Hot Topics » Darfur • Myanmar • Environment • Nelson Mandela • America votes • Olympics • more topics »
Drugmaker Merck & Co. will start cutting checks for former users of its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx next month
A federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina
The Supreme Court dealt a blow Tuesday to investors seeking to recover damages from alleged corporate fraud, a potentially huge liability case being closely watched by owners of stock, the business community and government regulators.
On Sunday, Roger Clemens spoke to 60 Minutes in his first interview since the release of the Mitchell Report. SI.com's Michael McCann tackles the legal questions surrounding the allegations and denials by Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee. He also analyses the defamation lawsuit Clemens filed against McNamee on Monday.
Merck & Co. announced Friday that it will pay $4.85 billion to settle as claims by as many as 47,000 groups of plaintiffs over injuries linked to its blockbuster Vioxx painkiller.
This week the Supreme Court took up a case that could have far-reaching effects on workplace discrimination lawsuits nationwide.
The wife of the president of Oral Roberts University is denying allegations of improper behavior, saying the claims "sicken" her.
After seven years pursuing kickback charges against Milberg Weiss, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles last month executed a hat trick. On Sept. 18 they announced that 61-year-old Bill Lerach - the former Milberg partner known to CEOs as the "King of Pain" for his class-action suits - had agreed to plead guilty to a felony and serve one to two years in federal prison.
Last February a federal appeals court panel in San Francisco decided, 2-1, to allow the largest class action employment discrimination case ever convened to go forward against Wal-Mart Stores. The class includes the more than two million women who have worked at any of the company's more than 4,000 retail stores nationwide since Dec. 26, 1998.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of 900 Starbucks Corp. store managers who say they are glorified baristas and should be eligible for overtime came one step closer to trial Friday.
Drugmaker Merck & Co. will start cutting checks for former users of its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx next month
A federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina
The Supreme Court dealt a blow Tuesday to investors seeking to recover damages from alleged corporate fraud, a potentially huge liability case being closely watched by owners of stock, the business community and government regulators.
On Sunday, Roger Clemens spoke to 60 Minutes in his first interview since the release of the Mitchell Report. SI.com's Michael McCann tackles the legal questions surrounding the allegations and denials by Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee. He also analyses the defamation lawsuit Clemens filed against McNamee on Monday.
Merck & Co. announced Friday that it will pay $4.85 billion to settle as claims by as many as 47,000 groups of plaintiffs over injuries linked to its blockbuster Vioxx painkiller.
This week the Supreme Court took up a case that could have far-reaching effects on workplace discrimination lawsuits nationwide.
The wife of the president of Oral Roberts University is denying allegations of improper behavior, saying the claims "sicken" her.
After seven years pursuing kickback charges against Milberg Weiss, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles last month executed a hat trick. On Sept. 18 they announced that 61-year-old Bill Lerach - the former Milberg partner known to CEOs as the "King of Pain" for his class-action suits - had agreed to plead guilty to a felony and serve one to two years in federal prison.
Last February a federal appeals court panel in San Francisco decided, 2-1, to allow the largest class action employment discrimination case ever convened to go forward against Wal-Mart Stores. The class includes the more than two million women who have worked at any of the company's more than 4,000 retail stores nationwide since Dec. 26, 1998.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of 900 Starbucks Corp. store managers who say they are glorified baristas and should be eligible for overtime came one step closer to trial Friday.
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has indicted prominent class-action lawyer and Milberg Weiss co-founder Melvyn Weiss for conspiring to make illegal payments to plaintiffs in more than 250 lawsuits that generated $250 million in attorneys' fees for the firm, the government said Thursday.
Pioneering class-action attorney William S. Lerach has agreed to plead guilty to a federal conspiracy charge involving a kickback scheme, prosecutors said Tuesday.
In a major legal victory for Merck & Co. in its massive Vioxx litigation, New Jersey's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a potential class-action lawsuit that could have cost the drugmaker up to $18 billion.
It was the deadliest petrochemical industry accident in more than a decade, killing 15 people and injuring more than 170 others. The force of the blast shattered windows and walls miles away.
A family that claimed they were defamed in the best-selling book "Running with Scissors" has settled a lawsuit against the writer and his publisher.
Yahoo Inc. has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit over the company's alleged role in the imprisonment of two Chinese dissidents, arguing U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over Chinese government actions against its own citizens.
U.K. bank Lloyds and brokerage Man Financial have agreed to pay $16.6 million to settle a U.S lawsuit brought by investors who poured millions into a futures trading firm later found to be fraudulent.
A class-action lawsuit was filed Monday against Mattel related to its recent recall of more than 1 million lead-tainted toys.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said Friday it will pay $225 million to settle a class-action case brought by investors in Tyco International Ltd. following the accounting scandal at the diversified manufacturer.
Not since exploding Ford Pintos in the 1970s has there been as incendiary a catalyst for recalls as China's recent spate of consumer product scares. Since March a cluster of incidents involving potentially deadly, defective, or contaminated products imported from China - pet food, toys, tires, toothpaste, cough syrup, shrimp - has awakened both that country and the United States to a latent crisis.
A judge in the District of Columbia has dismissed a case against a dry cleaner who was sued for $54 million in damages over a pair of missing pants.
A judge in the District of Columbia has dismissed a case against a dry cleaner that claimed $54 million in damages for a pair of missing pants.
Health officials suspect 38 pet deaths in Oregon are related to the nationwide pet food recall, the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association said Wednesday.
» When Jacqueline Epcar of Valley Glen, Calif. turned 19 last year, she no longer qualified for coverage on her parents' health plan. So her mother, Ellyn, signed her up for a new individual policy...
When Jacqueline Epcar of Valley Glen, Calif. turned 19 last year, she no longer qualified for coverage on her parents' health plan. So her mother, Ellyn, signed her up for a new individual policy with Blue Shield of California.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it plans to seek a reversal of Tuesday's decision by a federal appeals court to approve class-action status for women who claim the retailer was biased in pay and promotion.
Class-action lawsuits filed over securities fraud reached an all-time low in 2006, according to a Stanford Law School report.
Most days when you find employment attorney Richard Glovsky in Boston Municipal Court, he's there representing a corporation or a big-time executive and billing $425 an hour. But this afternoon he ...
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a motion for class-action status for personal injury and wrongful death cases involving Merck's withdrawn Vioxx painkiller.
Juries can punish a tobacco company by awarding damages to a smoker's widow but not to other smokers, a lawyer for Philip Morris USA argued Tuesday before the Supreme Court.
This morning Merck announced the number of Vioxx-related lawsuits that had been filed against it as of September 30, 2006. That date is crucial, because it represents the second-year anniversary of the company's withdrawal of Vioxx from the market, and the vast majority of states have either one- or two-year statutes of limitations for personal injury suits. According to Vioxx plaintiffs lawyer Mark Lanier, only seven states remain with statutes of limitations that have not yet expired. So we're getting close to the grand totals.
A federal judge has granted class action status to a federal lawsuit claiming nine tobacco companies deceived U.S. smokers by leading them to believe "light" cigarettes were safer than regular cigarettes, according to a court administrator.
In four lawsuits filed this week, plaintiffs claim they became ill after consuming spinach distributed by Natural Selection Foods, Natural Selection Foods Manufacturing and Dole Food, which announced a massive recall of the greens last week.
Wyeth faces another lawsuit Wednesday - with thousands more to go -blaming its drug Prempro for causing breast cancer.
A federal judge threw out the $50 million in damages awarded a Vioxx plaintiff in a recent lawsuit against the drugmaker Merck.
Merck was found negligent in the latest Vioxx case, as a jury in New Orleans federal court found that the drugmaker misrepresented the risks of the arthritis painkiller and awarded the plaintiff more than $50 million in damages.
Merck holds the lead in the ongoing legal war against Vioxx plaintiffs, with five wins and three losses, and experts say it's cheaper for the company to keep paying defense lawyers than to buy off plaintiffs in a mass settlement.
Merck was found not liable in the seventh lawsuit over Vioxx, the arthritis painkiller that it pulled from the market because of heart attack risk, the company announced Thursday.
The latest lawsuit against Merck over its market-pulled painkiller Vioxx debuts this week in a California courtroom, while the drug giant continues to defend itself in a separate trial in New Jersey.
When class-action law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman was indicted last month, along with name partners David Bershad and Steven Schulman, the Wall Street Journal editorial board and many oth...
Lipitor, the world's top-selling drug from the world's leading pharmaceutical company, has been targeted by two lawsuits blaming it for memory loss and damage to the nervous system.
Merck, already in a long fight against thousands of Vioxx lawsuits, will soon face a two-front war, as plaintiffs begin to file suit over a different drug: Fosamax.
Getting sued seems to be the price of doing business for Big Pharma, and Wyeth has once again joined the ranks of the defendants.
Merck's defense of Vioxx is beginning to look ugly - and costing the company millions in legal fees and punitive damages. But make no mistake, the company's fight-every-case strategy is still its only rational option.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. , one of many investment banks sued for rigging initial public offerings during the bull market of the 1990's, agreed in principle to pay $425 million to settle its portion of the case.
A New Jersey jury found Merck liable Tuesday of misrepresenting Vioxx to federal regulators, and ordered the drugmaker to pay $9 million in punitive damages to a man who suffered a heart attack after taking the painkiller.
A federal judge presiding over thousands of Vioxx lawsuits against Merck on Wednesday dismissed the first case filed by a long-term patient of the painkiller.
Merck & Co. was held liable Wednesday by a New Jersey jury in the heart attack of a 77-year-old man who took the painkiller Vioxx, but not in the one suffered by a 60-year-old plaintiff.
A New Jersey appeals court Friday upheld a class-action lawsuit against Merck from some plaintiffs alleging they were misled regarding the risks of the painkiller Vioxx.
Merck & Co. wrapped up its defense in the latest Vioxx product liability trial on Thursday with testimony from a psychiatrist who said one of the plaintiffs who blames the painkiller for his heart attack never mentioned taking it when discussing his medical history.
The Supreme Court made it harder Tuesday for investors to file class-action lawsuits claiming that companies misled them.
Mark Lanier, the only lawyer so far to defeat Merck in a Vioxx-related lawsuit, will face off with the drug maker again, but this time Merck has the home field in New Jersey and Lanier will be representing a heart attack survivor, not a widow.
Merck's got three victories and only one loss under its belt in the ongoing Vioxx litigation battle, but the upcoming cases could get a lot tougher.
The next big battle over Vioxx takes place in New Orleans, a city mired in its own conflicts with nature, the government and itself.
Two lawsuits were filed Tuesday against the National Security Agency over its no-warrant wiretapping program, claiming the domestic eavesdropping is unconstitutional and that President Bush exceeded his authority by authorizing it.
The Illinois Supreme Court handed Altria's Philip Morris USA unit a major victory Thursday in a statewide class-action case over "Marlboro Lights" and "Cambridge Lights" cigarettes.
With Vioxx-related lawsuits increasing, Merck said at an analyst meeting Thursday that it has added up to $1 billion worth of projected cuts to its multibillion dollar plan to slash costs through 2010.
A federal judge declared a mistrial Monday in the latest lawsuit against Merck concerning its painkiller Vioxx, attorneys for both the plaintiff and drugmaker said.
WHAT WOULD OSAMA BIN LADEN GIVE to be able to knock out every BlackBerry in America and achieve an instant, sweeping disruption of commerce? The good news is he can't do it. The weird and disconcer...
A report from a prestigious medical journal that Merck withheld information about the dangers of Vioxx could lead to new trials both in a federal case currently before the jury and in a state case won by the drug company.
Jury selection began in Houston on Tuesday in the latest high-stakes legal battle for Merck ... and its first in a federal courtroom.
What would Osama bin Laden give to be able to knock out every BlackBerry in America and achieve an instant, sweeping disruption of commerce? The good news is he can't do it. The weird and disconcerting news is that a company called NTP can and, unless it's paid off, probably will sometime before Christmas.
Merck is returning to Texas next week, where it lost its first Vioxx lawsuit in a state court, to fight its third case - now in a federal court - a legal battleground that could be more receptive to the company, say legal experts.
DALLAS (CNN/Money) - Merck's Vioxx, Pfizer's Celebrex and similar painkillers increase the risk of death among patients who have already survived a previous heart attack, especially when taken in high doses, according to data released Sunday at the American Heart Association conference here.
A New Jersey state judge who is overseeing about 3,500 personal-injury lawsuits filed by users of Vioxx says she wants to hear only upcoming cases involving plaintiffs who took the drug for 18 months or longer, according to Ted Mayer, an outside attorney for Vioxx maker Merck & Co.
Mark Lanier, the Houston lawyer who won the first Vioxx lawsuit against Merck in August, said he will make a request in New Jersey Superior Court on Monday to represent the first of some 20,000 plaintiffs.
Merck & Co. was found not liable by a New Jersey jury Thursday in the second Vioxx trial -- a key victory for the troubled drugmaker as it faces thousands of other lawsuits over the painkiller.
Merck maintains its defense for Vioxx, the beleaguered painkiller that was pulled off the market in 2004 and has been blamed for heart attacks in a growing tally of lawsuits, a top company lawyer said Monday.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would block lawsuits by people who blame fast-food chains for their obesity.
Richard Scruggs, the attorney who helped win a $250 billion settlement from the tobacco industry a few years ago, is now taking on insurance companies over Hurricane Katrina flood coverage.
Hurricane Katrina victims have already begun feuding with insurance companies over compensation for the damages to their homes. The federal government is under attack for its response in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
There will be no global settlement for Vioxx lawsuits against Merck, which now total about 5,000, said Merck's senior vice president and general counsel Kenneth Frazier on Friday.
After falling flat on its face in the first Vioxx trial in Texas, Merck is likely to face a less hostile group of potential jurors when the drugmaker heads to court next week in its home state of New Jersey.
Merck has been held liable by a Texas jury in the first lawsuit involving its former blockbuster drug Vioxx, in a case that could have a profound effect on thousands of other cases filed against the company.
An alternate juror in the nation's first Vioxx wrongful death case said he would have found in favor of the plaintiff and against drugmaker Merck & Co., according to a published report Friday.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Illinois' Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a $1.06 billion judgment against State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. in a case that accused the company of using unsafe parts to repair damaged vehicles.
The first Vioxx trial is expected to close next week in Texas, but this is just the beginning of Merck's legal battle against more than 4,000 lawsuits from plaintiffs blaming Vioxx for health problems and untimely deaths.
When a married supervisor conducts longstanding, concurrent affairs with three female subordinates at work and grants them professional favors over more deserving candidates, does it constitute unlawful sexual harassment?
Merck's legal defense team appealed the decision of a Texas judge who is allowing a former medical examiner to testify before the jury in the first of thousands of Vioxx lawsuits.
The tally of Vioxx-related lawsuits against drug giant Merck increased dramatically over the last three months, the company said Thursday.
The first Vioxx lawsuit against Merck & Co. begins Monday in a Texas state courtroom and the implications could be huge for the embattled drugmaker.
A Texas judge rejected Merck's request to postpone its July 11 court date for the first in a series of lawsuits involving Vioxx, an arthritis painkiller the company withdrew last year because of health risks, according to a court spokesperson.
Merck shareholders have already felt the pain of plunging stocks from the Vioxx scandal. As the drug giant faces litigation that could lead to billions of dollars in potential damages, investors should also brace themselves for the possibility of a plunging dividend.
J.P. Morgan's agreement to pay $2.2 billion to settle a lawsuit by Enron investors brings the money coming to the fallen energy company's shareholders and their lawyers to nearly $4.7 billion.
Citigroup's deal to pay $2 billion to Enron Corp. investors may not be a record, but it is the latest signal that something unusual is going on in the world of securities lawsuits.
Citigroup said Friday it agreed to pay $2 billion to settle a class-action suit related to its work for bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp.
Buyers of early generation iPods may receive $50 in store credit or $25 cash compensation as part of a proposed class action settlement against Apple Computer, according to one of the law firms representing plaintiffs in the case.
No. 1
Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg gave his wife the vast majority of his $2.3 billion in shares of American International Group Inc. (AIG) in an effort to shield the fortune from future lawsuits, a person close to his legal team told The Wall Street Journal.
THE RECENT KEVIN BACON MOVIE The Woodsman strives to present an empathic portrayal of a child molester. In this article we venture a step beyond: an empathic portrayal of a cigarette maker.
It's the American way. Trip and fall, find a fast-talking lawyer and a gullible jury, and you too can sue somebody and get rich. Kind of like that grandma who spilled scalding-hot coffee on herself...
THE DELUGE BEGAN LAST MAY. THAT'S WHEN Boeing agreed to cough up as much as $72.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by female employees; they had asserted that the company paid them ...
The members of the 109th Congress will have to deal with several complex issues if the Bush administration has its way. The president has been steadily advancing his political agenda since his re-election, pushing some major and controversial reform proposals to the top of the congressional docket.
The better stocks perform, the fewer disgruntled investors there are suing companies over falling stock prices, right?
The New York State pension fund sued Merck & Co. Tuesday, claiming to have suffered huge financial losses from the scandal surrounding the drugmaker's Vioxx painkiller.
ALTRIA associate general counsel William Ohlemeyer sounded confident at a late-October press conference. He was belting out the many "compelling" reasons to anticipate that the Florida supreme cour...
Two lifelong Yankees fans are crying foul over being ejected from Yankee Stadium for taking a picture of catcher Jorge Posada's wife -- and they want $6 million for their distress.
SURVEYING THE WRECKAGE OF THE worst pharmaceutical tort litigations of the past, investors naturally want to know: Will Vioxx be the next Baycol, or Rezulin, or fen-phen? Our prediction is: yes, bu...
Lawyers for Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly are due in court next Friday where the existence of recordings of phone conversations between the anchor and an associate producer working on his show could be a key topic.
Corporate America has seen the enemy, and the enemy is ... a guy named Brad Seligman who runs a nonprofit?
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
Video
