Municipal Fair Housing Act Suit vs. Banks Is Again Green-Lighted
Posted on May 6, 2019 in Consumer Protection | Comments Off on Municipal Fair Housing Act Suit vs. Banks Is Again Green-Lighted
Capping off a busy week, the Eleventh Circuit took a second crack at whether a municipality can bring an action under the Fair Housing Act against banks to recover damages allegedly attributable to racially discriminatory lending practices. In the prior round, the court held that the City of Miami had alleged standing and causation sufficiently to survive a motion to dismiss. But the...
Eleventh Circuit Restores $20m Punitive-Damages Verdict Against Philip Morris
Posted on Dec 6, 2018 in Consumer Protection | Comments Off on Eleventh Circuit Restores $20m Punitive-Damages Verdict Against Philip Morris
The Eleventh Circuit last week reinstated a $20.76m punitive-damages verdict against tobacco giant Philip Morris, ruling that the district court had abused its discretion in ordering a new trial on the plaintiff’s intentional tort claims. Cote v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 2018 WL 6167395 (11th Cir. Nov. 26, 2018). The court also affirmed the denial of Philip Morris’s motions for a...
Toxicology Expert’s Opinions Properly Excluded for Failure to Consider Dose-Response Relationship or Potential Alternative Causes of Plaintiff’s Disease
Posted on May 15, 2018 in Civil Procedure | Comments Off on Toxicology Expert’s Opinions Properly Excluded for Failure to Consider Dose-Response Relationship or Potential Alternative Causes of Plaintiff’s Disease
In Williams v. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC, 2018 WL 2191426 (11th Cir. May 14, 2018), the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the District Court’s exclusion of proffered expert testimony by a toxicologist, and of the plaintiff’s proposed lay testimony that her home had “no present value” because of emissions from a nearby fertilizer plant, and affirmed the resulting grant of summary judgment to the...
Civil RICO Class Action Dismissal Affirmed
Posted on Sep 7, 2016 in Civil Procedure, Class Actions, Consumer Protection | Comments Off on Civil RICO Class Action Dismissal Affirmed
A civil RICO class action challenging Spirit Airlines’ “Passenger Usage Fee” landed for a second time in the Eleventh Circuit and this time the airline fared better: the court affirmed the dismissal of the amended complaint in a major opinion on RICO pleading standards authored by Judge Stanley Marcus. Ray v. Spirit Airlines, Inc., 2016 WL 4578347 (11th Cir. Sept. 2, 2016). The named...