10 Biggest NCAA Lawsuits

One of my readers sent me this interesting article regarding the top ten biggest lawsuits the NCAA has ever, and still faces. Our firm is involved in the NCAA games case which made it on this list at Number 3. Interesting read.

http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/08/27/the-10-biggest-ncaa-lawsuits-of-all-time/

Judge Fallon Rules U.S. Courts Have Jurisdiction Over Taishan

Judge Fallon, the presiding federal judge over the Chinese drywall cases consolidated in an MDL, has refused to dismiss claims from homeowners against one of the major manufacturers of the toxic and corrosive product. Taishan Gypsum Co. Ltd. argued that U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction over claims against the Chinese company, but the Court rejected that argument.

Judge Fallon also refused to vacate a $2.6 million default judgment he entered against the company after it initially refused to respond to the suits. Taishan Gypsum manufactured and sold more than 1.8 million sheets of drywall that were shipped to Virginia, Florida, Louisiana and other parts of the U.S. from 2005 to 2009.

The company claims it did not know the ultimate buyer or user of its drywall in Virginia, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that "such lack of knowledge does not insulate a foreign defendant from personal jurisdiction in the forum," Fallon wrote.

The judge said Taishan "possessed more than mere awareness or expectation that its drywall would be delivered, sold, and installed in Virginia." Fallon presides over more than 10,000 claims involving Chinese drywall. His ruling also could benefit homebuilders, brokers, sellers and installers who have been sued for using Chinese drywall and are seeking to recoup millions of dollars they have spent to repair damaged homes.

A different Chinese company, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co., agreed in December to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to resolve related drywall claims. That company is in reality a German corporation who owns manufacturing plants in mainland China.

Chinese drywall was used in the construction of thousands of homes, mainly in the South, after a series of hurricanes in 2005 and before the housing bubble burst. The drywall contains unusually high levels of sulfur that emits foul-smelling gases, corrodes HVAC coils, copper pipes and electrical wiring, and tarnishes other metal items in the home. Homeowners also complain of aggravation of allergies, asthma, nosebleeds and other maladies.

The litigation against Taishan "has not followed the same trajectory or enjoyed the same measure of success" as the Knauf cases, Fallon wrote in his Order. Judge Fallon had to travel to Hong Kong earlier this year to supervise a series of depositions of Taishan executives after an initial round of depositions, hamstrung by a language barrier and other problems, dissolved into "chaos."

What does this all mean to the thousands of homeowners who have Taishan board in their homes? That answer is not at all clear. It is not yet known if Taishan will appeal the ruling. Taishan could ultimately ignore the Court’s ruling by not satisfying any monetary judgments against it, as many other Chinese manufacturers do in our country.

The problems created by Taishan’s legal tactics lead Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Representatives Betty Sutton (D-OH) and Mike Turner (R-OH) to introduce the “Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2011” (S.1946/H.R.3646).  The bill would force foreign manufacturers to play by the same rules as American manufacturers by requiring foreign manufacturers to have a registered U.S. agent that would accept service of process for civil and regulatory claims.

Alabama Supreme Court Ruling on Outrage Claims

In Woodruff v. City of Tuscaloosa, No. 1110355, the Alabama Supreme Court reconfirmed that a trial court may dismiss an asserted tort-of-outrage cause of action based on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion if the trial court concludes that there is no basis for the claim.  The plaintiff’s relief is to seek appellate review and seek to convince the appellate court that the particular facts warrant an expansion of the situations in which this “special” claim is viable. 

 

Additionally, when the defendants sought to discover Woodruff’s medical records, he protested that he had suffered no emotional distress.  This protest was a self-admission that he had suffered no emotional distress, an necessary element of a tort-of-outrage claim.