Novel Opioid Lawsuit Goes After Ad Agency
Massachusetts continues a trend of targeting not just drugmakers but the companies that helped them to promote their sales.
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liability
Rising Tide of Misinformation, Extremism Puts Big Tech in Crosshairs
Lawmakers pushed for accountability on the spread of misinformation online — the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google pushed back.
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Train Disaster Case Appears to Run Aground in 1st Circuit
Victims of a crash that virtually incinerated an entire Canadian town argued that the railroad is playing games with the courts, but the judges seemed unsure.
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7th Circuit Nixes $44.7M Award to Man Shot by Off-Duty Cop
A federal appeals court has cleared Chicago of liability for a drunken off-duty shooting by a police officer that left the officer’s friend permanently disabled.
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Democratic Congressman Sues Trump Over Capitol Riots
The complaint seeks to hold former President Donald Trump liable for the insurrection that the Senate only days earlier acquitted him of having incited.
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Court: Nigerian Farmers Can Sue Shell in UK Over Pollution
Britain’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that a group of Nigerian farmers and fishermen can sue Royal Dutch Shell PLC in English courts over pollution in a region where the Anglo-Dutch energy giant has a subsidiary.
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Bloomberg Dodges Liability for Claims of Sexual Harassment at Namesake Company
Citing Michael Bloomberg’s lack of personal participation in alleged workplace sexual harassment at his namesake company, New York’s highest court on Thursday affirmed a dismissal that keeps the billionaire off the hook for the claims of a fired Bloomberg LP employee who says a supervisor drugged and raped her.
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CEO of Social Media App Parler Says Board Fired Him
John Matze says he has been fired as CEO of Parler, which was among social media services used to plan the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
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French Miners Win Legal Fight Over Toxic Exposure ‘Anxiety’
A French court ruled Friday that over 700 coal miners must be compensated for the psychological stress produced by their exposure to a range of toxic substances during their careers, a decision that could pave the way for lawsuits in other industries.
Read morePolice Shooting
The City of Fort Worth, Texas, is not liable for the death of a 72-year-old man who was shot and killed by city police officers in his own home, a federal court in Texas ruled. While responding to a burglary alarm at a house across the street, the officers mistakenly responded to the man’s house and, thinking he was being burglarized, he took his gun to his garage to investigate.
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Court Grapples With Whether Rape Accuser Can Take It to Top at Bloomberg
A reversal could leave the billionaire media magnate on the hook in a civil suit from a woman who says another Bloomberg employee raped her.
Read moreAssaulted at School
An appeals court in Louisiana upheld a ruling against the St. Tammany Parish School Board and a school janitor who molested and raped a fourth grade special education student during school hours, finding the school board is vicariously liable for its employee’s actions. The ruling affirms a $350,000 award for damages.
Read moreTube Trouble
A ski resort is not liable for a man’s injuries in a snow tubing accident, an appeals court in Missouri ruled, because the man signed a release of liability contract before buying tickets for the tubing hill. As the man slid down the hill on a rubber inner dub, his foot hit a crevice in the slope, breaking his leg in two pieces.
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Cocoa Plantation Survivors Take On Candy Giants at High Court
Six Africans who say they were kidnapped as children, then beaten and starved as they toiled on cocoa plantations fought against the limits of corporate liability Tuesday at the Supreme Court.
Read moreBurst Pipeline
An appeals court in California reversed a ruling in favor of Plains Pipeline, whose pipeline ruptured at Refugio State Beach in 2015, in a dispute brought by the State Lands Commission, which claimed the company’s negligent maintenance disrupted payment of royalty income to the commission and caused damages to improvements on its land. Although designated as a public utility, the company is not exempt from liability.
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Ohio Court Rejects Wrongful Death Suit Over Facebook Killing
Facebook cannot be held liable for the death of an Ohio man whose killer posted a disturbing message on the social media platform and later shared a video of the shooting before he died by suicide, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.
Read moreMetro Stabbing
The D.C. transit authority cannot be held liable for failing to prevent an argument on a bus from escalating into a fight that ended with a fatal stabbing, a federal judge ruled. However, the victim’s mother may have a claim that the station agent failed to timely call for medical help.
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Lack of Space Law Complicates Growing Debris Problem
If you get into a car accident on your way home, laws exist to determine who is liable for the damage. But if your satellite hits another satellite in space, there are no clear rules.
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Brazilians Seek Damages in UK Over Massive Dam Collapse
Saying they can’t get justice in Brazil, more than 200,000 Brazilians whose lives and businesses were upended by a massive dam failure in 2015 are asking a British court to hear their $6.3 billion case against BHP, one of the world’s largest mining companies.
Read morePoison Gas
The Eighth Circuit ruled that an acid manufacturing plant cannot claim it was unforeseeable that nearby workers would inhale poisonous gas discharged into the air and develop respiratory illness.
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