In the News

Their party survived the 2020 election. Now, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick are trying to outrun the coronavirus pandemic and set themselves up for reelection to third terms next year. But first, they must manage a session of the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature beginning Tuesday. It’ll be held amid the most dire public health threat in at least a century.

Some prominent business defense lawyers, reacting to a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report about the relatively paltry number of Covid-19 exposure lawsuits to date, say we are merely at the starting gate for virus-related injury claims.

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday revamped a key legal standard as its conservative majority continued to show a willingness to undo previous decisions that have guided the state’s courts. “Our goals are simply to improve the fairness and efficiency of Florida’s civil justice system, to relieve parties from the expense and burdens of meritless litigation, and to save the work of juries for cases where there are real factual disputes that need resolution.”

Trucking officials and tort reform advocates in Texas have introduced legislation seeking to end schemes between plaintiff attorneys and doctors under which medical costs related to truck accidents are overstated in court litigation, a practice that critics charge is contributing to a rise in large jury verdicts and lawsuit settlements against trucking companies.

San Francisco is suing Exxon Mobil Corp., and you’ll never guess why: For producing the oil and gas we all use every day. The suit is one of more than a dozen lawsuits against the oil industry by cities and states across the country, from California to Connecticut, that seek to directly connect specific oil companies to damage caused by climate change.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf says he feels the pain of businesses struggling to survive the pandemic, but does he really? On Monday he vetoed a bill providing liability protections for schools, businesses and other employers against Covid-related lawsuits.

Dozens of staged accidents. Scores of hustlers. Millions of dollars paid to settle fraudulent lawsuits with fake injuries claims. And, as a result, the entire state of Louisiana suffering from some of the highest car insurance rates in the country. “It affects all of us,” former U.S. Attorney Harry Rosenberg said. “It affects you and me and all of your listeners because we’re all going to be paying more insurance as a result of these fraudulent claims.”

“Frankly, this is the kind of thing that needs to happen — for appellate courts to strike down some of these crazy jury verdicts,” Rob Moseley, a longtime trucking defense attorney with the Moseley Marcinak Law Group, based in Greenville, S.C., told Transport Topics. “Otherwise, litigation just becomes extortion.”

Until now, lawyers accused of working with street-level “slammers” to orchestrate perhaps hundreds of staged crashes in the New Orleans area hadn’t been charged and weren’t identified by name in federal court records. The sprawling case has opened a window to a brazen racket that allegedly involved many New Orleans-area residents volunteering to risk injury, and in some cases surgery, for cash.

State lawmakers continue to search for ways to pave the path for their economies to reopen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest trend in that effort: equipping businesses with a shield against legal liability for claims related to the contraction of COVID-19.