Negligence lawsuits

August The California Supreme Court overturns a negligence lawsuit based on the use of the Navegar TEC-9 assault pistol in the 100 California Saint shootings in 1993 in San Francisco. The court rules that the suit was barred by California law. 

The proposed OSHA law reduces some of the enforcement requirements of the competent person. The objective is to both shield the competent person, who generally tends to be a blue-collar worker or supervisor, from negligence lawsuits, and focus responsibility of enforcement more directly onto executive management and business owners. 

At first blush, the increased risk of harm suit against a drug manufacturer on a negligence theory that pharmacogenomics could have been used to determine the increased risks to a portion of the population appears to be a logical extension of the doctrinal shifts in liability law signaled by Moore. The likelihood of success of this particular lawsuit is in fact small because of the nature of existing medical liability doctrine in Pennsylvania. 

Olson, Walter. Firing Squad. Reason, vol. 31, May 1999, p. 58. Warns that negligence suits against gun makers may erode the right to obtain firearms by forcing restrictions. A major court victory in any state could have the effect of legislating for all. Conservatives may have to suspend their belief in federalism and support national legislation to protect gun makers from lawsuits. 

Two basic types of claims for emotional distress have been proffered in toxic tort lawsuits. If the defendant s conduct is viewed as extreme and outrageous, courts may allow a claim for intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress. By contrast, if the defendant s conduct is alleged to be negligent, a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress may be allowed. 

The worst case scenario for a food chemist who produces a dangerous food product or fails to detect the dangers in an existing food product is to be fired or even go to jail for violating regulatory requirements. If you are an independent food chemist consultant, and you come to wrong conclusions, and your client loses a lawsuit, that same client may turn around and sue you for negligence. 

Generally, lawsuits involving product liability will increase, with manufacturers more vulnerable in cases of negligence in design or lack of reasonable foresight. Warranty disclaimers (the fine print carefully added at the end of properly constructed technical bulletins) and privity of... 

It is the responsibility of the teacher to provide a safe environment for their students. Proper supervision greatly reduces the risk of injury and a teacher should never leave a class for any reason without providing alternate supervision. After an accident, two factors are considered foreseeability and negligence. Foreseeability is the anticipation that an event may occur under certain circumstances. Negligence is the failure to exercise ordinary or reasonable care. Safety procedures should be a part of the science curriculum and a well managed classroom is important to avoid potential lawsuits. 

Another reason is that compliance with prescriptive rules provides a safe harbor from potential liability for the operator. For example, if the operator has fully complied but incurs a harmful incident that leads to tort liability lawsuits which allege operator negligence and seek compensatory and punitive damages, many... 

Failure to have a written (driver safety) policy in place creates an almost indefensible position if the employer ever needs protection from a negligent entrustment lawsuit. Of course, the corollary to this is that once a policy is in place, it must be followed and enforced. Make sure you regularly update your driver qualification files, training activities, and handling of risk-associated driving activities. These documents can be critical in the final outcome of a lawsuit. 

How could anyone who makes a mistake of that magnitude be allowed to practice medicine We call such doctors incompetent , unethical and negligent . We want to see them punished. And so we ve wound up with the public system we have for dealing with error malpractice lawsuits, media scandal, suspensions, firings. 

With the spread of the industrial revolution, the toU for workers rose rapidly. The toU claimed human lives and caused injuries, medical expenses, and lost income. The men, women, and children employed in factories faced many dangers. Society found these results unacceptable and pushed for reform to make jobs safer. They also sought to place at least some burden on employers to pay for the losses workers experienced. However, common law defenses thwarted those efforts while protecting employers. If a worker wanted to get compensation or indemnity under common law, the worker had to sue the employer. The worker had to prove that the employer s negligence was the sole cause of injury. The employee carried virtually aU the risks in employment. Furthermore, an attempt to win compensation through a lawsuit was likely to result in loss of employment or create iU wdl. 

In compensation lawsuits, employers could claim there was no negligence on their part. They could also use three other common law defenses in a case involving an injured worker. The defenses were ... 

Operating under the Second Restatement of Torts, Section 402A, a plaintiff in a strict liability lawsuit does not have to prove negligence. The behavior of the defendant is irrelevant. The defendant caimot show how well he operated his quality control or product safety program to prevent defects. A defendant caimot present how a quality design process created a safe product. Those may all be good practices, but they are defendant behaviors and do not apply in strict liability cases. 

Improper material selection can lead to a lawsuit. A plaintiff won a negligence case involving a ladder constructed of soft pine. A consensus standard did not allow that material for ladder construction. 

In May, an accident in Montana caused by a tyre blowout on a concrete mixer tmck resulted in the death of two women. A lawsuit is being filed on behalf of the victims husbands seeking unspecified damages for negligence and product liability. The retreaded tyre was fitted on the steer axle of the truck and when the tyre blew, the driver lost control of the vehicle and it collided head-on with the women s car. The attorneys handling the case hope it will spur efforts nationwide to get retreaded tyres banned from use on commercial vehicles steer axles. 

After several families of victims sued Consolidation, the company s president asked its lead attorney whether it would not be cheaper and safer to keep a stiff upper lip and fight it out—than to do anything more than charity requires. Consolidation paid for the dead miners funeral expenses and provided compensation of 150 for each widow and 75 for every child of a dead miner under the age of 16. Since the state and federal courts of the era did not award compensation for accidents attributable to the negligence of the plaintiff or any of his fellow workers, that was essentially the end of the matter. The lawsuits were either dismissed or settled for small sums. Within two months, the mine was back in operation and the victims families were persona non grata in the company town. ... 

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