Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

November 2, 2009

AstraZeneca Pays $520 M to Settle Seroquel Whistle Blower Cases

The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said that it had reached a $520 million agreement to settle two federal investigations and two whistle-blower lawsuits over the sale and marketing of its blockbuster psychiatric drug Seroquel.

One of the investigations related to “selected physicians who participated in clinical trials involving Seroquel,” AstraZeneca disclosed in a government filing. The other case related to off-label promotion of the drug.

As a result of aggressive marketing, Seroquel has been increasingly used for children and elderly people for indications not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Doctors are permitted to prescribe any approved drug for off-label uses.

Seroquel was the top-selling antipsychotic drug in America. It had $17 billion in sales in the United States since 2004, according to IMS Health, a research firm.

November 1, 2009

Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Granting $200 K to Employee Denied Bathroom Break.

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Marin County supermarket clerk who urinated on herself at the checkout counter after her supervisor refused to let her take a bathroom break is entitled to a $200,000 damage award, a state appeals court has ruled.

The woman, identified only as A.M., had returned to work at an Albertson’s Inc. store in Fairfax in 2004 after undergoing cancer treatment that left her mouth dry and required her to drink water constantly. The store told her to let the managers know when she needed a bathroom break and they would cover for her.

October 30, 2009

Class Action Patients Exposed to Radiation sue Cedars-Sinai

by Dr. Shezad Malik

More than 200 patients exposed to high levels of radiation at Cedars-Sinai hospital filed suit, and attorneys say more plaintiffs could be added as word of the lawsuit spreads.

The president of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center – where patients were recently exposed to eight times the recommended radiation after undergoing brain tests related to a stroke – issued a statement saying he regretted the circumstances that led to the mistake.

October 30, 2009

Appeals Court Reverses $24.2 M Verdict in Asbestos Mesothelioma Case

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The 3rd District Court of Appeal reversed a $24.2 million verdict Wednesday, striking a Miami-Dade jury award to a Weston, Fla., surgeon who claimed asbestos exposure caused his terminal cancer.

In a unanimous unsigned opinion, the three-judge panel remanded the products liability lawsuit by Dr. Stephen Guilder against Honeywell International and ordered a new trial.

Guilder won one of the highest compensatory damage awards against a single defendant in a mesothelioma case in April 2008. He died before the appeal was decided.

He claimed he developed the rare peritoneal mesothelioma from exposure to asbestos by remodeling an attic, working in road construction and repairing cars in the 1970s and 1980s.

October 30, 2009

Lawsuit Claims That Company is Liabe for Drunk Employee Car Crash

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Trial is set to begin in Michigan in a lawsuit that claims a company is liable for three deaths caused by a company employee who was driving drunk.

Thomas Wellinger, who had been sent from his office at UGS Corp. to seek medical attention, drove his vehicle at 70 mph into a car driven by Judith Weinstein, killing her and her two sons, ages 9 and 12. Her husband, Gary Weinstein of Farmington Hills, Mich., claims in a wrongful-death suit that USG Corp. had a duty not to let Wellinger leave the premises.

October 29, 2009

Federal Agencies to Assess Potential Lasik Problems

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Three federal agencies — the Food and Drug Administration, the Defense Department and the National Eye Institute — announced last week that they are launching a three-year effort to gauge how many, and which, patients suffer troubling symptoms after undergoing the vision correction procedure called Lasik.

At the same time, the FDA issued letters reminding 17 walk-in surgical centers performing Lasik surgery of their obligation to report poor outcomes and patients’ surgery-related medical complaints. The letters were issued after the FDA conducted a spate of inspections of Lasik facilities and found many had no system for collecting and transmitting to the FDA data on patients’ reports of post-surgical “adverse events.” More inspections are to come, the FDA said.

October 28, 2009

NY City Awarded $105 M in Exxon Mobil Toxic Lawsuit

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A federal jury found Exxon Mobil liable for contaminating groundwater in New York City and awarded the city $104.7 million in compensatory damages.

The city had sought $250 million in damages to finance construction of a treatment plant to make the water in five wells in southeastern Queens drinkable. But lawyers for the city called the jury’s decision a “total victory” for their side.

Dozens of similar cases are pending against oil companies nationwide over the contamination of groundwater by the additive M.T.B.E., which is highly soluble in water and has leaked from underground storage tanks across the country.

October 27, 2009

Pfizer Unit’s Prempro Punitive Damages Verdict Remains Secret

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Pfizer Inc. unit must pay an undisclosed amount of punitive damages to an Illinois woman who developed breast cancer after taking one of the drugmaker’s menopause treatments, according to a Philadelphia jury.

Jurors deliberated 25 minutes before finding Pfizer’s Wyeth subsidiary was responsible for paying an award to Connie Barton. The specific amount of the award was sealed by the trial judge immediately after it was returned.

October 27, 2009

Philip Morris Has to Fund Medical Monitoring Tests for Smokers

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The state’s high court said that cigarette maker Philip Morris USA may have to pay for diagnostic chest exams so smokers can get early warning they have developed lung cancer, possibly opening a new front in tobacco liability lawsuits.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court said Massachusetts law has an antiquated definition of negligence. Historically, plaintiffs had to show explicit injury, such as a broken leg, before the other party can be ordered to pay for diagnostic tests.

Writing for the court, Justice Spina said that such legal thinking must change. “We must adapt to the growing recognition that exposure to toxic substances and radiation may cause substantial injury, which should be compensable, even if the full effects are not immediately apparent,’’ he wrote.

October 27, 2009

More Suits Against Bayer Corporation on Behalf of Victims of the Yaz Birth Control Pill

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Two more lawsuits on behalf of young women injured by the Yaz birth control pill. Yaz, as well as its precursor, Yasmin, have been associated with life-threatening cardiac events in some women, including heart attacks, blood clots and strokes. Both lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Docket Nos. 09-CIV-8931 and 09-CIV-8843).

The Yaz lawsuits were filed on behalf of Judith M. Woodall and Tasha Marcell. The complaints allege that both women sustained severe and permanent personal injuries, pain, suffering, and emotional distress as a result of their use of Yaz. More specifically, according to her lawsuit, Ms. Woodall, a resident of Tennessee, first began using Yaz in approximately November 2008. That same month, she suffered a saddle pulmonary embolus and deep vein thrombosis.

Ms. Marcell, a resident of Georgia, began taking Yaz in October 2007. She also suffered a pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis shortly after she began using the medication.