One of Philadelphia’s bellwether cases in litigation over whether the maker of the drug Paxil failed to warn about an increased risk of suicide from its drug has been dismissed following a Common Pleas Court judge’s decision to grant summary judgment on statute of limitations grounds. Collins v. SmithKline Beecham…
Two units of Johnson & Johnson must pay $16.6 million to the family of a Chicago-area woman who died after using a Duragesic pain-patch, a state jury found, dealing the company its fourth defeat in as many trials since 2006. The woman aged 38, died in February 2004 because the…
Thirty-four veteran San Francisco police officers alleged in their lawsuit that the SFPD was passing them over for promotion to inspector because of their ages. The officers, who have been on a waiting list since they passed an inspector’s exam in 1998, were stymied by “unchecked age bias that pervades…
The Yamaha Rhino, was a hit in the off-road-vehicle market, promising to go “almost anywhere” with an “amazingly high level of comfort and ease.” Now, federal safety regulators are investigating the vehicle following reports of some 30 deaths involving it, including those of two young girls last month. Yamaha faces…
A 59-year-old man lumbers through a junkyard he helps manage; he bumps into a desk and the man is almost blind in his right eye and has trouble with depth perception and peripheral vision. This unfortunate man blames a doctor for a botched retina reattachment operation in August 2007. But…
Four pharmacists at the University of Texas Medical Branch filed suit claiming that the medical institution is discriminating against them because of their nationalities. The pharmacists claim that their superiors used their Nigerian origins as a reason to overlook them for raises, compensation and promotion, despite each individual’s education and…
A Florida jury decided that Johnson & Johnson must pay more than $13 million to the family of a woman who died from an overdose of painkillers delivered by a patch made by the companies. Janssen Pharmaceutica Products and Alza, the subsidiaries, were responsible for the woman’s death. The Johnson…
A group of Maryland residents whose drinking water was contaminated with coal ash reached a multimillion-dollar settlement of its class action lawsuit against Constellation Energy Group. The deal, estimated at $45 million, gives about 600 residents living near a sand and gravel mine financial compensation and environmental remediation. For 12…
Boston Public Health Commission is proposing some of the nation’s strictest smoking regulations; banning the sale of cigarettes at drugstores and on college campuses, and shutting down the city’s 10 cigar and hookah bars by 2013. The commission said, the goal is to discourage young people from buying tobacco products,…
The Catholic Diocese and the Marianist religious order have agreed to pay $4 million to settle the claims of 23 men who said they were sexually abused when they attended a Catholic high school in Pueblo. The agreement involved alleged abuse at Roncalli High School between 1966 and 1971. Lawsuits…