U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon in New Orleans ordered a new trial to assess damages owed to retired FBI agent Gerald Barnett but left intact a jury's finding two weeks ago that Merck was liable for his 2002 heart attack. Jurors awarded Barnett $50 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.Easy come, easy go.
The Association of Trial Lawyers of America on Tuesday launched a $500,000 television and radio ad campaign in five congressional districts blaming GOP lawmakers for not seeking lower prices for the Medicare prescription drug program.Of course, Republicans are not taking this lying down.
The ad campaign targets Republican House members from Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, Ohio and North Carolina. The ads accuse the lawmakers of blocking provisions that would have required Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for the best prescription cost.
Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, scoffed at the trial lawyers association's ad campaign.My, but we love a good fight.
"I can't figure out what angle they're going to take that they can sue somebody over," he said.
“As a result of a change in Tennessee’s regulations several years after Dr. Frist came to the Senate, he may be required to complete additional continuing medical education hours,” spokesman Matt Lehigh said in a statement. “A representative of the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners has been contacted, and Dr. Frist will meet every requirement of the Board.”It may not be that easy for the retiring senator, who has ambitions to become president.
Tennessee law states that doctors who fail to do their continuing medical education “will be subject to disciplinary action.”
Dan Warlick, a Nashville lawyer who represents doctors in trouble with the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners, said a case such as Frist’s would likely be taken seriously.
“They have been routinely revoking licenses for physicians who have misrepresented to the board what they have done,” Warlick said.
“Medicine changes,” Warlick added. “If you’re telling them you’re keeping up, and you’re not, that would be a very significant problem for the board to have to deal with.”
[Coors' attorney Stephen] Higgins told the judge that Coors spends a lot of time doing volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America and other organizations and asked if that could count toward the community service requirement.
... Coors said he wished police had been "looking for someone a little more dangerous to the community" when he was stopped.
In 1981, Johns Manville is the first to implement a new strategy for avoiding claims by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Johns Manville bankruptcy plan establishes a Trust to pay for claims filed by asbestos-exposed people who develop disease. The Trust is segregated from the rest of the company. The company goes on doing business as usual while being shielded from all future asbestos liabilities.
Unfortunately, as time goes on, it becomes clear that the amount of money needed to pay claims estimated in the bankruptcy process is inadequate, and that the workers will not be as fully compensated as they thought they would be.
As part of the bankruptcy process, the Trustee for the now Johns Manville Trust turns over to the plaintiffs' attorneys all of the documents previously in Manville's possession for their examination. Many of these documents have never been produced and their very existence has been denied, including the records of the lawsuit filed by Mr. LeGrande, more than 20 years earlier.
LONDON (AFP) - Judges will be given the power to fire defence lawyers to shorten the length of trials and to save costs under government proposals, The Times reported.Critics maintain it strips a basic legal right of defendants under United Kingdom laws - to be able to choose their own lawyers.
If judges believed lawyers were unable to cope with the volume of work involved in handling a big case, at any point before or during the trial, they will be allowed to dismiss them, in proposals published six days ago that were not accompanied by any press notice.
The defendant would then have three weeks to find new representation, and would be barred from choosing a lawyer already involved in the case.
The judge hearing the case rejected attorney Joe Caramagno's claims that a car accident that morning left him with a concussion and caused him to be late, slur his words and tell conflicting stories.All professions have their miscreants, and it never reflects well on any group when a member behaves this way.
"I don't think you have a concussion," District Judge Michelle Leavitt said. "I think you are dazed and confused and can't tell a straight story because you are too intoxicated."
Starr, moderating a panel of judges from across the country, cited a poll by the bar association in which about half the respondents couldn't identify the three branches of government.Makes one wonder how much his actions throughout his legal career have added to that misunderstanding.
"Should Americans, should school students, have confidence as they look ahead to the integrity now of the judicial process?" asked Starr, dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law in California.
"We didn't feel that a case was ever made that there is a connection between Vioxx and heart attacks," said jury foreman Charles Sullenger, 59. "In the end it simply boiled down to the burden of proof was not met in our opinion."
Jurors, however, agreed that there were potential risks for users taking Vioxx based on scientific studies.
The majority opinion, by Justice Maureen O'Connor, said the trial court's delegation of any amount of responsibility in the sentencing opinion did not comply with state law.Roberts is the first woman sentenced to death in Ohio since that state resumed executions in 1999.
"Nor does it comport with our firm belief that the consideration and imposition of death are the most solemn of all the duties that are imposed on a judge," O'Connor wrote. "The scales of justice may not be weighted even slightly by one with an interest in the ultimate outcome."
