Firm reaches favorable settlement for client in products liability case
PROVIDENCE (August 14, 2009) – Partner Stephen Adams recently settled a products liability case involving his client for about 10 percent of the original demand.
On the eve of trial, Adams filed a series of motions that, if granted, would have seriously undermined the plaintiff’s case. The plaintiff instead chose to settle for $25,000, substantially less than its demand of $250,000.
The case involved a property damage claim based on water leaking into a Rhode Island commercial building in 1998. The property insurer inspected the facility the day the water leak was reported, and the next day had an engineer inspect the backflow preventer, which had been installed in the facility’s sprinkler system about one year prior to the incident. The firm’s client manufactured the backflow preventer.
The carrier paid on the policy. However, despite knowing about its potential subrogation claim within hours of the water leak, the carrier waited seven years before filing a lawsuit in Rhode Island Superior Court against the firm’s client.
The client denied liability, asserting that its product performed as designed, and it also asserted an affirmative defense of laches due to unreasonable actions and delays by the carrier related to its investigation of the incident.
Notwithstanding these defenses, the client made a business decision early on to try to resolve the case for nuisance value or cost of defense. The plaintiff refused to negotiate, saying it would not accept less than “full value” with interest. The alleged damages were approximately $100,000, and pre-judgment interest had increased that potential exposure to $250,000 by the time of trial
In anticipation of trial, Adams filed motions to exclude certain evidence, and for instructions allowing the jury to infer that the excluded evidence favored his client. Adams argued that the plaintiff had failed to take reasonable steps to preserve critical evidence within its control.
Adams also filed a motion to exclude testimony of the plaintiff’s expert because the expert’s expected testimony was not grounded on a reliable scientific basis, and only referred to possibilities, not reasonable probabilities.
“This case presented some interesting challenges and issues,” Adams said. “We stuck to our guns, and when the plaintiff’s attorney began bidding against himself we were able to settle the case on very favorable terms for our client. We felt very confident going into trial, but trying a case always has its risks.”
Associate Melissa A. Malone assisted in the case.
About Taylor Duane
Taylor Duane is one of New England’s leading civil litigation law firms with offices in Boston and Providence. Its experienced trial attorneys appear regularly in the federal and state courts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Providence Business News has named the firm in 2008 and 2009 as one of Rhode Island’s Best Places to Work.
