- Part III of Radley Balko series on painkiller access [HuffPo]
- “Note: Add ‘Judge’s Nameplate’ to List of Things Not to Steal” [Lowering the Bar]
- California’s business-hostile climate: if the ADA mills don’t get you, other suits might [CACALA]
- Bottom story of the month: ABA president backs higher legal services budget [ABA Journal]
- After string of courtroom defeats, Teva pays to settle Nevada propofol cases [Oliver, earlier]
- Voting Rights Act has outstayed its constitutional welcome [Ilya Shapiro/Cato] More: Stuart Taylor, Jr./The Atlantic.
- Huge bust of what NY authorities say was $279 million crash-fraud ring NY Post, NYLJ, Business Insider, Turkewitz (go after dishonest docs on both sides)]
Search Results for ‘painkiller’
February 9 roundup
- Ninth Circuit panel strikes down California’s Prop 8 [Volokh, Kerr, Magliocca, Lithwick, Steve Chapman]
- Judge dismisses PETA “killer whales enslaved” case [Caroline May/Daily Caller, CNN, earlier]
- “Patent Troll Claims Ownership of Interactive Web – And Might Win” [Joe Mullin/Wired, earlier; more on testimony by Web father Tim Berners-Lee] Update: Ding Dong! Jury rejects claim;
- “Further Analysis of the Bottle-Rocket Case” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- As patients suffer: “The War Over Prescription Painkillers,” start of a Radley Balko series [HuffPo parts one, two so far]
- Richard Epstein on federal fiat and Yale disciplinary procedure [Defining Ideas] Under new-style rules at Yale, will a professor even be aware he’s been accused and henceforth is to be “monitored”? [KC Johnson]
- Jim Copland testimony on abuses in government contingent-fee litigation [Manhattan Institute, PDF] “Parens patriae” proposal to replace class actions with state attorney general suits, but with private entrepreneurial bar still in saddle [Adam Zimmerman/Prawfs on Myriam Gilles/Gary Friedman, SSRN]
April 27 roundup
- “Bioblitz”: Environmental groups file thousands of actions demanding endangered species listings [NYT; related discussion with Jonathan Adler and Steven Hayward at NYT’s Room for Debate]
- War on painkillers could turn many more Florida docs, druggists into criminals [White Coat]
- Feds flex muscle, using debarment to oust company CEOs [Jim Doyle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
- “Madigan’s List”: powerful Illinois pol sways selection of Cook County judges [Chicago Tribune]
- Nick Gillespie interviews education reformer Jay Greene [Reason]
- Social conservatives misplay recusal card against Judge Vaughn Walker in Prop 8 case [Richard Painter, LEF, more, AW, LAT] Other views: Whelan, Gillers, motion.
- Why TV shows like “WKRP in Cincinnati” appear in compromised DVD versions [Alex Tabarrok updates a story we had in ’06]
“Court Rejects Pill Addiction Suit Against Pharmacies”
“A law that makes drug dealers liable for the injuries they cause does not apply to two pharmacies, a California appeals court has ruled, rejecting the case of a woman who got addicted to painkillers she acquired illegally from an employee of the pharmacies.” [Heller, OnPoint News]
Pharmacies liable for pill-abusers’ crashes?
A case before the Nevada Supreme Court aims to open up new vistas of liability. [WSJ Law Blog].
“If you keep track of what you’re taking, none of this is an issue for you”
An FDA panel’s recommendation to withdraw Vicodin, Percocet, and other opioid-plus-acetaminophen painkillers seems calculated to “sacrifice the interests of consumers who follow instructions for the sake of consumers who don’t”, says Jacob Sullum. ER blog Crass-Pollination has some thoughts as well.
March 25 roundup
- Driver on narcotic painkillers crashes car, lawyer says pharmacists liable [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
- Who’s that cyber-chasing the Buffalo Continental Air crash? Could it be noted San Francisco-based plaintiff’s firm Lieff Cabraser? [Turkewitz]
- Axl Rose no fan of former Guns N’ Roses bandmate or his royalty-seeking attorneys [Reuters]
- Cheese shop owner speaks out against punitive tariff on Roquefort, now due to take effect April 23 [video at Reason “Hit and Run”, earlier]
- Too many cops and too many lawsuits in city schools, says Errol Louis [NY Daily News]
- Law professor and prominent blogger Ann Althouse is getting married — to one of her commenters. Congratulations! [her blog, Greenfield] Kalim Kassam wonders when we can look forward to the Meg Ryan film “You’ve Got Blog Comments”.
- “Louisiana panel recommends paying fees of wrongfully accused Dr. Anna Pou” (charged in deaths of patients during Hurricane Katrina) [NMissCommentor]
- U.K.: “Privacy Group Wants To Shut Down Google Street View” [Mashable]
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t files: Cynthia Haddad v. Wal-Mart
Pharmacist Cynthia Haddad, when she left the pharmacy unattended, allowed a technician to use her computer security code to issue prescriptions, including a fraudulent prescription for a painkiller, something that could have exposed Wal-Mart to enormous liability if someone had been injured by the illegally dispensed drugs. So Wal-Mart fired Haddad. Haddad sued, claiming that the real reason Wal-Mart fired her was because she had asked for a raise to a manager-level salary, though she did not perform manager-level duties such as budgeting, and that it was thus sex discrimination. (Haddad claims that Wal-Mart “never” fired a male manager for her infraction, which seems implausible at best; Wal-Mart says it did fire male pharmacists for this. Why is this even a factual dispute for decision for a jury? This seems like a matter that merits a partial summary disposition to prevent one side from out-and-out lying.) This somehow got to a jury, which awarded $2 million, including $1 million in punitive damages. Among the questionable procedures used to railroad Wal-Mart at trial was permitting Haddad to present an attorney to testify as an expert witness on human resources procedures. Wal-Mart indicated it disagrees with the jury’s decision and is studying whether an appeal is worthwhile. Massachusetts courts are not a friendly place for defendants. Wal-Mart’s attorney did not comment to the press, permitting the plaintiffs’ lawyer to generate rather one-sided press coverage. [Berkshire Eagle June 19; Berkshire Eagle June 20; Reuters/USA Today; Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly]
“Business has not trounced the trial lawyers”
My latest column in the Times Online explains why Business Week and some other media outlets are being at best premature (and that’s putting it diplomatically) in declaring the American plaintiff’s bar down for the count. Opening excerpt:
America’s litigation fever is cooling off, or so one hears. Merck & Co is doing reasonably well defending suits over its painkiller Vioxx, while actions blaming foodmakers for obesity have sputtered. Doctors’ malpractice-suit payouts are said to be flat (at what by other countries’ standards are still unthinkably high levels). Last month, the Supreme Court ruled on a punitive damage case in favor of tobacco giant Philip Morris, which has become a Wall Street favorite after wrestling down its perceived legal risks. Nearly every American politician claims to be on board with reform, even the nation’s most famous plaintiff’s-lawyer-made-good: “We do have too many lawsuits”, said John Edwards during the 2004 Presidential debates. A recent Business Week cover sums it up: “How Business Trounced the Trial Lawyers”.
And yet one wonders whether a contest is being called prematurely. … To call a high-water mark is going to require more evidence than we’ve seen so far.
P.S. Other reactions to the Business Week cover story came from Bizzyblog (“Year’s Most Unintentionally Comical”), Roger Parloff (article itself was better than headline), and me at Point of Law (see also this WSJ column).
Legal defense costs: $400 million
That’s how much Purdue Pharma has reportedly spent in legal fees in its generally successful defense of its painkiller Oxycontin against product liability assault (Lattman, Jun. 14). See our earlier post of Sept. 28, 2004, at which point the meter had reached $250 million.