More bad news for Allstate

As if being voted the worst insurance company in America wasn’t enough. That entry is HERE.

A Missouri appellate panel on Tuesday upheld a $16 million bad faith judgment against Allstate Insurance Co. The Missouri Court of Appeals found that, based on the evidence presented in the case, it was reasonable to infer that the insurer had acted in bad faith. The cases stemmed from a 2000 drunken driving accident in which Allstate refused to settle claims on behalf of the victims.

As reported by the Kansas City Star:

Allstate’s failure to recognize the severity of the Johnsons’ injuries and the probability that the claim would far exceed Davis’s policy limits; its failure to investigate the claim and respond to the demand in accordance with insurance industry standards and its own good faith claim handling manual; and its failure to advise Davis of the demand, his likely exposure for an excess judgment, and his right to retain counsel, are all circumstances supporting a reasonable inference that Allstate’s refusal to settle was in bad faith,” Judge Paul Spinden wrote.

You can read more about the case HERE.

There should probably be more of these lawsuits filed.

Abbott Labs settles AIDS drug lawsuit

The maker of a widely used HIV medication will pay between $10 million and $27.5 million to resolve antitrust claims arising from the drug’s pricing. According to the lawsuit, filed by AIDS patients, Abott Laboratories increased the price of the drug Norvir in order to block competition. On Dec. 3, 2003, Abbott increased the price of Norvir’s average daily cost per patient from $1.71 to $8.57, prompting cries of price gouging from the AIDS community. A trial in the case had been scheduled to begin next month.

You can read more HERE.

Eli Lilly Trained Sales Force to Ignore Zyprexa’s Risks

Court documents filed in Alaska’s lawsuit against Eli Lilly & Co. over its marketing of the antipsychotic medication Zyprexa say that the drugmaker encouraged its sales division to downplay the risks of the drug in order to boost profits. Additionally, the documents say that Lilly instructed sales people to encourage doctors to prescribe the drug for uses not indicated on the label. At least 30 other states are currently investigating the company’s marketing practices for Zyprexa. Alaska settled its suit against the company earlier this year for $15 million.

Eli Lilly sold $4.76 Billion worth of Zyprexa alone last year, adding up to almost one-quarter of the company’s total revenues.

In my opinion, they should have to pay a lot more than $15 Million for their wrongful conduct.

You can read more in Bloomberg HERE.

Class Actions begin to add up.

The number of subprime-related class-action lawsuits filed during the first half of 2008 has surpassed those filed in all other areas combined, a recently released report says. Cornerstone Research and Stanford Law’s Securities Class Action Clearinghouse found that the vast majority of financial class actions filed during the first half of the year stemmed from subprime issues. The report also notes that the median loss leading to these class actions was $243 million and that losses haven’t been so high since the flurry of class actions between 2000 and 2002.

For more information, see HERE.

You can read the report HERE.

9/11 Settlements overturned

As reported by the New York Times, a federal judge has overturned four settlements from 9/11 victims because of an unfair distribution to one law firm in Maryland, Azrael, Gann & Franz.

District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein explained in his ruling that the Franz firm’s request for a 25 percent contingency fee of $28.5 million it had recovered “would reflect a very large windfall,” and that its “entire strategy seems to have been to coast on the work of others.”

As noted by the Times:

Judge Hellerstein noted that the firm claimed it had done “outstanding work” to earn the fee, and had produced higher settlements. The firm also argued that because the settlement proceedings were confidential, “no one will know about a higher fee award,” the judge wrote.

Such, obviously, was not the case, as everyone now knows about the settlements.

Worth noting, the Judge made an exception for Motley Rice, another firm that received 20 percent in three of its cases, because it had done more work, and had prepared those cases for trial. No case went to trial.

Lawsuit filed over oil spill

Attorneys filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf New Orleans residents affected by oil spill that caused the closure of an 80-mile-long stretch of the Mississippi River. According to the lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, the spill exposed residents to toxic gases, damaged the environment and threatened drinking water supplies. The lawsuit names the companies that owned and operated the vessels involved in the spill and others as defendants.

You can read more HERE, in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Concern over granite countertops?

The popularity of granite countertops is raising some concerns about hazardous radon and radiation emitted from the stone. While experts agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at insignificant levels, some so-called hot countertops can pose increased cancer risks (radon can cause lung cancer). In fact, some attorneys think that litigation related to radon emitted from countertops may be similar to that seen in mold cases.

One report in the New York Times explains a pediatrician who learned, after purchasing a new home, that the kitchen was emitting 10x the radiation levels as the rest of the house. Granite was, naturally, in the kitchen.

It’s not all granite that is of concern, but instead only a few strands that may produce “hot” slabs for your home. The Times reports these varieties include the more exotic and striated varieties from Brazil and Namibia. The E.P.A. recommends considering removal if radon gas levels for the particular granite/stone exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission).  According to the Times, that’s about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day. In Dr. Sugarman’s kitchen (discussed above), the readings were 100 picocuries per liter.

You can read more HERE in the New York Times.

Constitutional source

Need to access U.S. Constitution-related documents, including speeches, papers, journals and more? Try ConSource, a not for profit organization that has put more than 10,000 documents online for the public. You can visit it HERE.

Up next? Per the site:

The next collections include drafts of the Constitution, North Carolina and Rhode Island’s ratification debates, correspondence of the Constitutional Convention delegates, state constitutions, and predecessors to the Constitution, including the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, and the Articles of Confederation.

Worth noting, Justices of the United States Supreme Court utilized the website in the recent D.C. v. Heller gun rights case.

More on Digitek Lawsuits

Could class action lawsuits arising from Digitek lead attorneys into new legal territory? As reported by Law.com:

In contrast to past pharmaceutical tort litigation, plaintiffs lawyers aren’t alleging that a company’s “failure to warn” about possible risks of a drug caused injuries and deaths. In recent years, those arguments have been challenged in court, where several judges have sided with manufacturers in upholding federal pre-emption, or the concept that U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations override state liability claims. Lawyers anticipate that the new defective-product claims could duck the federal pre-emption argument altogether, increasing the chances of success for more plaintiffs.

As noted by one lawyer who has filed lawsuits on behalf of Digitek, Digitek has “been around for a long time. And it’s a drug that has very good therapeutic reasons for its use. But it’s a drug [for which] this company had very poor quality assurance in place.” It is for this reason Digitek lawsuits are NOT based on failure to warn but instead are based on being a defective product. A defective product case is not subject to preemption arguments.

In my opinion, the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Riegel v. Medtronic, 128 S. Ct. 999 (2008) involving preemption could be the worst decision the high court has set forth in many, many years. Here’s to hoping defective product claims help injured persons achieve the justice they deserve from drug companies.

For more information on Digitek, visit our page on Digitek.

Juror questions BP move to settle

According to news reports, Jurors in the most recent BP case involving the Texas City, Texas refinery explosion have stated that BP should not have settled. As reported by the Houston Chronicle:

“(BP) probably shouldn’t have settled,” said Marlaina Culver, one of the jurors who sat through more than eight weeks of testimonies without getting a chance to decide the case. “(The plaintiffs) probably wouldn’t have gotten much from us.”

A few jurors’ jaws dropped when state District Judge Susan Criss announced Tuesday morning the four remaining plaintiffs had reached a settlement late the night before, marking the third time that a jury seated to decide a blast-related lawsuit was sent home before getting the chance to reach a verdict.

Attorney Brent Coon for the Plaintiffs admitted this bunch of jurors would have been “conservative.” Coon also advised the Plaintiffs’ initial demand was $950 Million. The Texas City explosion has produced more than 4,000 claims.

I am surprised a jury would be some against punishing BP for this punitive, pathetic display by a greedy corporation.

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