Latest Lawsuits Headlines
All the headlines from our Lawsuits Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Lawsuit: Defective Helicopter Caused Deadly Crash
Jan 26 2009 // The relatives of three sailors who died when a helicopter crashed off the San Diego coast during a Navy training mission filed a lawsuit against seven companies that manufactured and sold the aircraft and its parts. The...
Court Finds Georgia Coaches Immune from Suit Over Player’s Death
Jan 26 2009 // Three suburban Atlanta football coaches cannot be sued for alleged violations of the constitutional rights of a 15-year-old who died after a preseason practice in the summer of 2006, a federal appeals court ruled last...
Insurance in Times of Financial Crisis
Jan 25 2009 // Fiduciary liability typically involves an employee suing an employer for not offering employee options for investing in a 401K plan, and the law weighs heavily in favor of the employee in these cases. The current financial...
Mississippi Scruggs-Katrina Suits Quietly Settled
Jan 25 2009 // Dozens of Hurricane Katrina-related lawsuits filed by Richard “Dickie” Scruggs for policyholders against State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. have been settled. Terms of the settlements are confidential. Officials...
Agents Speak Out on ‘Putting Back the Pieces’ After Brooke
Jan 25 2009 // Brooke Group Declares Bankruptcy, Faces Rico Charges, More Lawsuits Technically, Brooke Franchise owes me $7 million, but who knows if I will ever see it,” said Roger Cunningham, former Brooke franchisee and agent/...
Duty to Defend Greater than Duty to Indemnify
Jan 25 2009 // A Subcontractor’s Contractual Obligation to Defend Exists Regardless of Negligence A July 2008 decision on a piece of litigation in the California Supreme Court affirmed the duty to defend concept as being greater...
Savvy US Airways Pilot May Have Grounded Lawsuits
Jan 23 2009 // A savvy pilot saved at least 155 lives when he guided a disabled US Airways jet to a relatively gentle landing in the Hudson River last week. He also may have protected his airline from the rash of lawsuits that usually...
California AG Sues Operators and Pilot for San Francisco Bay Oil Spill
Jan 22 2009 // California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the California Department of Fish and Game Office of Spill Prevention and Response, State Lands Commission and State Water Boards against the...
Vermont Quadriplegic Sues Volkswagen
Jan 20 2009 // A Vermont man paralyzed in a 2002 accident is suing Volkswagen AG, saying the Jetta he was riding in wasn’t “crash worthy.” Twenty-nine-year-old Owen Milne’s product liability suit goes to trial...
Family of Minnesota Salmonella Victim to Sue Peanut Butter Firms
Jan 20 2009 // The family of a woman who died after contracting salmonella plans a lawsuit against the companies that made and distributed peanut butter blamed in a recent outbreak, an attorney said. Shirley Mae Almer, 72, died Dec. 21...
Priests Accused of Sex Abuse in Alaska
Jan 16 2009 // The Jesuit order has been sued by 43 Alaska Natives who say they were sexually abused as children, and mounting evidence shows that known pedophile priests were sent to the Fairbanks, Alaska, Diocese for decades, a lawyer...
State Wants Bear Mauling Lawsuit Case Dropped
Jan 16 2009 // A Utah state attorney says governmental immunity laws protect the state from liability in the death of an 11-year-old boy mauled by a bear in 2007. Assistant Utah Attorney General Reed Stringham asked a 4th District Court...
Mississippi Katrina Suits Filed by Scruggs Against State Farm Settled
Jan 15 2009 // Dozens of Hurricane Katrina-related lawsuits filed by Richard “Dickie” Scruggs for policyholders against State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. have been settled. Terms of the settlements are confidential. Officials...
Connecticut Group Sues over Damage Caused by Implosion
Jan 14 2009 // The Knights of Columbus alleges in a new lawsuit that the city of New Haven, Connecticut and its contractors are liable for more than $1 million in damage to the group’s museum and headquarters caused by the...
AIG Client Sues Northrop Grumman Over Fatal 2005 Seaplane Crash
Jan 12 2009 // The maker of a vintage seaplane that crashed off Miami Beach in 2005, killing 20 people, is being sued in federal court. Federal investigators blamed faulty repair and inadequate government regulation for the crash of the...
Kentucky Bank Sues Merrill Lynch for $40 Million Over Investment Losses
Jan 12 2009 // Kentucky’s largest state-chartered bank has sued Merrill Lynch for $40 million over failed securities bought through the investment firm. Pikeville-based Community Trust Bank filed the suit in federal court on New...
Court: New Jersey Woman Can Pursue Perfume Lawsuit
Jan 12 2009 // A New Jersey woman who claims she was disabled by a co-workers’ perfume can move forward with her worker’s compensation lawsuit, an appeals panel ruled Friday. Doris Sexton sued the county-owned nursing home...
Pennsylvania Hospitals, Docs Sue over Malpractice Fund
Jan 11 2009 // Pennsylvania hospitals and doctors are suing the state to obtain hundreds of millions in unspent dollars they say should be devoted to a state fund that helps doctors pay for medical malpractice insurance. Industry...
Estimating Insurance Losses From the Credit Crisis
Jan 11 2009 // On Nov. 5, 2008, the insurance information firm Advisen issued an updated forecast of insurance losses likely to arise from the credit crisis, estimating aggregate directors and officers (D&O), and errors and...
Insurance Price-Fixing Lawsuit Dismissed in Louisiana
Jan 11 2009 // A federal judge in New Orleans in late December 2008 dismissed an antitrust lawsuit Louisiana’s former attorney general filed against some of the nation’s largest insurance companies after hurricanes Katrina...
