When someone is injured, one of the first questions that must be answered, among others, is whether or not the injury took place in connection with the victim’s employment. If the injury inarguably took place at work or while on the job, then the expertise of a Massachusetts workers compensation…
Texting while driving automobiles has been the focus of a lot of conversation in the recent past, in several states. In Massachusetts alone, a new law against texting while driving became effective in 2010. Most people, though, wouldn’t expect that the problem of texting while driving would be witnessed on…
Usually, most of the legal stories giving rise to posts on this blog originate in or have to do with cases and legal issues in Massachusetts. However, a tragic incident at Yale University earlier this week, illustrates the importance of product liability law, and the impact it can have on…
Yes, you read the title of this post correctly: Transocean Ltd., the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Rig that blew up last year and proceeded to spew at least 200 millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, is actually awarding financial bonuses to its…
While this post is about product liability law, it’s also about the age-old story of corporate greed and deception. Ever hear of on over-the-counter cold remedy called Zicam? Most people have. – Matrixx Initiatives Inc. and Zicam L.L.C., were jointly the developers, manufacturers and distributor of this product. Zicam was…
Too often within the escalating debate over “tort reform“, the facts take a distant back seat to ever more shrill demagoguery. It seems that all we ever hear from proponents of tort reform, and their Republican lapdogs in Congress and in State Houses across the country, are noxiously recycled claims…
A Suffolk Superior Court judge has awarded more than $6.7 million to the family of a Northeastern University student who died after falling down a set of stairs at a Boston bar in 2007, following a night of drinking. What’s surprising about the award in this Massachusetts premises liability case…
In my previous post on this subject, I noted how President Barack Obama had raised the subject of “medical malpractice reform” in his State of The Union speech last week, and of how a Massachusetts medical malpractice case that just settled this week, illustrates how severe and unjust typical “tort…
President Barack Obama, in his State of The Union speech Monday evening, made another reference to the supposed need for tort reform; to ‘control the rise in health care costs.’ I bristle at these kinds of mentions, for two reasons: 1) They demonstrate how successful liability insurers have been in…
In my previous post on this subject, I wrote of how the law governing liability for injuries suffered on someone else’s property due to slipping or falling on snow or ice, has recently undergone some major changes. The changes come not from the Massachusetts Legislature, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial…