The trustee of a trust fund for sick Florida smokers is prepared to settle some claims by the federal government for $18 million, freeing up the rest of the $580 million fund for smokers and their attorneys. “We have reached an agreement in principle with the Department of Justice in…
According to plaintiffs’ attorneys AstraZeneca PLC failed to warn physicians and patients about risks associated with its widely used schizophrenia drug Seroquel. According to documents that were just unsealed in a U.S. federal court case showed AstraZeneca knew about the risk of weight gain and diabetes in 2000. The company…
An Indiana woman has been awarded $157 million in a wrongful death lawsuit she filed against the manufacturers of a tree stand that malfunctioned, killing her husband three years ago. The substantial default judgment, reached by jurors in about an hour, no one representing the defendants — L & L…
Philip Morris has to pay the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer $8 million in damages in a case that could affect about 8,000 similar Florida lawsuits. The six jurors deliberated over two days before returning the award for Elaine Hess, whose husband Stuart Hess died…
Peanut Corporation of America, the company responsible for the nationwide salmonella outbreak, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will begin liquidating its assets as legal claims pile up against it. Companies that Lynchburg, Va.-based PCA supplied with peanut products have also filed suit against it, and PCA’s insurer,…
Texas health officials ordered a recall of every product ever shipped from a Plainview peanut processing plant since March 2005 after inspectors discovered contamination. Inspectors found dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers in a crawl space above a food production area at the Peanut Corp. of America’s Plainview plant,…
A federal court has ordered Taser International to pay $1.4 million to lawyers for the family of a California man who died after police officers repeatedly shocked him with stun guns. The U.S. District Court last week ordered the Scottsdale, Ariz. company liable for attorneys fees accrued by the family…
According to federal drug officials, many doctors may lose their ability to prescribe 24 popular narcotics as part of a new effort to reduce the deaths and injuries that result from these medications inappropriate use. A new control program will result in restrictions on the prescribing, dispensing and distribution of…
Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals has just introduced a new $20 million advertising campaign for Yaz, the most popular birth control pill in the United States. But the television ads, are not typical spots promoting the benefits of a prescription drug. Instead, they warn that nobody should take Yaz hoping that it…
A peanut processing plant in Texas run by the Peanut Corp. of America, which is being investigated for a national salmonella outbreak, operated for years uninspected and unlicensed by Texas health officials. The Peanut Corp. of America plant in Plainview was never inspected until after the company fell under investigation…