By Elise Craig on June 2, 2010
Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC has settled thousands more lawsuits with patients who claim the diabetes drug Avandia causes heart attacks, Reuters reports. The cases—around 5,000 of them–were consolidated in Philadelphia, where the first had been scheduled to go to trial this month. The company would not give out information on the terms of the deal.
Last month, GSK settled approximately ... Read more »
Posted in Legal Liability, News & Notes, Pharmaceutical Industry, Product Hazards and Recalls
By Matthew Richmond on May 21, 2010
Juries in Florida this week handed down two more verdicts in the thousands of lawsuits pending against tobacco companies.
In Broward County, a widow whose husband died in 2008 from chronic pulmonary disease was awarded $29.1 million, the Sun-Sentinel reports. A spokesman from R.J. Reynolds, the defendant and the country’s second-largest tobacco company, said the company plans ... Read more »
Posted in Food and Drug Safety, Legal Liability, News & Notes, Tobacco Industry
By Bridget Huber on May 10, 2010
In light of 13 consecutive verdicts against the tobacco industry in Florida since 2009, St. Petersburg Times columnist Robert Trigaux speculates on whether cigarette companies might be ready to start settling the 9,000 cases awaiting trial in the state.
Florida has more tobacco cases than any other state, and Edward Sweda Jr., senior attorney for the ... Read more »
Posted in Legal Liability, News & Notes, Tobacco Industry
By Matthew Richmond on April 22, 2010
The tobacco industry suffered another in a mounting series of courtroom defeats in Florida, where a jury awarded $46.3 million to the widow of a smoker who died of lung cancer.
The verdict in Gainesville against R.J. Reynolds, the second biggest U.S. cigarette maker, was the 13th loss for the industry in Florida in 15 trials since a pivotal ... Read more »
Posted in Legal Liability, News & Notes, Tobacco Industry
By Jill Replogle on March 24, 2010
A state court jury in Florida ordered R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris to pay $26.6 million to the widow of a long-time smoker, according to the Daily Business Review. The verdict is the latest in a series of court losses for tobacco companies in that state. Nathan Cohen, the plaintiff’s husband, died of lung cancer at age 68, in ... Read more »
Posted in Legal Liability, News & Notes, Tobacco Industry
By Matthew Richmond on March 15, 2010
Tobacco company R.J. Reynolds was ordered to pay $17.5 million in damages to a Gainesville, Fla., woman whose husband died of lung cancer in 1995 after 38 years of smoking, The Gainesville Sun reports.
A lawyer for RJR argued the deceased was responsible for choosing to smoke for 38 years and that cigarettes ... Read more »
Posted in Legal Liability, News & Notes, Tobacco Industry
