Articles Posted in Federal Law

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Under a federal rule issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that was passed on Nov. 21, 2013, new tour buses and buses that provide services between cities must be equipped with seatbelts.  This new federal rule goes into effect beginning in November 2016. 

This safety measure was initiated by accident investigators.  The movement to require safety belts on buses has been an ongoing battle for more than 50 years. 

Beginning in November 2016, all new motor coaches and some other large buses must be manufactured with seatbelts, which includes a 3-point lap-shoulder belt.  Unfortunately, this federal rule doesn’t apply to school buses or public city transit buses.  It seems odd that it wouldn’t provide for the safety of children as well as adults on public buses. 

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Federal District Court Judge Hon. David R. Herndon of the Southern District of Illinois has ordered that Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (BIPI) pay $1 million in sanctions for discovery abuses in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) involving the oral anticoagulant Predaxa. This same U.S. Federal District Court, also in the Southern District of Illinois, is where many of the country’s  Yasmin and YAZ (Drospirenone)  birth control injury cases are being handled; also in an MDL.

Judge Herndon found that BIPI, the maker of Predaxa, had chosen not to produce thousands of documents to the plaintiffs, which the judge determined was bad-faith conduct. 

According to the order, BIPI and its German parent company were unable to explain why it chose not to produce critical documents and communications by a deadline set by the judge. The deadline was in June 2012. 

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It is sometimes overlooked in trial practice or not given enough emphasis that the conduct of a defendant must be proved to have proximately caused the injuries or damages claimed in the pleadings. Also, expert testimony must meet the rules of scientific reliability. 

For example, Gary McCann, an engineer for more than 17 years for the defendant, Illinois Central Railroad, sued the railroad in a 4-count complaint. He claimed damages for carpal tunnel syndrome caused by the railroad’s inadequate and defective cab seats, rough track, oversized ballast and defective switches.

In this case, McCann claimed negligence under the Federal Employer’s Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. §51 et seq.; negligence per se; violations of the Locomotive Inspection Act, 49 U.S.C. §20701; and negligence for causing his carpal tunnel syndrome.

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Scott Weigle and John Moore, two mechanics, were working on a trailer from a semi-truck. Weigle and Moore had considerable experience as mechanics working at a trucking repair company.

On July 31, 2009, Weigle and Moore were about to do a job to rebuild the braking system on a semi-truck trailer.  They used an airlift to raise the rear portion of the trailer and then lowered the trailer onto two support stands.  Weigle had already begun work on the trailer when Moore came over to help.  The trailer moved as both mechanics were working underneath, causing the support stands to tip over and the trailer came crashing down on the two men.  Both Weigle and Moore suffered serious injuries.

The two support stands were designed by the company SPX.  These support stands consist of a conical base, an extension tube and a support pin. 

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According to a recent Chicago U.S. District Court decision, a Maine aircraft repair company cannot be brought into a court in Illinois. The decision was based on an argument that because the company’s website can be accessed in Illinois, jurisdiction would lie in U.S. District Court.

In the written opinion issued by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Ruben Castillo, the lawsuit was dismissed.

Clover Technologies LLC, based in Ottawa, Ill., filed a lawsuit against Oxford Aviation Inc. of Oxford, Maine. 

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Those who would prefer that court records remain secret have a higher burden in trying to keep filed pleadings, court orders, minute entries, hearing transcripts, trial exhibits and discovery documents filed with the court as attachments to motions. For those who wish to have court records secret, the proponent must demonstrate that sealing is warranted under both the federal common law and the First Amendment, which serves as independent grounds for challenging secrecy orders. Lawyers who motion to seal court records and files must demonstrate to the court and the opposition a very strong reason why public access should be denied. 

Under the federal common law, courts begin with a presumption in favor of public access. Under the federal law, the presumption of public access can be overcome if the proponent of this secrecy effort demonstrates “compelling reasons” for secrecy that are supported by “specific factual findings.” Kamakana v. City and County of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006) and Union Oil Co. v. Levall, 2020 Fed. 3d 562, 567-68 (7th Cir. 2000).

One of the standards and a compelling reason to seal or make secret court files may be found when disclosing the court records would result in “improper use of the material for scandalous or libelous purposes or infringement upon trade secrets,” but not much beyond that.  Hagestad v. Tragesser, 49 F. 3d 1430, 1434 (9th Cir. 1995). 

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Many truck accidents are caused by truck driver fatigue. There are new federal restrictions on the number of hours a driver can be in service under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which created the hours-of-service rules. Under these new rules, a driver is limited with respect to how long he or she may drive a commercial motor vehicle without a break. 

Truck accidents and truck driver fatigue are linked based on many years of study. The Interstate Commerce Commission began limiting hours in which a commercial truck driver could operate a truck beginning in 1937.Recently, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has emphasized the need to limit the hours that a truck driver may drive without a break. 

The purpose behind the revised regulations deals with the connection between truck driver fatigue and accidents on the highways. It is well known that a driver who has driven for many hours is at greater risk of a crash than one without extended hours on the road.

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A district court judge in Chicago granted the motion of defendant Ryobi Technologies Inc.  to exclude an expert witness as unreliable and irrelevant. Purportedly, it would have cost Ryobi $50 to $150 to install an automatic braking system on the table saw that sliced off Brandon Stollings’s index finger and portions of several other fingers in a “kickback” incident.

Under Illinois law, it is required that expert testimony is necessary to prove that a product was unreasonably dangerous.  Stollings wanted to call John Graham as his expert to testify that each saw sold without the safety device burdens society with an average of $753 in accident costs. The basis of Graham’s opinion was that the automatic braking system would have been 90 percent effective.

After this appeal was taken, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed ruling that the district court judge’s exclusion of Graham’s testimony on reliability grounds was an abuse of discretion because it “intruded too far into the province of the jury.” Graham’s expert opinion was relevant as to whether the Ryobi saw was unreasonably dangerous. 

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The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 3.9 million sports-related and recreation-related concussions occur in the United States each year. Most of the reported sports-related concussions occur in high school football. Continuing to play a sport with a concussion or symptoms of a head injury makes the young athlete extremely vulnerable to much more serious injury and even death.

Too often, athletes whose competitive spirit drives them to continue participating even after what amounts to a concussion, return to playing. If in fact the athlete has suffered a concussion, returning to play increases the risks of serious injury or death many times. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, 7.6 million students participated in high school sports in 2009-2010.  Of those, 1.1 million were playing football.  Those participants in football had nearly twice as many athletes participating as the second most popular sport, track and field. Softball ranked third with 540,000 student-athletes nationwide.

Concussions are common in sports. The student athlete and coach may not understand the consequences resulting from concussions sustained during sports play.It has been estimated that 300,000 sport-related concussions occur in the United States yearly. Forty-one percent of the concussions sustained by athletes occurred while playing football, while 22 percent resulted from girls’ soccer. Incidents of concussions are on the rise. Because of that obvious statistic, Illinois has enacted regulations emphasizing the dangers of concussions and the ramifications of non-treatment. 

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Hubert Walker represented a class of truck owner-operators who sued Trailer Transit Inc., a broker of trucking services, for breach of contract. The lawsuit was filed in an Indiana state court. The underlying lawsuit concerned a lease agreement between Walker, who owned and operated a long-haul truck and trailer transit. Under the contract, Trailer Transit leased Walker’s equipment and Walker picked up and delivered shipments arranged by Trailer Transit. 

The parties’ agreement required Trailer Transit to pay Walker 71% of the gross revenues derived from the use of the truck, less all items intended to reimburse trailer transit for special services.

Walker alleged in his complaint that Trailer Transit violated the lease agreement with him and hundreds of other truckers by charging “add-on fees” to customers that exceeded the costs of special services. Because the overcharge fees were not intended to be reimbursed to Trailer Transit, Walker maintained that the truckers were entitled to a portion of those fees under the lease agreement. The complaint alleged that the truckers would be entitled to 71% of the overcharge.

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