Case Summaries

Injury & Tort Law

[06/25] Crescent Towing & Salvage Co. v. Chios Beauty MV
In an action for damages sustained when defendant's ship collided with plaintiffs' barges and tugboats during Hurricane Katrina, partial judgment for plaintiff is affirmed in part where the district court did not clearly err in its finding of a predicted "direct hit" on New Orleans by the hurricane, its factual findings based on this finding, and the ultimate finding of negligence to the extent that it relied upon this finding. However, the matter is remanded where the district court needed to enter an order setting the total amount of recovery plaintiffs could recover in rem.

[06/25] Bagby Elevator Co. v. Schindler Elevator Corp.
In an action for tortious interference with contract, judgment for plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) under the court's highly deferential standard of review, there was no reversible error in the district court's decision to use the pattern jury instruction; 2) there was sufficient evidence of both malice and gross negligence to support an award of exemplary damages; and 3) there was ample evidence of causation to support the verdict.

[06/25] Lal v. State of Cal.
In an action against the California Highway Patrol and certain officers for the shooting death of plaintiff's husband, dismissal of the action with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for failure to prosecute when her attorney failed to meet deadlines and attend hearings is reversed where an attorney's gross negligence constituted an extraordinary circumstance warranting relief from a judgment dismissing the case for failure to prosecute under Rule 41(b).

[06/24] DDJ Mgmt., LLC v. Rhone Group L.L.C.
In an action claiming that defendants presented plaintiffs with corporate financial statements that were false and misleading, the appellate division's modification of the trial court's order dismissing plaintiffs' fraud claim is reversed where: 1) when a plaintiff has taken reasonable steps to protect itself against deception, it should not be denied recovery merely because hindsight suggested that it might have been possible to detect the fraud when it occurred; and 2) plaintiffs in this action for fraud have alleged facts from which a jury could find that they were justified in relying on the representations defendants made to them.

[06/24] Granite Rock Co. v. Int'l. Brotherhood of Teamsters
In an action against a labor union by an employer, invoking federal jurisdiction under section 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), seeking strike-related damages for the unions' alleged breach of contract, and asking for an injunction against an ongoing strike because the hold-harmless dispute was an arbitrable grievance under the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the Ninth Circuit's partial affirmance of the district court's order dismissing plaintiff's tortious interference claims and denying defendant's separate motion to send the parties' dispute over the CBA's ratification date to arbitration is affirmed in part where the Ninth Circuit did not err in declining to recognize a new federal common-law cause of action under LMRA section 301(a) for defendant's alleged tortious interference with the CBA. However, the judgment is reversed in part where the parties' dispute over the CBA's ratification date was a matter for the district court, not an arbitrator, to resolve.

[06/24] Yanez v. SOMA Envtl. Eng'g, Inc.
In plaintiff's suit for injuries she suffered in an automobile accident, trial court's grant of defendants' motion to reduce the award for medical expenses from $44,519.01 to $18,368.24 is reversed and remanded where: 1) trial court erred in reducing plaintiff's damages to the amount actually paid by her insurers as the amounts written off by plaintiff's health care providers constitute collateral benefits of her insurance; and 2) on remand, the trial court is to award plaintiff prejudgment interest under Civ. Code section 3291.

[06/23] Simmons v. Navajo County
In a civil rights action against county jail personnel claiming that they negligently permitted the suicide of an inmate, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed in part where: 1) no reasonable jury could conclude that a nurse consciously disregarded an excessive risk to plaintiffs' decedent's safety; 2) plaintiffs adduced no evidence that a corrections officer knew that the decedent was suicidal; and 3) because there was no underlying constitutional violation, plaintiffs could not maintain a claim for municipal liability. However, the judgment is vacated in part where, should the district court decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs' state law claims, it may remand those claims to state court for further proceedings.

[06/23] Espinosa v. Kirkwood
In plaintiffs' suit against the driver of their getaway vehicle (they were participants in a burglary) for damages for personal injuries sustained in a vehicle collision while fleeing from the police, judgment of the trial court is affirmed as, because their injuries were "in any way proximately caused by their commission of a felony or immediate flight therefrom," plaintiffs were barred from recovering damages based on negligence.

[06/23] Hendrix v. Evenflo Co.
In an action alleging that plaintiff's son sustained traumatic brain injuries when a child restraint system manufactured by defendant malfunctioned during a minor traffic accident, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding plaintiff's expert testimony based on the insufficient reliability of that testimony under Daubert.

[06/18] Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Merrell
In plaintiffs' wrongful death and survival claims against Wal-Mart for the death of their son from smoke inhalation, claiming that a halogen lamp purchased from Wal-Mart caused the fire, the court of appeals' reversal of the trial court's grant of defendant's motion for summary judgment on the ground that plaintiffs produced evidence on each challenged element of their cause of action is reversed as, plaintiff's expert's testimony was legally insufficient to support causation.

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