Following a Nevada jury’s highly controversial $500 million verdict over allegedly inadequate warnings against multiple patient use, as well as bad publicity over possible abuse by music legend Michael Jackson, “Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries recently announced it will stop production of its sedative propofol, which many worry will intensify an already existing shortage of one of the most widely used anesthetics in the United States.” [Abnormal Use, earlier]
Posts Tagged ‘failure to warn’
Running car in enclosed garage not obvious risk
So thinks a Michigan appeals court, reinstating (over a dissent) a suit against a maker of a muffler repair kit which allegedly should have warned of the danger of carbon monoxide emitted by the car under repair. [Pero, White v. Victor majority and dissent (PDF)] (& welcome Daniel Fisher, Forbes readers)
May 22 roundup
- No answer at 911? “Florida Verdict May Threaten EMS Availability” [White Coat]
- New Orleans politico Steve Theriot drops suit seeking identities of online critics [Times-Picayune and more, NYT “Media Decoder”, Slabbed, earlier]
- On a vial of anesthetic: “One patient use only.” Nevada jury finds that warning inadequate to prevent multiple patient use and awards $500 million in punitives [Carter at Point of Law, Abnormal Use] More: Ted at PoL.
- Floodgates to litigation? “Parent Can Sue Ex for Turning Children Against Him” [NJLJ]
- Lawyer who isn’t honest is a threat to the social order: noted Allentown, Pa. attorney gets 6 1/2 years for fraud [Legal Intelligencer, earlier]
- “Another European Prosecution for Insulting Religion” [Volokh; pop star Dorota Rabczewska, Poland]
- A lawyer’s advice: try to get those Rand Paul types off your jury [Turkewitz]
- If SEIU craves respectability, maybe it shouldn’t send mobs to besiege bank execs at their homes [Nina Easton, Fortune, cross-posted from Cato at Liberty; related from PoL last year; more from Big Journalism including role of D.C. police, but note denials on last point]
May 16 roundup
- Doc self-injects with Botox, wins $15 million on failure-to-warn claim [Legal Blog Watch]
- Kindergarten teacher Tonya Craft acquitted in widely watched abuse-allegation case [Sullum and more, Greenfield, Popehat, A Public Defender, Lynch]
- Naughty Toyota, it defends itself when attacked [Fumento, Ted at PoL]
- Washington Post profiles economist/perennial blogroll favorite Tyler Cowen (Marginal Revolution) with guest appearance by fashion business mentor/outspoken CPSIA critic Kathleen Fasanella;
- Business groups oppose nomination to federal judgeship of Rhode Island trial lawyer/political kingmaker Jack McConnell [ShopFloor]
- “CEI’s FTC Complaint Against GM: A Response to Walter Olson” [Fred Smith/Open Market, earlier]
- Bad: New York’s highest court limits assumption of risk defense [NYLJ, Mura, Rapp]
- Why we can’t represent you in your suit demanding removal of your microchip brain implant [Popehat]
May 10 roundup
- Failure to warn? “Non-Child Sues For Slide-Related Injury” [Lowering the Bar]
- “AG Cuomo Sues Lawyer for Fraud, Says He Sold His Name to Debt Collector for $141K” [ABA Journal]
- Ted Frank on his move to the Manhattan Institute and Point of Law [CCAF]
- “Viacom is becoming a lawsuit company instead of a TV company” [Doctorow, BoingBoing]
- UK: “NHS pays £10,000 to family of psychiatric patient who committed suicide” [Times Online]
- American Cancer Society: federal advisory panel’s chemicals-cause-cancer alarms are overblown [NYTimes] More: Taranto, WSJ.
- “Who Knew Bankruptcy Paid So Well?” [NYTimes]
- Famed sleuth Bloomberg Holmes on the case: was the Pathfinder headed for a vile sodium den? [IowaHawk]
CCAF files Bluetooth appeal brief
Ted’s Center for Class Action Fairness has been contesting a class action settlement as overly generous toward lawyers’ interests. The underlying lawsuit claims failure to warn of hearing loss from high-volume headset use. [CCAF, Bader/Open Market] More: California Civil Justice, Aetherczar.
Suit: no warning that 10,000-lb. safe was risky to move
Trying to move the contents of his Duval Street store to another location, a jeweler in Key West, Fla. was killed when the enormously heavy object fell on him; his widow’s suit “claims that Mutual Safe Co. and Harwood’s Miami Safe Co. failed to warn her husband of the life-threatening risks involved in moving the 10,000-pound, refrigerator-sized safe, according to the lawsuit filed in Monroe County circuit court Tuesday.” [Adam Linhardt, Key West Citizen; & welcome Lowering the Bar readers]
1995 Washington Square sudden acceleration revisited
In 1992, Diana Maychick drove her mother’s Oldsmobile back to Washington Place in Greenwich Village, and got out. Her mother, the 74-year-old Stella Maychick, slid over from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat, readying herself to return to Yonkers. Maycheck, a shorter-than-average woman, suddenly took off in the car, which sped up, ran two stop signs, and tore through Washington Square Park, killing five and maiming several others.
Diana Maychick is now Diana Foote, a restaurant reviewer for a Palm Beach newspaper, and recently recounted the accident, claiming the recent Toyota troubles exonerated her mother.
Which I found fascinating, because I worked on that litigation—and the evidence that Maychick hit the gas instead of the brake was so strong that the plaintiffs’ lawyers abandoned the standard specious “mysterious gremlins caused the car to accelerate” theory and replaced it with a “General Motors knew that drivers were hitting the wrong pedal but didn’t do enough to warn them” theory. I took issue with Foote’s column in a letter to the newspaper.
As for the lawsuit itself, the judge excused everyone in the voir dire who expressed the remotest skepticism about plaintiffs’ theory, and GM settled shortly after the start of trial. One certainly marvels at the chutzpah of the theory of the case, given trial lawyers’ role in trying to persuade the public that driver error couldn’t possibly be to blame.
Poutine injuries in Canada
Canadian health officials require poutine—a Canadian dish of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy—to be heated to 140 to 165 degrees for health reasons, a temperature somewhat that below of hot coffee. Alas, this is a temperature that can cause second-degree burns if a consumer happens to suffer an epileptic fit and fall face-first into their poutine, as happened to an Ontario teenager dining alone at a local KFC. No lawsuit appears to be planned, though her father seems to be demanding warnings of some sort. (Don Peat, “Teen burned in KFC poutine mishap”, canoe.ca, Jan. 19 (h/t Bumper)). Of course, given that warnings cannot deter epileptic seizures, it’s not clear why this would have made a difference. And as the Mocking Words blog points out:
What if instead she ended up falling down and hitting her head on the concrete floor? Are you going to go around warning people that concrete is a very solid material and that people should be aware that if you fall and hit your head on the floor that it’s going to hurt and is possibly going to injure you?
Suing cellphone makers over car crashes
The New York Times publicizes a possible new front for product liability litigation [sidebar, yesterday’s p. 1 story]
P.S. A long, must-read post from Russell Jackson, who was quoted in the article: “Various Defenses Should Make Cell Phone Suit Untenable“.