- Furor continues over insider trading by Congress [Roger Parloff/Fortune, Bainbridge ("unimpressed" with reform proposal entitled STOCK Act), earlier] Rep. Bachus disputes claims in Peter Schweizer book [AW, Perry]
- “Fort Hood victims’ families seek $750M from feds” [Kenneth Timmerman, Daily Caller]
- “Chicago Lawyer Sues Southwest, Says Airline Breached Free-Drink Coupon Contract” [ABA Journal]
- “Lawyer Solicitation: Penn State Sex Abuse Edition” [Turkewitz] Slate slags Merck CEO [Ted Frank]
- Akaka Hawaii-racialization bill, smuggled in through the back door? [Ilya Shapiro, background]
- Suits over Hurricane Irene electrical outages expected to spread [Connecticut Law Tribune, Chris Powell]
- Fiasco envy? “RIAA Thinking Of Backing Righthaven” [Masnick, TechDirt] “Righthaven ordered to pay nearly $120,000 in attorney fees, court costs” [VegasInc., Ars Technica, American Power Blog]
Tagged as:
airlines,
contracts,
Hawaii,
military,
RightHaven,
Senate,
terrorism,
U.S. House of Representatives,
Vioxx
Merck “won the vast majority of cases that went to trial,” and the most notable case that went the other way was marred by dubious testimony and juror misconduct — none of which kept plaintiffs’ lawyers from carting home $1.5 billion-plus in fees. [Ted Frank, Examiner]
Tagged as:
Vioxx
…Garza v. Merck, ends with a whimper as the Texas Supreme Court unanimously throws it out. Ted has more at PoL.
Tagged as:
Daubert,
Texas,
Vioxx
- Monday’s polar bear panel at AEI is a panel about the law of polar bears and the effect of the FWS decision to list them as threatened, rather than a panel featuring polar bears. So no fish will be served. Volokh’s Jonathan Adler will be there, though. [Volokh; AEI]
- Limiting lawsuit abuses lowers costs from litigation, creates jobs in long run. [Engler & McQuillan @ Detroit News]
- HBO to small businesses: prepositions are okay, but conjunctions will lead to injunctions. [Baltimore Sun]
- A one-sided love letter to Cozen O’Connor in the Philadelphia Inquirer over its September 11 litigation is a bit too revealing about its deep-pocket searches: “Cozen lawyers also had to be sure that such a defendant made financial sense, for the firm and its clients.” Culpability, of course, isn’t in the equation; and the newspaper story fails to account for the public-policy implications of having trial lawyers stepping on foreign policy. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
- Life imitates “The Office”: law firm offers “love contracts” for dating workers. [ABA Journal]
- More evidence of FDA overwarning, even when the science and law does not justify it. [Kyle Sampson @ Product Liability Law 360]
- Business tries to bully small website with litigation; small website successfully fights back. [CL&P Blog]
- “[Ron] Paul accomplished the one thing he’s always been good at: using political appeals to get people to send money. I don’t feel freer.” [Henley via Kirkendall]
- “It’s infuriating how all three presidential candidates prattle on about the need to fight global warming while also complaining about the high price of gasoline.” [Postrel]
- Story on Vioxx settlement and Merck winning reversals heavily quotes me. [Product Liability Law 360 ($)]
Tagged as:
bullying businesses,
deep pocket,
environment,
global warming,
harassment law,
media bias,
overwarning,
Ron Paul,
September 11,
tort reform,
trademarks,
Vioxx
AP reports a Texas court has thrown out the infamous Ernst $26 million judgment; a New Jersey court has tossed $9 million of the judgment in McDarby. More details on Point of Law as available.
Ernst was the first Vioxx suit to go to trial. A jury awarded $253 million. Mark Lanier waited months before asking for a final judgment; at the time, I suggested that this was because he knew the case would be reversed on appeal, and did not want the bad publicity. Indeed, the appellate decision perhaps comes too late for Merck: the number of lawsuits increased from 6000 to 60000 in the months following publicity over the jury verdict, costing Merck billions of dollars in the later extortionate settlement.
With these two decisions, only three plaintiffs’ verdicts in favor of Merck remain.
Update: I still haven’t seen the McDarby decision, but an updated AP story indicates that it upheld the compensatory damages of $4.5 million, overturned the $9 million punitive damages verdict, and overturned the consumer-fraud judgment (which also saves Merck millions of dollars in plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees).
Tagged as:
junk science,
legal extortion,
Mark Lanier,
New Jersey,
pharmaceuticals,
product liability,
Texas,
Vioxx
- No imprisonment for debt, except when owed to a lawyer? Texas man who didn’t pay $1,750 attorney fee jailed for 30 days [ABA Journal; Jonathan Skero]
- Exploding-bra claim against Victoria’s Secret “does not specify how the injury occurred” [Greenville, S.C. News]
- We’re all set to close on your mortgage refinance, and while we’re at it could I interest you in a class action over courier fees? [Madison County Record]
- So long we elect state court judges, they’ll never escape taint associated with need to campaign [J.D. Hull, What About Clients?]
- Milberg now argues any forfeiture of proceeds from tainted cases should be confined to its actual net profits, not gross fee revenue — would it have let off defendants it sued so easily? [Gerstein, NY Sun]
- Tom Goldstein of Akin Gump (SCOTUSblog) has a spoof “Call 1-CER-TIORARI” TV ad hawking his Supreme Court advocacy [YouTube]
- New at Point of Law: Colorado unions’ revenge initiatives; Dennis Quaid at Congressional hearing on federal pre-emption; guess why Orlando isn’t getting commuter rail; drafting docs for ER duty; court green-lights suit blaming U.S. business for South African apartheid; what we can learn from defunct causes of action; Rhode Island high court mulls lead paint suit; and Ted on Massachusetts med-mal study and on reversal of $32 million Garza v. Merck Vioxx verdict.
- Managers at Tim Horton may have been ninnies to fire worker who quieted crying child by giving out free mini-donut, but today’s law does tend to ninnyize those in authority [Cosh/National Post, Canada]
- Jonathan Rauch isn’t overjoyed at California high court marriage ruling [Independent Gay Forum; more from Kmiec, Lederman and others at Slate and from Eugene Volokh] More: Steve Chapman via Sullivan and Dale Carpenter @ Volokh.
- Road delayed at £1million expense, and then great crested newt turned out not to be there [Leicester, U.K.; Ananova]
- Why trial lawyers were pleased when Boeing moved its HQ from Seattle to Chicago [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Alien Tort Claims Act,
attorneys' fees,
Colorado,
forum shopping,
lead paint,
Madison County,
Marc Rodwin,
Massachusetts,
Milberg Weiss,
Rhode Island,
roundups,
Seattle,
South Africa,
Vioxx
If you’re not keeping up with our sister site, you’re missing out on stories about how expert evidence standards help plaintiffs too (and more); animal rights more voguish at many law schools than those dull old humans; Ohio Supreme Court commended; implications of recent plunge in carpal tunnel cases; 93% enrollment in Vioxx settlement; attorney faces criminal charges after his clients quit their nursing jobs; extensive coverage of Gov. Spitzer’s downfall; more trouble for Florida lawyer accused of bribing defendant’s adjuster to obtain settlement target numbers; ballot measure would abolish employment at will in Colorado; judicial seminars by the securities class action bar; and much more.
Tagged as:
animal rights,
carpal tunnel,
Colorado,
Daubert,
Eliot Spitzer,
employment at will,
judicial seminars,
Milberg Weiss,
Ohio,
roundups,
Vioxx
- Raising ticket revenue seems more important to NYC authorities than actually recovering stolen cars [Arnold Diaz/MyFoxNY video via Coyote]
- Subpoena your Facebook page? They just might [Beck/Herrmann]
- Rhode Island nightclub fire deep pockets, cont’d: concert sponsor Clear Channel agrees to pay Station victims $22 million, adding to other big settlements [ProJo; earlier]
- Manhattan federal judge says “madness” of hard-fought commercial suit “presents a cautionary tale about the potential for advocates to obscure the issues and impose needless burdens on busy courts” [NYLJ]
- Wooing Edwards and his voters? Hillary and Obama both tacking left on economics [Reuters/WaPo, WSJ, Chapman/Reason, WaPo editorial]
- Sad: if you tell your employer that you’re away for 144 days on jury duty, you actually need to be, like, away on jury duty [ABA Journal]
- New at Point of Law: Florida “three-strikes” keeps the doctor away; court dismisses alien-hiring RICO suit against Tyson (and more); Novak on telecom FISA immunity; fortunes in asbestos law; Ted on Avandia and Vioxx litigation; new Levy/Mellor book nominates Supreme Court’s twelve worst decisions; and much more;
- U.K.: “Lawyers forced to repay millions taken from sick miners’ compensation” [Times Online]
- Outside law firm defends Seattle against police-misconduct claims: is critics’ beef that they bill a lot, or that they’re pretty good at beating suits? [Post-Intelligencer]
- Cincinnati NAACP is campaigning against red-light cameras [Enquirer]
- Omit a peripheral defendant, get sued for legal malpractice [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
asbestos,
Avandia,
Barack Obama,
Cincinnati,
Clear Channel,
deep pocket,
Facebook,
FISA,
NYC,
red light cameras,
Rhode Island,
Rhode Island Station nightclub fire,
roundups,
Seattle,
telecom immunity,
Vioxx
(Updating and bumping Feb. 4 post about to roll off bottom of page because of new comment activity)
- Judge Fallon denied the motion of Florida plaintiffs to expedite a hearing on their inclusion into a settlement when they did not even bring suit (Jan. 30). Merck and the PSC are required to respond Feb. 15, and the hearing will be Feb. 21, where one can expect the motion to be denied.
- At Point of Law, I comment on the recent grand jury investigation into Merck marketing of Vioxx.
Update, Feb. 8: separately, Merck yesterday settles for $650 million different Medicaid fraud allegations over the marketing of Vioxx and other drugs. The qui tam relator will get a jackpot award of $68 million. [WaPo; DOJ; Merck] The pricing theories at the center of these lawsuits—which hold Merck liable for purportedly charging too little—definitely deserve longer discussion another time.
[click to continue…]
Tagged as:
forum shopping,
Illinois,
legal extortion,
Madison County,
Manhattan Institute,
New Jersey,
pharmaceuticals,
product liability,
qui tam,
Vioxx,
Wyeth
Libertarian medical school blogger “Frommedskool” has been critical of the Vioxx litigation (regularly citing to our coverage at Point of Law). An April 2006 post about the Cona/McDarby case, however, appears to have generated a December 2007 comment from someone calling himself Mark Lanier, the plaintiffs’ attorney in the case:
Third, there was a huge amount of info Merck had that it never gave the FDA, there were smoking gun memos and emails, and there was huge harassment of the medical community done by Merck. For example, Merck did a full meta-analysis of placebo trial that showed a statistically significant increase in heart attacks, but Merck excised that from the report given the FDA. Even Merck’s head admtted they should have given the analysis to the FDA.
(Point of Law discussed the so-called withholding of the meta-analysis back in 2006. It wasn’t all that.) Fascinatingly, this comment immediately provokes comments from another lurker (just two hours later?!) claiming to be a plaintiff, reasonably asking why, if the evidence was so good, Lanier was agreeing to settle 47,000 plaintiffs’ cases for under $5 billion, essentially a nuisance settlement given that victorious plaintiffs were being awarded in the millions and tens of millions.
[click to continue…]
Tagged as:
legal extortion,
Mark Lanier,
New Jersey,
product liability,
Vioxx
Please register for this event online at http://www.aei.org/event1626.
The AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest and the Federalist Society present:
The Vioxx Settlement
Monday, January 7, 2008, 12:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.
Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
In 2004, Merck withdrew its pain reliever Vioxx from the market because of new studies showing increased cardiovascular risk. Merck announced that it would not settle any of the tens of thousands of Vioxx lawsuits filed, and set aside over a billion dollars to litigate cases without reserving a penny for damages. After a $254 million verdict in the first Vioxx trial in 2005, some observers predicted over $25 billion in liability for the company. Fifteen trials later, Merck and the plaintiffs’ attorneys announced a settlement of the outstanding personal injury litigation—for under $5 billion. Merck stock rose after the announcement, and is now higher than before it withdrew Vioxx from the market. But some law professors are arguing that a new and unusual provision in the settlement raises ethical concerns.
Why did Merck settle? And why was the settlement for so much less than originally anticipated? Is the Merck settlement different from the Wyeth fen-phen settlement, which was originally announced as a $3.75 billion settlement, but has so far cost more than $20 billion? Will the settlement stand up under legal challenge, and what will remain of the Vioxx litigation if it does?
At this event cosponsored by AEI and the Federalist Society, a panel of experts will explore these and other questions. Speakers include Vanderbilt law professor Richard Nagareda, author of Mass Torts in a World of Settlement; Virginia legal ethics professor George Cohen; author and leading pharmaceutical mass torts defense attorney Mark Herrmann; Andy Birchfield, a member of the Vioxx Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee; and Ted Frank, director of the AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest. AEI resident scholar John E. Calfee will moderate.
11:45 a.m.
Registration and Lunch
12:00 p.m.
Panelists:
Andy Birchfield, Beasley Allen
George Cohen, University of Virginia School of Law
Ted Frank, AEI
Mark Herrmann, Jones Day
Richard Nagareda, Vanderbilt University Law School
Moderator:
John E. Calfee, AEI
2:00 p.m.
Adjournment
Tagged as:
fen-phen,
legal extortion,
product liability,
Ted Frank,
Vioxx,
Wyeth
- Ethical questions for Vioxx lawyers [WSJ law blog] And who’s going to make what? [same; more from Ted at PoL]
- American lawyers shouldn’t get all self-congratulatory about the courage shown by their Pakistani counterparts [Giacalone; more]
- Just another of those harmless questionnaires from school, this time about kindergartners’ at-home computer use. Or maybe there’s more to it [Nicole Black]
- Probe of personal injury “runners” bribing Gotham hospital staff to chase business nets another conviction, this one of a lawyer who stole $148,000 from clients [NYLJ; earlier]
- Facebook sometimes sends text messages to obsolete cellphone numbers relinquished by its users, so let’s sue it [IndyStar]
- Series on defensive medicine at docblog White Coat Rants [first, second, third]
- Arm broken by bully, student wins $4 million verdict against Tampa private school; bully himself not sued [St. Petersburg Times]
- Washington, D.C. reportedly doing away with right to contest a
traffic parking ticket in person [The Newspaper, on "the politics of driving"]
- “Walking headline factory” Scruggs to be arraigned November 20 [Rossmiller]
- More on whether government’s refusal to alter paper currency discriminates against the blind [Waldeck, ConcurOp via Bader; earlier]
- Eric Turkewitz hosts a truly marathon Blawg Review #134 [NY Pers Inj Law Blog]
Tagged as:
ATRA,
bullying,
chasing clients,
defensive medicine,
Dickie Scruggs,
Facebook,
hospitals,
paper currency and the blind,
roundups,
third party liability for crime,
Vioxx
