A lot of my friends have asked me about the new “loser pays” law and how I expect it to affect litigation in Texas. For years, Texas and most other states followed the so-called, “American Rule” whereby litigants pay their own attorneys’ fees. There were exceptions, such as certain statutory provisions that allowed recovery of attorneys fees in breach of contract, declaratory judgments, and other types of lawsuits. The new law is a departure from our historical approach, and represents a Texas version of the “English Rule,” allowing the prevailing party to recoup attorneys’ fees and … [Read more...]
Emotional Distress without Physical Damages – Supreme Court to Review
With a hat-tip to the blog, “How Appealing,” the ABA Journal is reporting that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has asked the Washington Supreme Court whether its product liability laws will allow a recovery emotional distress damages without evidence of any other injury. The case is based upon “glob of spit” found by a sheriff’s deputy on a Whopper. The deputy reportedly got an “uneasy feeling” about two of the Burger King’s employees, so he opened his burger before taking a bite. When he looked under the bun, Thomson Reuters News & Insight and SeattlePI.com report that he noticed a … [Read more...]
The Risks of Using Generic Drugs
by Sarah Hoffman, SpringerLyle ••• In June of 2011, the United States Supreme Court decided an important issue regarding the warning labels on prescription drugs in Pliva, Inc. et al v. Mensing. Mensing was a prescription drug failure-to-warn-case. It dealt with prescription drug companies’ failure to put accurate warnings on their drug labels, leading to patients taking dangerous drugs that they otherwise would not have taken. In Mensing, the Court held that name-brand manufacturers of prescription drugs have an obligation, both under the federal regulations and under state common … [Read more...]
Cancer Risk linked to Diabetes Treatment
By Frank Lyle “Actos” is the brand name for a drug (pioglitazone) used to treat adult onset, Type-II diabetes. In June of 2011, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) informed the public that this drug may increase the risk of bladder cancer. The FDA required new warnings to be placed on the medication’s label sold under the names Actos, Actoplus Met and Duetact. The drug has already been pulled off the market in France and Germany. It has been estimated that more than 2 million patients filled prescriptions for the drug between January 2010 and October 2010. Our attorneys at SpringerLyle … [Read more...]
No Better Care, Thanks to Tort Reform
Published in The Texas Tribune by guest columnist, Charles M. Silver In 2006, Dr. Howard Marcus wrote that Texas’ 2003 tort reform statute sparked an “amazing turnaround” in which doctors came to Texas in droves, instead of leaving the state as they had before. He was doubly wrong. Texas neither lost doctors before 2003 nor gained them especially quickly in subsequent years. In fact, according to statistics published by the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS), the supply of active, direct patient care (DPC) doctors per capita grew faster from 1996 to 2002 than at any time … [Read more...]
Tragedy Brought on by Tainted Fruit
By Moni Basu, CNN William Beach was one of those people who fixated on certain foods. He would eat the same thing voraciously for a few days, and then, when he tired of the same tastes, he moved onto something else. In August, when summer’s heat seemed unending in Mustang, Okla., Beach took to savoring fried chicken -- and soft, sweet cantaloupe. Beach was elderly -- 87 -- but after eating the fruit, his health declined rather suddenly and before anyone in his family knew what was wrong, he was dead. He is among 15 people who died from Listeria monocytogenes in what the Centers for Disease … [Read more...]
New Rules Require Lawyers to be Nice
by Jeff Springer, SpringerLyle ••• Texas adopted the “Texas Lawyers’ Creed” several years ago in response to the rising incivility among opposing trial lawyers. Now other states are apparently following suit. The Florida Supreme Court issued an order (PDF) on Monday adopting a civility pledge as part of the oath, the Legal Profession Blog reports. The new language reads: “To opposing parties and their counsel, I pledge fairness, integrity, and civility, not only in court, but also in all written and oral communications.” South Carolina adopted a similar pledge in 2003, the supreme court … [Read more...]
Hip Implant Complaints Increase, While Dangers Are Reviewed
By BARRY MEIER and JANET ROBERTS of the New York Times Published: August 22, 2011 The federal government has received a surge in complaints in recent months about failed hip replacements, suggesting that serious problems persist with some types of artificial hips even as researchers scramble to evaluate the health dangers. An analysis of federal data by The New York Times indicates that the Food and Drug Administration has received more than 5,000 reports since January about several widely used devices known as metal-on-metal hips, more than the agency had received about those devices in the … [Read more...]
Honda Worldwide Recall of Sedans, Minivans, SUVs
By Deepa Seetharaman and Bernie Woodall of Reuters. Honda Motor Co Ltd plans to recall nearly 2 1/2 million vehicles: small SUVs, cars and minivans worldwide. This includes the popular Accord sedan. Problems relate to software issues that could damage the automatic transmission. The recall includes 1.5 million vehicles in the United States, about 760,000 in China and 135,142 in Canada, the automaker said on Friday. This week, Consumer Reports said it was not recommending the 2012 Honda Civic. This led some industry analysts to ask if that was a symptom of larger problems at the … [Read more...]
John Grisham Wins First Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction
The American Bar Association announced today that John Grisham’s The Confession, which chronicles the gut-wrenching politics of a Texas death penalty appeal, won the inaugural Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The prize, created by the University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal, honors Lee for the extraordinary and enduring influence her novel has had in the public perception of the legal profession. It will be awarded annually to the published, book-length work of fiction that best exemplifies the role of lawyers in society. Grisham’s novel was selected by a panel that … [Read more...]
