Pittsburgh Wrongful Death Law Blog

When the plaintiff was injured as he veered off the roadway and smashed into tree, he felt that his seat belt restraint and airbag system had tragically failed him. Following through, he and his attorneys filed a suit against Ford Motor Company alleging, among other things, negligence, strict liability and lack of fitness for a particular use.

But as the plaintiff was too soon to find out, it's not only the merits of a products liability case that wins the day at the courthouse. You really must cross all the T's and dot all the I's -- and make sure it all gets done in time.

A worker who claims his lung cancer diagnosis is related to his longtime work with asbestos-containing products filed a mass tort complaint in Pennsylvania court on April 26th. The lawsuit names 17 different companies where exposure to asbestos supposedly took place.

The worker's different occupations have included time spent in Pennsylvania as a laborer. He has also worked in the automobile industry, and he performed naval work during the early 1960s. The companies he worked for include a number of pump manufacturers, an electrical company and work for a systems manufacturer. All of these companies have been named in the complaint prepared by his attorney and presumably involved the use of asbestos.

We hear about these type of stories every autumn in rural Pennsylvania areas: a person is mistaken for a deer by a hunter and is accidentally shot. Such an incident is alleged to have caused the death of a 52-year old Pennsylvania man, and this is now the subject of a wrongful death lawsuit.

The defendant in this case just happens to be a convicted felon that was not supposed to have been in possession of a firearm at the time that the accident occurred. The deceased man's widow brought this case against the hunter charging that the hunter had acted carelessly and recklessly in actions that led to the death of her husband. She also named other individuals into the lawsuit - at least one of which was in the hunting party and was claimed did not act quickly to seek medical assistance for the deceased man.

The Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee listened to arguments concerning the passing of House Bill 1150. The bill is called the Fairness in Claims and Transparency Act, and it is intended to address a supposed loophole when it comes to trying of asbestos-related lawsuits in our state.

The bill is intended on requiring plaintiffs in asbestos lawsuits to disclose all claims that they have filed concerning bankruptcy trust funds set up by asbestos manufacturers. A similar federal measure is also being debated, but certain states such as Pennsylvania are going ahead and trying to pass their own bills - regardless of what happens in Congress.