Last year, the Supreme Court sent a resounding message regarding personal jurisdiction when it decided Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S.Ct. 746, 752 (2014). Bauman announced a significantly more stringent standard for finding a corporation to be “essentially at home” in a foreign jurisdiction and, as a result, made personal jurisdiction harder to establish in … Continue Reading
In a highly anticipated decision, the California Supreme Court yesterday decided the issue of whether tortuously injured plaintiffs with private health insurance get to recover the full rate charged by their doctors and hospitals or the discounted, contract rate their insurers actually pay.
The standard, the California Supreme Court held in Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions, is that personally injured plaintiffs may recover, at most, the dollar amount that actually is paid by their insurers for plaintiffs' medical services, not the larger amount that generally is billed to those not covered by negotiated contracts between insurance companies and medical providers.… Continue Reading
Law360.com recently published two articles on decisions involving issues with potential to have long-term effects on tort litigation. In the June 2, 2011 article, "Case Study: Bauman V. DaimlerChrysler Corp.," Mildred Segura and Nabil Bisharat discuss Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., a case that expands the use of "agency theory" to impose general jurisdiction over foreign corporations that do business in the U.S. solely through their U.S. subsidiaries. In "Reading Between The Lines: Pooshs V. Philip Morris," published in May, Eric Buhr and Kasey Curtis analyze the California Supreme Court's May 5th decision in Pooshs v. Philip Morris USA Inc., the latest California case addressing how statutes of limitations should apply in cases where a plaintiff alleges delayed discovery of only one of multiple claims or injuries.… Continue Reading
