Federal Court Must Sever and Remand Jones Act Claim Without Assessing Claim’s Validity if Case Is Otherwise Removable
Posted on May 2, 2014
If a case is properly removable to federal court notwithstanding the presence of a Jones Act claim, the Jones Act claim should be severed and remanded to the state court without an independent analysis of the claim’s merit, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana held yesterday. In 1993, the Fifth Circuit explained in Lackey v. Atlantic Richfield Co. that if a defendant argues that the plaintiff “fraudulently pleaded [a Jones Act claim] to prevent removal,” the federal court may analyze the merit of the Jones Act claim to determine whether there was any possibility of...
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Facility Owner’s Demand for Insurance Coverage from Common Carrier To Defend Case Against Carrier’s Injured Employee Allowed To Proceed
Posted on May 1, 2014
In an underlying suit, a worker alleged negligence against the owner of a facility to which he was making a delivery when he was injured. In turn, the facility owner sued the worker’s employer, a common carrier, asserting that the carrier had breached its duty to defend and indemnify under a Contract Carriage Agreement. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky denied the common carrier’s request for summary judgment. First, the court found that as a subsidiary to the signatory of the Contract Carriage Agreement, the facility owner was an intended beneficiary of the...
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OSHA Asks Congress To Bolster Protections for Whistleblowers Complaining of Workplace Safety Concerns
Posted on Apr 30, 2014
David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor and head of OSHA, told the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety yesterday about the improvements that OSHA has made in its whistleblower protection program, but stressed that legislation was needed to bolster the general whistleblower protections of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (Section 11(c) of the Act). Michaels asked the Senate to provide OSHA with the authority to order immediate preliminary reinstatement of employees that OSHA finds have suffered illegal termination, modifying the...
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Steel Manufacturer Adopts Comprehensive Safety Program in $2.4 million OSHA Settlement
Posted on Apr 29, 2014
The U.S. Department of Labor announced a settlement yesterday with a steel manufacturer for approximately $2.4 million for alleged safety violations at the company’s facilities in Ohio and New York. The company agreed to abate the hazards identified by OSHA including failure to provide fall protection, failure to implement lockout/tag out procedures, and failure to provide machine guarding to protect workers from hazardous machinery. The company also agreed to hire additional health and safety staff, establish and implement a comprehensive safety program to identify and correct hazardous...
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Indiana Federal Court Dismisses Product Liability Suit Against Crane Supplier Following Alleged Problem with Crane’s Cruise Control
Posted on Apr 28, 2014
On Friday, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana granted summary judgment to the supplier of a large crane used for constructing wind turbines on an Indiana wind farm. Following a workplace incident, a worker sued the provider of the crane alleging that the supplier was negligent in inspecting the crane by failing to recognize an electrical wiring defect in which the cruise control (or detent controller) could become stuck in one position. The court agreed that the crane supplier owed a duty to the worker and that a question of fact existed as to whether the supplier...
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Be Prepared for a “Process Safety Attack”
Posted on Apr 26, 2014
Safetylitigation.com founders Carter Williams and Matt Gatewood recently analyzed the legal attack to expect following a major incident in the January issue of Corporate Counsel under the headline, “Be Prepared for the Inevitable ‘Process Safety’ Attack.” In the article, they draw on their experiences in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill litigation and warn of the courtroom fallout after a company experiences a catastrophic incident when plaintiffs’ attorneys mount an attack on the company’s process safety systems. The full article is available here.
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Consumer Expectation Test Applies in Maryland Strict Products Liability Case Unless a Product Malfunctions
Posted on Apr 25, 2014
The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland rejected a car manufacturer’s argument that the jury should use a risk-utility test and not a consumer expectation test in analyzing a strict products liability case. The risk-utility test, preferred by the manufacturer, regards a product as defective and unreasonably dangerous for strict liability purposes if the danger presented by the product outweighs its utility. In contrast, the consumer expectation test preferred by the plaintiff imposes strict liability for products that contain a condition not contemplated by the ultimate...
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