Personal Injury Roundup No. 51 (9/25/09)

Here’s what happened during the first week of fall in the world of torts:

Reform, Legislation, Policy

• Senate Finance Committee marked-up its health care reform bill.  (FDA Law Blog) 
• Congressional Research Service issues report on health care reform. (Open CRS)
• “Should Liability Damages Caps Be A Part of Health Reform?” (TortsProf)

New Lawsuits

• Coyote Ugly Saloon patron slips while dancing on top of bar and sues.  (Day on Torts)
• Eric Dane (McSteamy to Gray’s Anatomy fans) sued Gawker.com for maliciously posting a video of Dane and two female friends in the buff.  (E! Online)

Trials, Settlements and Other Ends

• Court approved Bluetooth settlement class.  (Center for Class Action Fairness)
• Bayer moves to dismiss master complaint in federal combination aspirin MDL.  (Mass Tort Defense)
• Facebook settles a class action suit related to its Beacon service, which displayed actions that users took on other Web sites back on their Facebook page.  (Concurring Opinions, American Lawyer/law.com)

Appeals

• United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit allows suit against six power companies on the grounds that their greenhouse gas emissions constituted a public nuisance. (Warming Law, Warming Law Part I and Warming Law Part II, Point of Law, NY Law Journal/law.com)
• Interlocutory appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit will address viability of medical monitoring claim under Delaware law.  (Mass Torts Defense)
• Georgia Court of Appeals addresses whether there’s a common-law duty to recall a product that’s being legally sold.  (Drug & Device)
• New York appellate court affirms dismissal of foul ball case.  (Hochfelder)

Damages

• South Carolina Supreme Court uses potential harm to uphold punitive damages award 67 times larger than actual damages.  (Cal Punitive Damages)
• California jury awards $49 million in compensatory damages in car accident case.  (The Recorder/law.com)

Miscellaneous

• New biography on Justice Brandeis: “Louis D. Brandeis: A Life” by Melvin I. Urofsky.  (Adam Liptak’s NY Times Review) 
• Does your Senator tweet?   (Congressional Research Service Report on use of Twitter by Congress)
  

– SBS