Theodore Jon Leopold's Legal Cases (3)

Civil rights

Adams v. PBSO

May 12, 2017

OUTCOME: Settlement

On Friday, May 12, 2017, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC brought the ongoing civil suit against Sergeant Michael Custer and the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) for the unjustified shooting and de ... ath of Seth Adams to closure. In a press conference held on Monday May 15, 2017, the day before the five-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Seth Adams, Cohen Milstein attorneys accompanied Lydia and Richard Adams, surviving parents of Seth Adams, to announce that the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office has agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle the case against them. This is the largest settlement amount that the agency has ever agreed to pay out. Many feel that this agreement is a clear indication that the Sheriff's Office is finally acknowledging the unjustified shooting and death of Seth Adams by Sgt. Custer and the mishandling of crime scene evidence and subsequent investigation by their officers. While the settlement concludes the family’s civil case against the Palm Beach County Sherriff’s Office, Seth Adams’ parents called on the State’s Attorney for Palm Beach County, Dave Aronberg, to reopen its investigation into the shooting, and the United States Department of Justice to initiate independent criminal investigations into Sgt. Custer’s misconduct and whether it violated Seth Adams’ civil rights.

Defective and dangerous products

Caterpillar, Inc. Engine Product Liability Litigation

Aug 01, 2016

OUTCOME: Settlement

Cohen Milstein served as co-lead counsel in a class action on behalf of 22 trucking and transportation operations, many family-owned, alleging that defective engines sold by Caterpillar left passengers ... stranded and unduly delayed the transportation of good. On September 20, 2016, Judge Jerome Simandle of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey signed a final order approving a settlement of $60 million. At issue in the class action lawsuit, originally filed in October 2014, were C-13 and C-15 engines, collectively known as MY2007 CAT engines, whose exhaust emission system defects resulted in power losses and shutdowns that prevented or impeded the plaintiffs’ vehicles from transporting goods or passengers. The consolidated complaint against Caterpillar detailed a number of known product problems, including that the CAT engines’ system was not designed, built or equipped to conform to exhaust emission regulation standards without causing repeated engine failures or shut down commands that caused the vehicles to lose power and/or shut down. The engines were designed with CAT’s Advanced Combustion Emissions Reduction Technology (ACERT) systems to meet the tougher emission standards implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ACERT works by using a series of turbochargers to force cool, clean air into a combustion chamber, which would then regenerate, lowering oxides of nitrogen and increasing fuel economy. The lawsuit alleged that while the design was marketed as a reliable, durable and fuel-efficient system, the engines were, in fact, defective and had been marketed and distributed under false pretenses. The 22 truck engine plaintiffs represent purchasers and lessees of vehicles with the MY2007 CAT engines in California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

Defective and dangerous products

Mincey v. Takata

Jul 15, 2016

OUTCOME: Set

Patricia Mincey, a Florida woman, was catastrophically injured and rendered paralyzed from the neck down when a Takata airbag inflator forcefully exploded in her 2001 Honda Civic in a minor motor vehic ... le collision in June 2014. Less than a week later, the airbag in her vehicle was among those recalled by Honda. Ms. Mincey alleged in her lawsuit, filed the following year, that the Takata Corporation had knowingly designed and manufactured airbags that were defective and dangerous. Sadly her condition continued to deteriorate and she passed away in April 2016 at age 77 after spending nearly two years in a hospital unable to move and hooked up to a ventilator. On July 15, 2016, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC led by Attorney and Partner Theodore J. Leopold, resolved a closely watched lawsuit against the Japanese company and airbag maker, Takata, involving the injury and eventual death of a woman whose car was involved in a minor accident in 2014.The resolution was announced moments before a critical hearing in which a judge in Jacksonville, Fla., could have considered allowing punitive damages and for the company’s chief executive, Shigehisa Takada, to submit a civil deposition.

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