Personal Injury Roundup No. 44 (7/31/09)

After a longer-than-planned-for absence (the reason noted below), I'm back at the TortsProf blogging.  As I announced before, I'll be a bit more irregular than usual, with my new duties as Associate Dean for External Affairs at WNEC, but I will still be around.  And while many of our former students just finished taking the bar exam, there's torts news to consider:

Reform, Legislation, Policy

• S. Todd Brown (Buffalo) explores the intersection of bankruptcy and mass tort in a series at Point of Law (Introductory post
• Abraham on private regulation of medicines (Huffington Post)
• A national board on medical safety?  (NY Times)
• Dorf on Sen. Specter's proposed response to Iqbal (Dorf on Law, Findlaw)
• Alienation of affection: North Carolina's Number One! (Volokh)
• Sue drug dealers in Tennessee (P.S. Good luck collecting) (Day on Torts)
• Immunity for swine flu vaccine manufacturers (MSNBC)
• Possible legislative responses to direct-to-consumer advertising (NYT)
• Obama is skeptical of malpractice damages, etc., as major factor in health costs (Washington Post)
• Tax breaks for trial lawyers (TaxProf and links)

New Lawsuits

• Defamation in under 140 characters (True/Slant)

Trials, Settlements and Other Ends

•  A detailed look, from a defense perspective, at a Daubert loss in Prozac litigation (Drug & Device Law Blog)
• The first Neurontin trial started Monday (WSJ Law Blog)...and ended Wednesday with an anonymous donor funding a trust (WSJ Law Blog) (I note, with interest, that David Egilman, central as an expert in the Zyprexa litigation document leak, is now serving as the family's spokesman); Ron Miller speculates on the identity of the trust funder (Maryland Injury Attorney Blog), as do Beck & Herrmann (Drug & Device Law Blog).  I'd put money on someone with a better Neurontin case coming down the road.
• Speaking of Zyprexa (which we kind of were), West Virginia has apparently settled its off-label marketing case with Lilly (Legal News Line)
• No false imprisonment in hospital deportation case (TortsProf)
• Railroad not responsible for goose-caused injuries (Overlawyered and links therein)
• First 9/11 tort suit to go to trial next spring (Newsday)

Damages

• $3.4M in mesothelioma case (About Lawsuits)
• For a lot of interesting NY verdict cases, check out New York Injury Cases Blog.

Appeals

• Liptak on Iqbal (Sidebar)
• Informed consent in Maryland (Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog)
• ...and Wisconsin (Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog)
• $75M med mal verdict reversed (TortsProf & links)

Miscellaneous    

• Author of "Doubt Is Their Product," sometime plaintiffs' expert, and SKAPP head David Michaels to head OSHA (White House)
• Plaintiffs trying to get Chrysler's attention (ClickOnDetroit.com)
• Wyeth ordered to release documents connected to alleged ghostwriting (AP)
•  I was absent from posting (and most things) for June and most of July due to my father, W. Ves Childs, getting suddenly ill and dying, on June 21, from pancreatic cancer.  He is probably the person most responsible for me teaching, and for my interest in the intersection of law and science.  You can read the official obituary (which I wrote) at my kids' music site, Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child; there is also one from his graduate chemistry department: Mole Street Journal.  Below is the slideshow we put together for his memorial service.

--BC