Reported Decisions

1. Ilosky v. Michelin Tire Corp., 172 W.Va. 435, 307 S.E.2d 603 (1983).

This landmark West Virginia Supreme Court decisions established the role and scope of testimony allowed and required for experts in product liability actions. Hill represented the plaintiff, a young woman who sustained a foot amputation in a collision claimed to have been caused by the mismatching of radial and bias ply tires on a Ford Mustang that went out-of-control, hit a utility pole, and cracked in half at the fire wall within a few miles after the mismatch situation was created by a tire dealer and installer.

The plaintiff claimed that the installer was negligent in creating the mismatch and that the two radial tires made by Michelin were defective because they did not contain a warning of the mismatch risk, which could have been embossed on the sidewall for less than five cents a tire cost to the manufacturer, which had known of the mismatch risk for 25 years. Following a two-week trial, the jury returned a $500,000 verdict against Michelin and the installer. The West Virginia appellate court upheld the verdict.

2. Brent v. Board of Trustees of Davis & Elkins College, 173 W.Va. 36, 311 S.E.2d 153 (1983).

Hill represented the plaintiff, a college student who lost an eye in chemistry class when a glass test tube exploded. The plaintiff sued the college for negligent supervision and Corning Glass, maker of the test tube, claiming it was defectively made. The case went to the West Virginia Supreme court twice on the procedural questions involving the appropriate venue for the case and notice requirements of action taken by the trial court. Ultimately the case was settled without trial.

3. Deller v. Naymick, 176 W.Va. 108, 342 S.E.2d 73 (1985).

The plaintiff, represented by Hill, was a steel worker who sustained a back injury at the steel mill which employed him and a full-time company doctor. The plaintiff sued the company doctor for medical malpractice, claiming that his treatment, or lack of treatment, turned what would otherwise have been a relatively mild injury into one that was permanently, totally disabling.

The defendant claimed entitlement to coemployee immunity under workers' compensation laws. The plaintiff contended that such coemployee immunity is inapplicable to the extent of available medical malpractice insurance coverage. The West Virginia Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendant.

4. Board of Commissioners of Columbiana County v. Samuelson, 493 N.E.2d 245, 24 Ohio St.3d 62 (1986).

Hill represented five physicians who placed a bid for purchase of the former county poor home, intending to convert it into a nursing home. After winning the bid, the doctors discovered use restrictions on the property that would make operating a profitable nursing home difficult or impossible, and the doctors refused to complete the purchase.

The county sued the doctors, and the case went to trial. The trial court ruled in favor of the county. The doctors appealed, and while their appeal was pending, they entered into a settlement agreement with the county under which the county agreed to obtain certain permits, and the doctors gave up their right to appeal the verdict against them. When the county did not provide the items it had agreed to provide in the settlement agreement, the doctors again refused to complete the purchase.

The county then attempted to execute on its original verdict. The doctors contended that the county could not do this, but rather that its only remedy was a new action based on a claim the settlement agreement had been breached. The question went up to the Ohio intermediate appellate court, which held in favor of the county. However, the Ohio Supreme Court reversed, ruling in favor of the doctors.

5. Waggoner v. Mosti, 792 F.2d 595 (6th Cir.1986).

Hill's client as a man arrested for causing a minor disturbance at a convenient store late at night. After his arrest, he was kicked by one of the arresting officers on steps outside the city jail. The plaintiff was handcuffed with his hands behind his back and hit the steps with his jaw and one knee, because he was unable to use his hands or arms to break his fall. He suffered multiple fractures and had to undergo several surgeries, including a jaw reconstruction procedure that took 13 hours.

The plaintiff sued the police and the city of Toronto, Ohio, claiming police brutality in violation of his civil rights under federal law. The jury in a federal court trial in Columbus returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for his medical expenses, wage loss, pain, and suffering. The trial judge added attorney fees, litigation expenses, and interest. The defendants appealed, and the Sixth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the verdict and the additional damages added by the trial judge.

6. Galanos v. National Steel Corp., 178 W.Va. 193, 358 S.E.2d 452 (1987).

Three plant worker plaintiffs represented by a previous attorney claimed damages from an explosion in the steel mill where they worked. The previous attorney went to trial in the case of a fourth plaintiff also represented by him, and the jury returned a verdict for the defendants, finding that none was at fault in causing the explosion.

The trial judge then ruled that the three other plaintiffs were barred by the result in the fourth plaintiff's trial from taking their own cases to trial. Hill assumed representation of the three plaintiffs and appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which held that the three were not precluded by the fourth plaintiff's result and were each entitled to their own day in court.

7. Martin v. Charleston Area Medical Center, 181 W.Va. 308, 382 S.E.2d 502 (1989).

Hill represented the widow and four children of a 31-year-old man who died in a Charleston WV hospital while undergoing a routine diagnostic test. Suit was brought against the hospital and two doctors, and the case went to trial. Evidence showed wage loss of over $700,000 for the decedent, who was an auto factory worker. The jury found that all defendants were negligent, but then inexplicably awarded only $250,000 in damages. The plaintiff family was black, and the jury was all white.

Hill appealed, contending that the family was entitled to a new trial on the amount of damages, because the low verdict was a result of racial prejudice. The West Virginia Supreme Court ruled in the plaintiffs' favor, fining that the verdict was inadequate under the evidence presented, and that there was no explanation other than racial discrimination to explain it.

8. Mosser v. Fruehauf Corp., 940 F.2d 77 (4th Cir. 1991).

Hill's clients were the widow and minor child of a truck driver killed when three steel coils weighing about 25,000 pounds each broke loose from the Fruehauf flatbed trailer he was pulling and caused the tractor trailer to overturn. The case was tried in federal court in West Virginia, and the jury awarded $1.1 million in compensatory damages and $5 million punitive damages against Fruehauf. On appeal to the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the compensatory verdict was upheld and the punitive damages were disallowed.

9. Jackson v. Donohue, 193 W.Va. 587, 457 S.E.2d 524 (1995).

Hill represented a 24-year-old woman who was a passenger in a tractor trailer rig that went off a mountainside in West Virginia, rendering the woman an incomplete quadriplegic. The defendant trucking company's primary coverage was $500,000 in self insurance under a permit issued by the West Virginia Public Service Commission. The company had $10 million in insurance coverage above the $500,000 in self insurance.

A settlement was reached with the insurance company in federal court in West Virginia where the lawsuit was brought. The federal judge certified the question of the trucking company's liability for its self insurance to the West Virginia Supreme Court, which held that the self insurance was owed, because a trucking company that is given the privilege of self insuring by the state cannot use that privilege as a shield against liability that an insurance company would have under the same circumstances.

10. Jackson v. Builders Transport, Inc., 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 19049 (4th Cir. unofficially reported).

This is the underlying federal court case that gave rise to the certified question of law answered by the West Virginia Supreme Court in no. 9 above. The issue raised by the defendant on appeal was whether the West Virginia Supreme Court misinterpreted applicable federal law in issuing its decision in no. 9. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the Judiciary Act of 1789 prohibits a federal court from second-guessing the basis used by a state's highest court in interpreting questions of that state's law in a diversity case.