurity work, our team has encountered one troubling constant: business and law firm leaders fear Cybersecurity risks and often exhibit...
The FDA’s announcement of the ban is at https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/ImplantsandProsthetics/UroGynSurgicalMesh/default.htm: The FDA has determined that the...
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently resolved a split among its district courts on an issue relating to removal from state to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction. Gibbons v....
Several thousand lawsuits are pending in state courts around the country in which the plaintiffs claim that the weed killer Roundup caused them to develop cancer – specifically, non-Hodgkin’s...
Jeff Catalano, a longtime client of ours, is one of Massachusetts’s leading medical malpractice / products liability / personal injury attorneys. He recently wrote about this unusual (and...
I’m sure our readers will remember the multiple lawsuits filed against Ford in 2013, with attendant heavy media coverage, claiming that certain Ford vehicles were prone to unintended acceleration...
On March, 14, 2019 the Connecticut Supreme Court issued its decision in Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC, https://jud.ct.gov/external/supapp/Cases/AROcr/CR331/331CR865.pdf (majority...
Vident Partners provides both consulting and testifying experts for all types of litigation. When an expert in a highly specialized field is needed, we often work with strategic partners, one of...
Many personal injury cases involve traumatic brain injury (TBI) cause by a closed head injury. The severity of TBI can vary quite widely, with a correspondingly wide range of damages. See generally ...
On December 5, 2018 a class action lawsuit was filed against Pacific Gas & Electric – Burnett v. PG&E Corporation, https://www.classaction.org/media/burnett-et-al-v-pg-and-e-corporation-et-al.pdf. ...
This case points up the extreme care and attention to detail that a plaintiff’s attorney must exercise in reviewing an expert’s affidavit in opposition to summary judgment. The case is Fernandez v....
In a previous post I discussed negligent credentialing, a theory of recovery that enables a patient to hold a hospital liable for injuries caused by an independent contractor physician. This is not...
Under the ancient common law doctrine of respondeat superior, a hospital is liable for the negligence of a physician who is an employee of the hospital, but is not liable for the negligence of an...
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/dont-judge-your-mucus-by-its-color-201602089129 A blog commenting on another blog is probably not unprecedented, but for us it’s unusual. However, the influenza...
Material for a law-related blog sometimes comes from an unexpected source. Last night the most prominent college basketball player in the U.S., Duke’s Zion Williamson, injured his right knee when...
The South Dakota Supreme Court recently upheld summary judgment against the plaintiff in an auto accident case who failed to submit an affidavit from a medical expert on the issue of causation. ...
A recent opinion of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Kopplin v. Wisconsin Central Limited, ...
As I mentioned in a previous post, almost all of the states have enacted a variety of laws that treat medical malpractice cases differently from all other torts. “Medical malpractice reform...
I have been following this litigation for several months. (See my previous posts at https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6407989287274455040/, ...
In response to skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance premiums in the 1970s and 80s, states began enacting a variety of “tort reform” laws that treat medical malpractice differently from all...
In December 2018, two different courts issued opinions in favor of Apple in personal injury/wrongful death suits. The first is Modisette v. Apple Inc. ( ...
Here’s a timely reminder that Federal Rule of Evidence 702 (the basis of the Supreme Court’s famous Daubert decision) imposes a four-part test. For expert opinion testimony to be admissible, the...
620 cases claiming that glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer) causes cancer are pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The first...
As an expert witness referral service, we provide experts in all fields of specialization for all types of litigation. One of the core areas of litigation that we are involved with is medical...
An important question in medical malpractice cases is whether the plaintiff’s standard of care expert must be board certified in the same specialty as the defendant, or must at least practice in the...
Hartung Commercial Properties v. Buffi’s Automotive Equipment and Supply (Ala. 12/7/18), https://acis.alabama.gov/displaydocs.cfm?no=915441&event=5CZ0LF196, involved a fire that destroyed a body...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment against all plaintiffs in the Lipitor MDL case, ...
The case is Smith v. Chrysler Group (5th Cir. 11/26/2018), http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/17/17-40901-CV0.pdf. The opinion concisely summarizes the facts as follows: This products...
Many states require the plaintiff’s expert in a medical malpractice case to be board certified in the same specialty as the defendant. The dire consequence of an attorney’s failure to meet this...
Are you a lawyer or law firm seeking expert witnesses or testifying experts? Let us know and we'll be in touch!
