Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

December 26, 2009

Pfizer Jury Said to Set Prempro Punitive Damages at $8 M

Jurors said in 2007 that a Pfizer Inc. unit should pay more than $8 million in punitive damages to a woman who blamed the company’s menopause drugs for her breast cancer.

A Philadelphia jury in January 2007 awarded Mary Daniel compensatory damages of $1.5 million in her lawsuit against Pfizer’s Wyeth subsidiary over its Prempro menopause treatment. The panel recommended she get more than $8 million in punitive damages if an appeals court found she was entitled to such an award because of bad conduct by the company.

Read the full Bloomberg report here.

December 25, 2009

Employee Alleges Harassment, Phony Reviews, in $50 Million Suit Against Firm

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A former associate plans to file a $50 million lawsuit against Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, accusing the firm of denying her a promotion to partner because she is a lesbian and of doing nothing to stop higher-ups from harassing her, according to the complaint.

The former associate, Julie Kamps, plans to file the lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan. Kamps, who previously filed a less detailed complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claims that a female partner at Fried Frank sexually harassed her. She also alleges that the firm instructs lawyers to write exaggerated negative performance reviews about associates the firm wants out.

December 24, 2009

Texas Fails in Efforts to Improve Car Accidents at Work Zones

by Dr. Shezad Malik

By the time Bryan Lee headed to work along Highway 51 in Texas on Sept. 15, 2005, the road-building industry and its government overseers were painfully aware of a deadly, though easily corrected, construction hazard: pavement-edge drop-offs.

Accidents involving dangerous drop-offs kill about 160 people and injure 11,000 each year. Numerous studies have shown that the steeper the drop-off, the greater the danger.

In Texas in 2002, seven people were killed when a car slipped off a sharp edge of roadway and onto the shoulder, causing the driver to overcorrect into the path of a minivan. Four years before, six people died in a succession of accidents in another Texas work zone, where contractors had failed to smooth out the edge of a newly paved lane.

Read full New York Times story here.

December 23, 2009

Columbia MO University Hospital Settles Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

by Dr. Shezad Malik

University Hospital doctors have settled a medical malpractice lawsuit filed by a Lake of the Ozarks couple for $2.5 million.

Susan Martin, now 49, was treated at University Hospital in early 2005 for dehydration, which was the result of a gastrointestinal-related condition, her attorney, Morry Cole, said.

The lawsuit claims doctors infused her with nutritional supplements through an IV in her subclavian artery, just below the collarbone, instead of the subclavian vein, where it was supposed to go. According to the lawsuit, that erroneous placement caused fatty blockages to travel to her brain for five consecutive days, “causing severe and debilitating strokes and neurological and cognitive devastation.”

December 22, 2009

Jury Finds That Doctors’ Errors Led to Boy’s Wrongful Death

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A Suffolk County jury found that two doctors at Children’s Hospital Boston – one of them the hospital’s former physician in chief – had caused the death of a 3-year-old Pennsylvania boy and voted to award his parents $15 million in damages.

The actual damage award will be less because of an agreement reached by the parties before the verdict.

December 21, 2009

Medical Malpractice Law Suit says Surgeons Left Gauze Behind

by Dr. Shezad Malik

A piece of gauze left behind in a patient after surgery required a follow-up procedure to remove it — and led to a lawsuit against Staten Island University Hospital and two doctors.

Adding insult to injury, Rossville resident Margaret Palombo contends she only learned through medical records obtained earlier this year — more than eight years after the initial operation was performed — that the material had been left in her abdomen.

December 21, 2009

Jury orders BP to pay $100 M for Exposing Workers to Toxic Substances

by Dr. Shezad Malik

BP must pay more than $100 million in damages for exposing contract workers to toxic substances at its Texas City oil refinery in April 2007, a federal jury in Galveston said in the latest setback for the troubled plant.

The mammoth verdict arose out of a case brought by a BP contractor who claimed the British oil giant’s failure to maintain equipment and provide adequate safety controls led to a poisonous chemical release that sent more than 100 workers to area hospitals on the evening of April 19, 2007.

The company said it was “shocked and outraged” by the jury’s decision and vowed to appeal.

December 20, 2009

Miami Beach Wrongful Death Drowning Victim Gets $5M

by Dr. Shezad Malik

The family of a New York jazz musician who drowned trying to save a rabbi’s wife in treacherous riptides off Miami Beach has won $5 million in damages in a decade-old case that had raised serious liability issues for seaside communities that don’t provide lifeguards at public beaches.

U.S. District Judge Gold ordered Delaware-based Monticello Insurance Co. to pay damages to the wife of Zachary Breaux. The insurance carrier had refused to pay, even though the family’s lawyer and the city of Miami Beach had negotiated a settlement.

Gold also ordered the insurance company to pay $750,000 in damages to the husband of a New York school secretary, Eugenie Poleyeff, whom Breaux tried to save during a midwinter vacation in 1997. The city also negotiated that settlement, but the insurer had refused to pay.

December 19, 2009

Atherton Settles Sexual Harassment, Discrimination Lawsuit

by Dr. Shezad Malik

Atherton has agreed to payt $230,000 to settle a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit a former police officer filed against the town and one of its employees.

In the April documents filed in San Mateo County Superior Court, former Atherton police Officer Pilar Ortiz-Buckley accused Public Works Supervisor Troy Henderson of making salacious remarks and grabbing her in the police break room.

City Attorney Wynne Furth said that the town decided to settle early in the process to avoid costly legal fees. The three involved parties signed a settlement agreement in mid-November.

Ortiz-Buckley, 48, suffered back injuries during the alleged June 2008 attack, which prevented her from wearing her police duty belt and made it impossible for her to do her job, according to the lawsuit.

December 18, 2009

Prempro Litigation and Menopause

by Dr. Shezad Malik

American women in the 1990s were told they could help their bodies ward off major illness by taking menopausal hormone drugs. Some medical associations said so. Many gynecologists and physicians said so. Respected medical journals said so, too.

Along the way, television commercials positioned hormone drugs as treatments for more than hot flashes and night sweats — just two of the better-known symptoms of menopause, which is technically defined as commencing one year after a woman’s last menstrual cycle.

One commercial about estrogen loss by the drug maker Wyeth discussed research into connections between menopause and heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and blindness.