A hospital did not breach a duty of care as a matter of law to a police officer who suffered injuries while responding to a traffic accident allegedly caused by a just-released colonoscopy patient, Massachusetts’ highest court has ruled, affirming the trial court below. The police officer responded to an…
Zinc is common enough—it is even a dietary requirement. Humans should typically ingest between eight and eleven milligrams per day (often through red meat, nuts, and grains). However, lawsuits alleging zinc toxicity of denture creams are showcasing how too much of a good thing can be harmful. A study in…
We can hold hands and agree with the Drug and Device Law Blog on few things related to drug and medical device litigation but this is one: we hate Medicare liens and the government is making life even more difficult for parties on both sides of the v. As usual,…
The FDA has warned users of weight loss drug Hydroxycut to stop taking the popular weight-loss product because of risk of severe liver damage. The Hydroxycut recall focuses us all for the zillionth time on FDA’s inability to sufficiently police so much as a high school prom. But they never…
The FDA announced that it will now require Botox and its progeny to provide a black-box warning. The FDA said the labeling is necessary to warn doctors and patients that Botox has potentially fatal complications, including problems with swallowing or breathing. The FDA has identified at least 225 reports of…
Wyeth v. Levine!!!! Plaintiffs’ lawyers have seen drug (and medical device) injury victims take punch after punch. But in a huge win for patient safety, the Supreme Court upheld in a 6-3 ruling today that in a Vermont woman’s verdict against Wyeth for injuries she suffered after taking one of…
Interesting data from Jury Verdict Research on the median and average values of wrongful death cases where the decedent is female. The overall average compensatory award for wrongful death of an adult female over the last eight years in the United States is $2,990,032 ($1,102,976 is the median). Age is…
The Mass Torts Blog, another defense lawyer blog brought to you by our friends at Dechert, posts on Labor Day about medical screening in mass tort cases. The allegations are basically that plaintiffs’ product liability lawyers are committing fraud when screening clients. Read the post for yourself and tell me…
The Wall Street Journal has an editorial with an anti products liability lawyer spin. No surprise. But what is surprising is that I agree with it. Considering Enron and other business collapses that left stockholders holding the bag with no actual picture of the company’s financial condition, the Financial Accounting…
The Wall Street Journal has a good article online about the preemption battle that is being waged the FDA’s bureaucrats in the courts and in Congress. The last line of the article says that “Some drug companies are telling plaintiffs’ lawyers that if they settle their cases now, they won’t…