The SCOTUS hears another punitive damage case today. Here is my earlier post on the Williams v. Phillip Morris case out of Oregon. Law.Com summarizes it this way: "The case asks the high court to review the punitive damages award for excessiveness. It also asks the justices to set forth…
The Davidson County jury list includes an unusual entry this week. Each prospective juror is supposed to complete a questionnaire and then a jury list is completed with includes the stated employment of the juror and the juror’s spouse. One juror listed his employment as "Professor." He listed his wife’s employment…
The passing game coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys has sued McDonalds after his family found a 6-inch rat in a salad. Appparently "rat salad" was not on the menu. The rat was not discovered until the salad was taken home. Some of the salad was consumed by the coach’s wife and a live-in…
Notre Dame beat Navy, just like they have done every year since 1963. I guess if you beat a team 43 years in a row you have a reason to be proud . . . of the person who negotiates your football schedule.
Side airbags work. That is the conclusion of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. A recent study reports that "Side airbags that protect people’s heads are reducing driver deaths in cars struck on the near (driver) side by an estimated 37 percent. Airbags that protect only the chest and abdomen…
I drove to Atlanta last night so that I could attend two days of meetings preparing for an upcoming class certification hearing in St. Louis. We are going to work at polishing our team’s arguments for the hearing and testing our visual aids. On Thursday night I will be coming…
The American Trucking Associations has petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to limit the maximum speed of large trucks at the time of manufacture to no more than 68 miles per hour. ATA also petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to prohibit the tampering or adjustment of the…
Philadephia Federal District Judge Stewart Dalzell has rejected Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp.’s claim that the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and FDA regulations preempt state failure-to-warn tort claims. In an opinion issued in the Perry v. Novaritis Pharma Corp., NO. 05-5350 (USDC, ED PA October 17, 2006), Judge Dalzell rejected…
I saw this and it reminded me of a recent conversation I had. I was having dinner with several judges and was complaining about what I felt have been some rather meager fee awards in consumer protection action cases. (Note: I had no pending cases before these judges on any attorneys’ fee issue and I…
My friend Bill Marler is THE man when it comes to food poisoning cases. His firm, based out of Seattle but with a nationwide practice, knows the science of food poisoning inside out. We worked together on an e coli case in East Tennessee that we wrapped up earlier this…