Since then, the Interior Department has stopped approving any new drilling permits and suspended drilling at 33 wells already exploring for oil in the gulf. The government has said it needs time to do a thorough safety evaluation to ensure that disasters like BP’s blast don’t happen again. But Hornbeck Offshore Services, an oil services company based in Louisiana, filed a lawsuit challenging the moratorium. It argues that there’s no evidence that continued drilling poses any threat of future oil spills, and that halting such operations could cost Louisiana thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in lost wages. The lawsuit is backed by oil companies, Louisiana’s governor and other state officials.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman heard testimony from both sides in a two-hour hearing on Monday. He ruled that the Interior Department failed to give adequate reasoning for the moratorium, according to the AP, saying the department assumes that because one rig failed, all companies and rigs doing deep-water drilling are an imminent danger.

“The safeguards and regulations in place on April 20 did not create a sufficient margin of safety,” Justice Department stated at the hearing Monday.

Asked by Feldman why the U.S. government didn’t implement a similar moratorium after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, the Government called the Deepwater Horizon blowout a “game changer.”

The defendant driver had admitted his liability for colliding with the plaintiff which resulted in multiple injuries including a shattered pelvis, fractured forearms, broken leg and vision loss.

Jury verdicts such as these send a clear message to bar owners they will be held responsible for injuries to innocent victims of drunk drivers who drink to excess and are allowed to leave the bar and drive. Bar and tavern owners can no longer turn a blind eye to the obviously intoxicated patron who continues to want to buy drinks. The number of drunk driving accidents resulting in serious injuries and death are rising. We must all do our part in stopping this activity. Patrons must know the amount of alcohol they can consume and legally drive or designate a non-drinking driver. Bars must be vigilant about their intoxicated patrons and refuse to serve them and make sure they are not driving.

This is the first trial in the country of a claim involving the bone-strengthening drug. Worse news for Novartis is the effect the verdict will likely have on 500 other consolidated Zometa cases currently pending in New Jersey state courts and federal court in Tennessee.

In the Montana case the plaintiff developed serious dental and jaw-related problems after taking Zometa for several years. Her condition is incurable and will result in lifelong disability. Her lawsuit alleged Novartis knew patients taking Zometa were vulnerable to a degenerative jaw disorder called osteonecrosis or bone death, particularly patients who undergo invasive dental procedures such as tooth extraction. She claimed Novartis failed to adequately warn her or her doctors of the risks.

At trial Novartis was accused of playing down the drug’s risks and obscured and delaying the release of information to the public and medical community in order to control the public relations fallout from the disclosure and maximize their marketing of the drug. Internal emails introduced at trial showed Novartis knew of the drug’s risk through its own extensive research communicated by its medical research and marketing departments to company executives who actually tried to suppress the information.

Novartis claimed their warnings were adequate and the risks were included in their labels. According to the plaintiff’s attorney the Zometa label is on a small piece of paper in tiny print that is barely readable and folded 20 times like an accordion. If the label were printed in normal 12 point font it would be 22 pages long.

This is just the latest egregious example of a drug manufacturer putting profit over patient safety. The only way the public has to put a stop to this type of activity is to bring successful products liability cases in court that forces these giant corporations to do the right thing and inform consumers and the doctors prescribing these drugs.

The plaintiff was a newlywed with a 25-year old wife who was 3-months pregnant. A witness, who happened to be another 18-wheeler driver behind the defendant, testified that the defendant driver never slowed or swerved before crushing the Tollway truck. He also told the jury that the left lanes were free and clear, so the accident was entirely avoidable.

The defendant admitted negligence, but contended that Illinois Tollway was also negligent in the accident for not protecting the plaintiff’s decedent. Illinois Tollway denied any negligence in this case. After a trial that lasted 6 days, the jury found the defendant and their semi-truck driver at fault. The jury found Illinois Tollway not guilty.

They also argue that high medical malpractice awards drive up the cost of medical malpractice insurance making it unaffordable. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office did a study of states with their own laws controlling medical malpractice lawsuits and found that last year the savings achieved by limiting medical liability amounted to less than 0.5 percent. It found no proof that limits on medical liability has reduced “defensive medicine”. They found no reduction in expensive and unnecessary test and procedures ordered by doctors to reduce the risk of lawsuits.

Louisiana is one such state that limits medical liability. A qualified health care provider is limited to $100,000 of exposure in a medical malpractice case. The victim of medical negligence is capped at $500,000 plus medical bills in what he can recover no matter what his or her actual losses are. The health care provider is responsible for the first $100,000 and the remaining $400,000 is paid by the Patient Compensation Fund. Capping and eliminating patient’s rights to recover is not the answer. Contact your congressman today and demand they vote NO on medical liability caps.

The facts are that nationwide the number of medical malpractice cases being filed is declining and has been in decline. At least 36 states have passed Republican-backed medical malpractice laws that restrict the time in which to file such suits or cap the damages available. Statistics show that doctors win approximately 75% of jury trials. Despite this, President Obama has agreed to consider medical malpractice revision as a part of comprehensive health care reform.

Tom Baker, a University of Connecticut professor, published “The Medical Malpractice Myth” in which he described the hype over medical malpractice as “urban legend mixed with the occasional true story”. In his detailed study of the insurance industry, he concluded that the cost of medical malpractice suits came to less than 1 percent of overall healthcare spending. Patients’ rights and remedies have been unfairly restricted or outright abolished far too often. Let’s not let the propaganda over health care reform further erode what rights they have left.

The 1996 tort reform legislation eliminated solidary liability in Louisiana, a decades-long legal principle which allowed an injured party to collect their full damages from either negligent party when more than one defendant caused the harm. This concept allowed the innocent victim to collect 100% of their damages from either of the guilty parties. This protected the victim from having the burden of pursuing them both or face the possibility of not collecting in full if one defendant was insolvent. Under the “reforms”, if one of the guilty parties is insolvent, the victim doesn’t collect and is not made whole.

The current litigation involving defective Chinese drywall is a classic example of tort reform gone wrong. Since the Chinese manufacturers are outside the reach of American courts and civil judgments are not enforced in China, they can simply ignore the scores of lawsuits filed by innocent homeowners. To add insult to injury, many of the homeowners had their homes destroyed by hurricanes and rebuilt using the defective drywall. They now face the reality of having to tear out the drywall and affected wiring and plumbing and start over. So, in the Republican zeal to entice more business to our state, long-held legal concepts were tossed aside and innocent victims are left with the consequences. And where is all of that new business we were promised?

To me, it all starts with a common sense approach. Typically, I to go to the scene of the accident to get a feel or visual of what the potential client is claiming caused the accident. This could be an intersection in a private parking lot where there are no signs or marking to show who has the right-of-way, it could be parking stops that are not painted, or it could be a failure by an individual or a company to provide adequate warning on products, etc.

I put myself in the shoes of the injured party and go to the scene of the accident and question whether it was reasonable for the person to be injured in the way they claim. I have to firmly believe in a case before I take the case and invest time, energy, and money.

By preventing accidents, individuals avoid needless pain and suffering, medical bills, and a loss of enjoyment of life. It is certainly gratifying to see that as a result of your efforts, changes are being made that will prevent future accidents to someone ranging from small children to elderly patients in a nursing home.

Without passing on the merits of this particular settlement or the allegations against Sprint Nextel, it nevertheless bears noting that individual consumers who were inappropriately charged fees of $25, $50, or $100 could never economically take on a huge corporation, like Sprint, in court. Cases that cost more to litigate than any possible recovery are sometimes called “negative value” cases. Many negative value cases are in the consumer arena. The United States Supreme Court has said that the existence of a negative value case is one issue that weighs in favor of class certification. Class actions help level the playing field and allow a group of similarly aggrieved people to band together to take on a corporate wrongdoer. And most importantly, consumer class actions protect us from unscrupulous conduct and make wrongful conduct unprofitable.

As injury attorneys who have represented thousands of clients injured by defective medical devices and pharmaceuticals, we know the importance of our court system in holding negligent manufacturers responsible. Our regulatory system alone cannot do the work of protecting consumers. The tort system is an important complement to any federal oversight. We call on Congress to pass, and President Obama to sign, the Medical Device Safety Act and to restore the rights of injured patients.

Vytorin, a combination of two drugs called Zetia and Zocor, was a top-selling drug intended to reduce cholesterol. Millions of Americans were prescribed the drug in an effort to reduce cholesterol by reducing arterial plaque. Significant revenue was generated for Merck and Schering-Plough through these prescriptions.

There was one problem though. Merck’s own clinical trial to study the effectiveness of the drug, called ENHANCE, allegedly showed that Vytorin was ineffective in reducing arterial plaque. Merck did not release the results of the study and, instead, continued to make money selling Vytorin.

Consumers would have little hope of successfully or economically bringing individual suits to recoup money paid for a worthless drug. Class actions, however, allow similarly situated consumers to pool all of their claims together in an effort to secure justice from companies who have cheated them. We are proud to have represented tens of thousands of consumers from throughout the country in consumer protection class action lawsuits. Consumer class actions oftentimes represent the best and only way for consumers to obtain justice.

The injuries can result in a range of diagnoses such as soft tissue injury, whiplash, cervical and lumbar strain or sprain, disc bulges, disc herniations, aggravation of pre-existing non-symptomatic osteoarthritis and injury to the vertebral discs themselves.

Soft tissue inflammation and straining type injuries are usually treated conservatively with a regimen of heat/cold packs, anti-inflammatory and pain medications and physical therapy. More serious injuries such as disc bulges and disc herniations may require steroid injections or surgical intervention. Bulges and herniations cause pain by compressing on the nearby nerves or spinal cord and radiating pain or numbness into the arms or legs. Some experts believe victims can have a discogenic or intervertebral disc injury causing pain coming from injured nerves within the disc itself even in the absence of evidence of nerve root compression.

It is important to seek immediate medical treatment when you have been involved in an auto accident and experience any type of neck or back pain.

Much has been written, discussed and debated recently about tougher regulations on the amount of time 18 wheeler drivers are allowed to drive without appropriate rest and sleep time. This case illustrates yet another hazard unwitting motorists face when trucking companies are allowed to overload their trucks in order to maximize profits.

The case, decided by 5-4 vote, found that a state court judge should have recused himself from a lawsuit against a company who was the most generous support for his election campaign. Despite repeated requests to step aside from the case, Justice Benjamin remained on the judicial panel, depriving the other side of due process and their constitutional right to a fair trial. On two occasions, Justice Benjamin was the deciding vote in West Virginia high court rulings that threw out a $50 million judgment against A.T. Massey, a unit of Massey Energy Co. The case has been sent back to West Virginia for further proceedings.

“Not every campaign contribution by a litigant or attorney creates a probability of bias that requires a judge’s recusal, but this is an exceptional case,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens joined Kennedy’s opinion.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.

Recently, an opinion piece was published in the National Law Journal by Les Weisbrod of the AAJ urging passage of the Sunshine in Litigation Act. He argues that continuing the current system allows corporate cover-ups, allows negligent companies to hide evidence discovered through the court system, and allows those companies to continue to profit from the products remaining on the market to unwary consumers. Examples of dangerous products kept secret from the public by prior confidential settlements include the defective Firestone tires on Ford Explorers and AstraZeneca’s defective drug Seroquel.
Secrecy rarely benefits anyone and in the case of secret settlements, only the guilty are benefiting.