Latest jury verdicts, settlements, and legal outcome analysis
A Miami-Dade County jury returned a defense verdict on all claims in a lawsuit alleging that a barbershop associate fraudulently took over the Plaintiff's business while he served time in federal prison. The Defendants argued that the Plaintiff sold the business for $8,500 before his incarceration under a notarized agreement. The Court also ruled in favor of the Defendants on the remaining equitable claims.
A federal jury in the Western District of Washington awarded $7,000,000 to Susan Chen and her minor son J.L. after finding the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families negligently investigated the family and negligently inflicted emotional distress through the wrongful removal of two children from their home.
A federal jury in Delaware ordered Teneobio Inc. and Amgen Inc. to pay $20,203,704 in damages to Harbour Antibodies after determining that the Defendants' antibody discovery platform literally infringed claim 2 of U.S. Patent Number 10,906,970. While the jury unanimously found that Teneobio's UniRat platform met the "cloning said recombined heavy chain locus" element, it rejected the Plaintiffs' claim that the infringement was willful. The jury also systematically rejected all of Teneobio's invalidity defenses, including allegations of obviousness, lack of enablement, and inadequate written description, validating the structural integrity of Harbour's transgenic rodent technology.
A jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon awarded $3,645,002 in compensatory damages and $1,290,000 in punitive damages to the Plaintiffs in a dispute over a cattle lending operation. The Defendants also secured $1,612,000 on their counterclaims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment.
A San Francisco jury found that a driver's negligent left turn into a parking lot caused a serious collision with a cyclist on Post Street, awarding the injured cyclist over $12 million in damages. The jury also found the cyclist partly responsible, splitting fault 70-30 between the driver and the cyclist.
A Texas jury found that Daiichi Sankyo's cancer drug Enhertu infringed Seagen's antibody-drug conjugate patent, awarding $41.8 million in damages and finding the infringement willful. However, the Federal Circuit later reversed, ruling that Seagen's patent could not claim priority to its 2004 application since it failed to specifically describe the narrow group of amino acid combinations later claimed, and that the patent failed to enable the full scope of its claims without undue experimentation, rendering it invalid.
A San Bernardino County jury examined claims that a cardiologist and his medical group failed to properly diagnose and treat a 73-year-old patient's worsening heart condition, which the patient's family said led to his death just days after emergency surgery. While jurors found the cardiologist had been negligent in the care provided, they determined that this negligence was not a substantial factor in causing the patient's death, resulting in no damages being awarded to the family.
A California jury found a surgeon negligent after a routine hip arthroscopy went wrong, causing a 4cm laceration to the patient's femoral artery during surgery. The resulting blood loss required emergency vascular reconstruction and left the patient with permanent femoral nerve damage, loss of feeling above the knee, and confinement to a wheelchair. After a two-week trial, the jury awarded $2 million in damages, later adjusted to $1.536 million under California's cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases.
A California jury found a driver negligent after she struck a pedestrian and his dog while driving with an obstructed windshield on a residential road in Orinda. The pedestrian suffered injuries and his dog was permanently hurt in the collision. The jury awarded the pedestrian over $255,000 in combined past and future damages, including medical expenses and non-economic losses, after finding the driver at fault and the pedestrian free of any negligence.
