Recently in Injury & Tort Law Category

Ever since former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman began making headlines for audio recordings and allegations detailed in tell-all book about the Trump administration, the non-disclosure agreements supposedly signed by all staffers have come to light. Porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal also purportedly signed NDAs regarding their relationships with the president in exchange for hush money.

But are these agreements enforceable? A New York judge recently ruled that some of the provisions of nondisclosure agreements signed by Trump staffers -- those compelling arbitration rather than lawsuits -- are not, at least when it comes to claims of harassment and sexual discrimination.

Guns are dangerous as it is. The last thing gun owners need are rifles that are "susceptible to unintentional firing without a trigger pull." Remington had allegedly produced some 7.5 million rifles with a design defect that, while intended as a safety improvement, could lead to the guns firing without the trigger being pulled.

The gun manufacturer recently settled a class action lawsuit claiming the company knew about and failed to adequately address the problem, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that settlement last week.

The long and winding road of baby powder lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson took an expensive turn last week, with a St. Louis jury awarding almost $4.7 billion in damages to 22 women and their families who claimed that asbestos contained in the company's talc-based powder products contributed to their ovarian cancer.

It's the largest of five previous verdicts against Johnson & Johnson involving their Baby Powder and Shower to Shower products. But like those others, it is sure to be challenged, appealed, and may be overturned or reduced.

Everyone who's attended or worked for UC Berkeley is accustomed to the regular protests conducted on campus. Every day brings a new cause, a new chant, and new protest signs. But only groups like the Occupy Wall Street movement take their crusades to the next level and try to set up camp.

After one Occupy group pitched their tents on Berkeley's campus in 2011, university police used tactics the protestors claimed amounted to excessive force. After years of duking it out in court, a panel of federal judges ruled in favor of the campus cops, although the protestors are prepared to take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

There's no denying college and graduate school can be an intensely stressful experience at times. Between exams, papers, projects, and just fitting in, it's a lot for students to handle, especially if mixed with other mental health issues. And in tragic cases, these can be so great the individual turns to suicide.

Of course, after such a devastating event, many wonder why it happened or how it could have been prevented. In a case out of Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled that although a college and its professors were not responsible for a student's suicide, colleges and professors may have a duty to prevent suicide in some cases.

The feud between Uber and Lyft continues with no end in sight. And that's normally a good thing for ride-sharing consumers, because strong competition usually drives prices down. But according to one man's lawsuit, Uber used a wiretap program to lure drivers away from Lyft, increasing Lyft customer wait times, and encouraging them to call an Uber instead. However, a federal judge has mostly dismissed the man's lawsuit, ruling that his allegations don't satisfy the federal Wiretap Act.

When an adult seriously harms a child, the full force of the law should come down on them. And when a series of adults could have easily prevented that harm, they should be held responsible for that abhorrent negligence. These are, after all, the lives of innocent children we're talking about.

In a truly shocking case, Oregon child welfare workers ignored clear warning signs and placed a four-year-old girl with a man who later allegedly raped and abused her. And now the state agency has agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought on her behalf, while her former foster father is a free man.

No one really enjoys having to go to work, so it's especially upsetting if you get injured while at work. Luckily, most employers have workers' compensation insurance. But, you may wonder, which injuries qualify for workers' compensation? And, are all types of businesses required to provide workers' compensation? Well, as it always seems to be when it comes to the law, the answer is: it depends. In Oklahoma, for example, only recently did the Oklahoma Supreme Court decide that workers can sue oil companies for injuries suffered while working.

Starbucks customers are pretty fussy when it comes to their daily fix. That much was evidenced by fans of their lattes filing a class action lawsuit claiming the coffee chain was shorting them on their steamed milk. "Starbucks lattes are uniformly underfilled pursuant to a standardized recipe," the suit alleged. "By underfilling its lattes, thereby shortchanging its customers, Starbucks has saved countless millions of dollars in the cost of goods sold and was unjustly enriched by taking payment for more product than it delivers."

But a federal judge disagreed, ruling that the lawsuit "fail[ed] to show that lattes contain less than the promised beverage volume represented on Starbucks' menu boards," and dismissing the suit.

There are times when a person's immigration status will be relevant in a court of law. Say, if a person is accused of falsifying documents to hide that status. It could also come up if a witness is receiving some immigration benefit in exchange for or in order to facilitate their testimony. In an on-the-job personal injury case? Immigration status is not so relevant.

So said the Washington Supreme Court back in 2010, when it granted an injured worker a new trial on the grounds the jury in his first may have been prejudiced by knowledge that the man had overstayed his visa. Last week, the court officially adopted that rule of evidence, making immigration status "generally inadmissible" in both civil and criminal court.