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personal injury

07.12.2018

ELPO successfully represents 32 defendants in tainted injections cases

By Bob Young, Managing Partner English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley LLP In 2012, there was a national outbreak of fungal meningitis caused by poor manufacturing conditions at New England Compounding Company (NECC). Out of the 753 cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control, 234 individuals contacted fungal meningitis, while more than 300 individuals suffered from fungal infections. Sixty-four patients in nine states died. We represented 32 patients from Kentucky and Tennessee, tracking the cases through the courts for more than five years. Even as NECC filed bankruptcy and the clinic that administered the injections in Tennessee closed down, we still gained settlements for our clients. It was an incredibly complicated case, but for our team, it was all in a day’s (or a few year’s) work. Read More

04.17.2018

Another Johnson and Johnson talcum powder case returns verdict for plaintiff

By Bob Young, attorney English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, LLP For the last year, cases have been working their way through the courts against Johnson & Johnson and their talc supplier, with plaintiffs who used their baby powder or Shower to Shower powder suing because they were diagnosed with cancer after long-term use of the products. Last week, a jury handed down a landmark verdict against Johnson & Johnson on behalf of plaintiff Larry Lanzo and his wife. Lanzo had used Shower to Shower powder and other similar products for nearly 30 years, and developed mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer. Lanzo believes the disease came from inhaling the product during the past three decades of use. The court ruled Johnson & Johnson must pay $117 million in damages, with $30 million of that going to Lanzo, and $7 million to his wife. The rest of the money - $80 million – will be paid in punitive damages. Johnson & Johnson issued a statement saying it does not believe there is a link between its powder and mesothelioma. Read More

12.07.2017

Tennessee Supreme Court upholds the Collateral Source Rule in personal injury cases

By Kyle Roby English, Lucas, Priest and OwsleyWhen you are injured in an accident, you may sue to recover the costs of reasonable and necessary medical treatment following the incident. How do you determine what those costs are and the reasonableness of them? Is it the medical bill itself? Is it what your health insurance paid? Is the other side entitled to a credit or set-off if the cost of your medical bills are reduced by insurance payments or the hospital charges a different rate for your health insurance? These are some of the questions you may have when trying to determine what is the reasonable cost of medical treatment in a personal injury case. In most states, Courts will follow what is known as the collateral source rule. The collateral source rule is a rule of evidence that prohibits the admission of evidence that the plaintiff or victim has received compensation form other than the damages sought against the defendant. Typical examples of a collateral source are medical bills paid by health insurance or payments made by workers compensation. Recently, the Tennessee Supreme Court was faced with the question of what was the reasonable cost for medical services in personal injury cases. This case, Dedmon vs. Steelman, is an important win for Tennessee patients and personal injury victims. The Tennessee Supreme Court heard the case in April and issued a ruling on November 17, 2017. Read More

12.05.2017

Kentucky Appeals Court sides with homeowners in construction accident case

When a person who is injured due to another party's careless conduct files a lawsuit, he or she may expect the matter to be concluded either by a jury trial or by a settlement. However, a significant number of Kentucky personal injury cases - especially premises liability lawsuits arising from slip and falls, trip and falls, and fall down accidents - are resolved via a motion for summary judgment. By granting summary judgment, a trial court is saying, in essence, that even if everything the plaintiff says in his or her complaint is true, the defendant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Summary judgment is only appropriate in situations in which no genuine issues of material fact must be resolved in order for the issues to be decided. Read More

11.07.2017

Kentucky Appeals Court Dismisses Public Street Injury Claim Based on Insufficiency of Notice to City

Filing a personal injury lawsuit against a city can be very tricky. If certain rigid procedural requirements are not met, a plaintiff’s case can be dismissed even if a city was clearly negligent. This is one of many reasons why it is best to consult an attorney as soon as… Read More

07.13.2017

Tennessee personal injury case highlights importance of timeliness of filing lawsuit

Compared to some states, Tennessee has a very short statute of limitations for the filing of claims involving personal injury: just one year. If a claim is not filed within this time period, the plaintiff's case will be dismissed regardless of its merits. In addition to filing his or her claim in court within one year of the accident, the plaintiff must also serve a summons and a copy of the complaint on the defendant within a certain time period. A recent Tennessee personal injury case illustrates the difficulties that a claimant faced when his opponent not only moved out of the county but also filed for bankruptcy protection. Read More

05.30.2017

Appeals Court Reverses Judgment in Kentucky personal injury case

Under Kentucky law, a person who is injured on the job is entitled to benefits such as temporary and permanent disability payments and medical expenses. Usually, these benefits are less than what the worker would have received in a negligence case against someone other than his or her employer. Thus, an employee who is hurt at work may wish to file a personal injury lawsuit against a third party whose negligence contributed to an injury at work. Of course, the third party has an incentive to assign as much fault as possible to the employer, even though the employer is immune from liability in the negligence case. Read More

02.07.2017

Truck accident case brings settlement for client

Attorney Kyle Roby Attorney and partner Kyle Roby recently settled a truck accident case for $850,000 on behalf of a Kentucky client. We have posted about this case on our main firm web site, and are sharing with our audience here as well. Here is a summary of the case. Read More

01.11.2017

Negligence standard, not strict liability, applies in Kentucky dog bite case

There is no question that some dogs are more dangerous than others, or that almost any dog is capable of an attack under the right circumstances. What responsibility should the owner of a dog with dangerous propensities - or the owner of any dog, for that matter - have toward the general public? A Kentucky appellate court addressed this issue recently in a case in which a woman was severely injured by a pack of dogs during a hunting trip. Read More

07.19.2016

Insured’s Claim for UIM in Kentucky Denied Despite 30-Year Misunderstanding About Coverage

Do you know how much uninsured motorist coverage you have, or whether you have such coverage at all? One man thought that he had such coverage, but, as it turns out, uninsured motorist coverage was not part of his insurance plan with Allstate. In a case that went all the way to the state's highest court, the parties vehemently disagreed about the issue of coverage. Ultimately, the man lost his case in an appellate court opinion issued some 10 years after the automobile accident that led to the dispute. Read More