Justia U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant performed occasional maintenance and repairs for a fleet of plaintiff's delivery trucks. Defendant usually provided service onsite at plaintiff's plant, but sometimes would take trucks to its shop. In 2007, defendant's employee caused a fatal traffic accident while driving plaintiff's tractor-trailer to defendant's shop for service. The district court concluded that under Illinois law only plaintiff's insurance policy provided coverage for the accident. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Both insurers provide coverage: defendant's policy by its plain language and plaintiff's policy operation of Illinois public policy. Plaintiff and its insurer are, however, ultimately responsible for the settlement amount. Under Illinois law the vehicle owner's policy is primary over the operator's policy unless a statute provides otherwise. The Illinois tow-truck insurance statute does not apply to provide an exception.

Hernandez caused a severe auto accident that closed northbound I-57 for several hours. With traffic not moving, four hours later, a truck rear-ended plaintiff's vehicle, more than four miles away, killing one occupant and seriously injuring his brother. Among others, plaintiff brought a personal-injury suit against Hernandez and related entities on the theory that Hernandez proximately caused the second accident. The district court entered summary judgment for Hernandez and the other defendants. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. There was a four-hour, four-mile gap and the truck driver's behavior was remarkably different than that of other drivers who approached stopped traffic.

After a 1999 auto accident, plaintiff had severe back pains and was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation, a protrusion of brain tissue into the spinal canal. After three operations on her brain and spine, her vision and speech problems lessened, but she developed hydrocephalus, a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain that required installation of a shunt in her brain. She has not worked since the auto accident and was last insured for social security disability benefits in June 2005 (when she was 34 years old), so only if she was disabled from full-time work by that date is she eligible for benefits. An administrative law judge found her capable of sedentary work. The Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that the ALJ failed to bridge the gap between medical testimony and plaintiff's testimony and his conclusion.

Plaintiff, a driver, fell off a truck when he hit his head on low overhead pipes while attempting to unload chemicals at a facility owed by defendant. No employee of defendant instructed him or assisted. The court entered summary judgment for defendant, finding that the Illinois deliberate-encounter exception of the open-and-obvious doctrine in negligence did not apply. Under that exception, if an invitee harms himself on an open and obvious hazard, the landowner may still be liable if it had reason to expect that the invitee would deliberately encounter the hazard because the advantages of doing so outweigh the apparent risk to a reasonable person. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The burden of measures to prevent such a fall would be substantial; defendant had no reason to foresee that plaintiff would ignore his training in an attempt to loosen an unusually tight dome lid.

The Seventh Circuit consolidated two cases involving transfer to courts in another country. One is an appeal from an order to transfer cases involving vehicular accidents allegedly caused by tires installed on vehicles in Latin America, from the Southern District of Indiana to the courts of Mexico. Its i a suit by Mexican citizens arising from the death of another Mexican citizen in an accident in Mexico. The second involves transfer, to Israel, of suits against manufacturers of blood products used by hemophiliacs, which turned out to be contaminated by HIV; it was brought by Israeli citizens infected by the products in Israel. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the transfers. Noting the existence of apparently dispositive precedent, the court referred to "ostrich-like tactic of pretending that potentially dispositive authority against a litigant's contention does not exist."

After falling from a three-foot-high mini-scaffold and injuring his hand and knee, plaintiff brought a product liability action against the manufacturer of the scaffold. The district court granted defendant's motion to bar the trial testimony of plaintiff’s expert witness and granted summary judgment after concluding that plaintiff could not prove his case without expert testimony. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. After concluding that that the expert's education and experience rendered him qualified to testify, the district court properly focused on methodology, and was within its discretion in concluding that it fell short under the Daubert factors. Summary judgment was appropriate; plaintiff did not produce sufficient evidence that the mini-scaffold was defective at the time it left defendant' control.

Following multiple surgeries for back injuries and multiple, unsuccessful, claims for disability benefits, the applicant asserted, in a 2008 hearing, that she had been disabled since 2004 and was still disabled but had returned to work because she needed the money. An ALJ found that she had been disabled by chronic back pain but after four years showed "medical improvement." and returned to full-time work.The ALJ awarded benefits for a closed period. The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded. The ALJ never evaluated whether that work constituted an authorized, and encouraged, trial work period and, therefore, could not be labeled as substantial gainful activity.

A 1993 Ford Explorer, struck by another car near the left rear wheel, rolled over. Plaintiffs, driver and passenger, were injured. At the close of discovery in their case against the manufacturer, plaintiffs had not designated an expert on the subject of the vehicle's design. The magistrate judge concluded that the suit could not proceed without expert testimony and granted summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Consumer expectations are just one factor in the inquiry whether a product is unreasonably dangerous. A jury unassisted by expert testimony would have to rely on speculation. The record did not show whether the vehicles are unduly (or unexpectedly) dangerous, based on: under what circumstances they roll over; under what circumstances consumers expect them to do so; whether it would be possible to reduce the rollover rate; and whether a different and safer design would have averted this particular accident.

In 2007 employee retired when the steel plant, at which he had worked for 42 years, shut down. Under a plan negotiated by the union, his pension payment, without any offset, was $688.13 a month. Employee was told that payment of his pension would be deferred for more than 10 years because the plan required that employee pay back workers' compensation settlements that he had received after sustaining on-the-job injuries in 2005 and 2006. The plan refers to offset for payments for "disability in the nature of a permanent disability for which the Company is liable." The district court entered judgment for the employee. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The committee's decision was within its discretion; the plan's specific mention of workers' compensation supports its characterization.

A newborn suffered severe brain damage because doctors failed to promptly diagnose and treat an infection contracted at his 2003 birth. He was born prematurely and certain tests, normally done during pregnancy, were not performed by the federally-subsidized clinic where the mother received care. The clinic and its doctors are deemed federal employees under the Federally Supported Health Centers Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. 233(g)-(n), and shielded from liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act. In 2005 the parents filed suit in state court and, in 2006, HHS denied an administrative claim for damages. Within six months of the denial the case was removed to federal court. In 2010, the district court held that the claim was filed within the two year statute of limitations under the FTCA (28 U.S.C. 2401(b)) and awarded more than $29 million in damages against the government. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. A claim only accrues when a plaintiff obtains sufficient knowledge of the government-related cause of his injury; the plaintiffs were reasonably diligent.