Law Advice

In the face of the most comprehensive effort yet to keep Bank of America on the hook for alleged fraud in a Countrywide mortgage-backed securities case, a California federal district court judge has rejected Allstate’s successor liability claim against BofA. View full post on Law.com – Newswire

BATON ROUGE, La. – An insurer has a duty to defend its insured in a pollution liability suit brought by the United States because the insurer failed to prove that coverage is excluded under the policy, a Louisiana federal judge said Jan. 30 (Louisiana Generating, L.L.C., et al. v. Illinois Union Insurance Company, No. 10-cv-0516, [...]

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Johnson & Johnson said Jan. 24 that it took a $ 4.2 billion after-tax charge against earnings to cover product liability expenses, litigation settlements, costs of the DePuy ASR hip recall, restructuring of its Cordis Corp. subsidiary, the acquisition of Synthes Inc. and an adjustment to the value of a currency [...]

Los Angeles Times Obama Administration And Banks Near Deal On Mortgage Fraud Legal LiabilityHuffington PostThe final details of the arrangement, according to the source who revealed them, will apparently not preclude prosecutors and regulators from taking legal action against many of the common abuses during the house bubble. It remains to be seen whether …Fla. [...]

OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma man who was involved in an accident in Minnesota fell short of establishing that his insurer acted in bad faith, an Oklahoma federal judge ruled Jan. 18, finding instead that the parties’ lack of knowledge of the two states’ insurance systems merely caused “a legitimate dispute over coverage” (Joe J. [...]

RALEIGH, N.C. – The North Carolina Court of Appeals on Jan. 17 overturned summary judgment for the defendant in a premises liability action, ruling that the plaintiff properly alleged personal injury claims (Susan S. Shumaker v. Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, No. COA11-598, N.C. App.; 2012 N.C. App. LEXIS 14). View full post on [...]

RICHMOND, Va. – A divided Virginia Supreme Court reversed a trial court’s $ 9.6 million award to a couple who sued Campbell County for contamination of wells that supplied their mobile home park by an adjacent county landfill, saying Jan. 13 that the passive, gradual seepage of leachate and landfill gas into groundwater is not [...]

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – In anticipation of the Jan. 17 personal injury products liability trial in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania of claims for chemical exposure brought on behalf of a minor child by her parents against the manufacturer of a car safety seat, the parties filed dozens of motions in [...]

NDTV Cruise Lines Use Law and Contracts to Limit LiabilityNew York TimesAnyone trying to sue Costa Concodia's corporate parent, Carnival Cruise Lines, though, will find that the company is stoutly protected by international law and by a carefully worded contract that passengers accept when they buy their tickets. …Must a captain be the last one [...]

SEATTLE – A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Jan. 11 certified a question to the Washington Supreme Court, asking if the Washington Product Liability Act permits “relief for emotional distress damages, in the absence of physical injury” in regard to a case where fast food workers allegedly spit in a customer’s food [...]