Recovery under the WPLA requires proof that the unsafe product was the proximate cause of the claimant’s injuries. A plaintiff seeking to recover must also be aware of the common law defenses to what was the cause of injury because the WPLA does not preempt existing common law defenses, including assumption of risk. Although assumption
5/18/2015 As mentioned in my last post, Google has just launched the first self-driving car onto public roadways near its California headquarters. This comes after the company recently admitted to the vehicles being involved in 11 minor accidents, with no injuries and little damage during 6 years of testing. These revelations confirm many people’s concerns
5/17/2015 Google’s self-driving cars have finally hit public roads as of Friday, May 15th around the company headquarters in Mountain View, California. This comes after 6 years of trials on test tracks and over a million miles of testing. Although working with automakers Lexus, Audi, and BMW, among others during the testing process, Google has
5/15/2015 Now that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has apparently survived a near coup d’etat led by Democratic Senators Harry Reid and Elizabeth Warren, pending a successful re-vote, the battle over the large-scale trade deal will soon be heading to the House of Representatives. The vote in the House may be even more troublesome for the
5/15/2015 Politics are getting a little weird these days. Fresh off of Tuesday’s stunning blockage and negotiated do-over on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in which President Obama found himself supported by Republicans amid staunch opposition by his own party, the Republican-led House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the USA Freedom Act by a 338-88 vote. The
5/14/2015 Harper’s Magazine revealed on Tuesday that deepwater drilling is set to resume near the site of the nation’s largest oil spill 5 years ago. The Macondo reservoir, located about 45 miles off of the Louisiana coast, was the site of the 2010 fire and massive BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill left 11 people dead
5/13/2015 In what may be a harbinger of the impending collapse of the large-scale, for-profit, college industry, two executives from ITT Educational Services as well as the company itself are facing charges of fraud from the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). On Tuesday, the Commission accused Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Modany, and Chief Financial Officer,
5/13/2015 What happened? When 8 pro-trade Democrat Senators left a strategy meeting on Tuesday and announced their opposition to continuing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “fast-track” debate at 1pm, it marked the strongest rebuke of President Obama by his own party in his tenure. The resulting 52-45 vote, although technically gaining a majority of votes, will
5/12/2015 U.S. Justice Department lawyers presented a motion to dismiss MetLife’s suit against the government on Friday, May 8th in U.S. District Court in Washington DC. MetLife filed the suit in January, after being named by the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) as a company that is a Systemically Important Financial Institution (SIFI), known
5/11/2015 In a decision that turns a bad situation even worse for the state of Illinois, the state’s Supreme Court unanimously declared a law to reduce the amount of pension benefits for state workers to be unconstitutional. The controversial law titled SB 1, signed in December, 2013 by then-Governor; Pat Quinn, reduced compounded cost-of-living increases