A Florida jury ordered cigarette maker Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million in damages to a 61-year-old ex-smoker named Cindy Naugle who is wheelchair-bound by emphysema. The Broward Circuit Court jury assessed $56.6 million in past and future medical expenses against the company, part of Altria Group Inc, as…
A nearly $3 million arbitration award was won by a former KBR employee who said she was raped in Iraq. Tracy K. Barker, wife of a U.S. Army sergeant and the mother of five, was awarded $2.93 million in private arbitration proceedings in Houston. “Arbitration, generally speaking, favors employers, and,…
A Richmond jury awarded a librarian at the Library of Virginia $8 M in damages, the amount sought by her lawyers after the woman was struck by a GRTC Transit System bus and severely injured. Meikiu Lo, now 34, suffered spinal and shoulder damage and multiple hip and pelvis fractures…
Two Pfizer Inc. units’ hormone- replacement therapy drugs caused an Illinois woman’s breast cancer, making them liable for at least $6.3 million in damages, a Philadelphia jury ruled. Jurors found that the combination of Wyeth’s Prempro and Pharmacia & Upjohn’s Provera menopause drugs was a substantial contributing factor in Donna…
The Iowa Supreme Court overturned lower court rulings and said a minister who crashed his car trying to avoid a trampoline that had blown into the road during a storm can sue its owners. Thompson and his wife filed a lawsuit against the owners of the trampoline, Kaczinski and Lockwood,…
Federal regulators are demanding changes to labels on devices that deliver pain killers directly to joints after surgery, in response to numerous reports of irreversible cartilage damage. The Food and Drug Administration said from 2006 to 2008 it received 35 reports of severe cartilage damage in patients who were given…
A federal judge has denied a request by Cintas Corp. for summary judgment in a 2007 wrongful death lawsuit in Tulsa, a ruling that paves the way for a jury to hear the case against the nation’s largest uniform supplier next year. U.S. District Judge Claire Eagan wrote in a…
Six months after the California Supreme Court lowered standing requirements for consumer class actions, a state trial judge has certified a class of consumers who purchased contact lens solution linked to an infection that can cause blindness. Orange County, Calif., Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez ruled on Nov. 12…
Two men who became seriously ill after working at a Hicksville magazine distributor located atop a former nuclear fuel plant have been awarded $12 million in a federal negligence lawsuit against Verizon Communications Inc. Gerard DePascale, and Liam Neville, each were awarded $5 million, and DePascale’s wife, Joanne, $2 million,…
An Albemarle County, Va jury awarded $5.25 million to the parents and sibling of a 16-year-old county girl who was killed in a car accident in 2008. The jury found that Don B. Swisher Trucking Corp., McCann Delivery Service and Kenneth Barbour were negligent when Barbour hit Sydney Aichs’ 1999…