More Healthcare Coverage
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August 07, 2024
Philly Hospital Hit With $45M Verdict For Teen Gunshot Patient
A Philadelphia County jury awarded nearly $45 million to a mother and her 19-year-old son in a lawsuit accusing Temple University Hospital of conducting inadequate swallowing tests after he was shot in the neck, leading him to choke when he went home, according to a docket entry made Wednesday.
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August 07, 2024
AstraZeneca Beats Ex-Sales Manager's Age Bias Suit
AstraZeneca defeated a former sales manager's lawsuit alleging she was fired because she was in her 60s, with a Tennessee federal judge ruling Wednesday she couldn't overcome the pharmaceutical company's explanation that she'd violated corporate policy barring personal use of drug samples.
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August 07, 2024
Hong Kong Co. Scores Default Win In $10M Face Mask Suit
A New Jersey federal judge granted a Hong Kong firm a default win in its suit alleging a U.S. health company misappropriated a $10 million investment by overselling its ability to manufacture and sell face masks in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic, ruling that the company has plausibly alleged its claims.
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August 07, 2024
2 FDA Pros Join McGuireWoods From Reed Smith, DOJ
McGuireWoods LLP said Wednesday it has added two U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory lawyers to its Washington, D.C., office — one who joins from Reed Smith LLP and another who joins from the U.S. Department of Justice.
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August 06, 2024
UnitedHealth Unlawfully Denies Device Coverage, Suit Says
A medical equipment maker accused UnitedHealth Group Inc. of creating a "soft denial system" to unlawfully deny payments for glucose monitoring devices, telling a Michigan federal court that thousands of claims worth more than $1 million have gone unpaid.
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August 05, 2024
Nursing Home Flubs Make Reports Fair Game, NJ Justices Say
Two Garden State healthcare facilities failed to follow state regulations in after-incident reviews, making the normally privileged reports accessible to plaintiffs, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Monday.
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August 02, 2024
Ex-Exec Can't Escape Drug Co.'s Trade Secret Suit
The North Carolina Business Court refused to give a win before trial to the former president of a United Therapeutics Corp. subsidiary on a claim that he took trade secrets to a rival, with the court reasoning the drug company took reasonable steps to protect the secrets beyond a three-year limit in his employment agreement.
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August 02, 2024
Hospital Says 'Maya' Case Shouldn't Have Gone To Jury
Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital Inc. asked a Florida appeals court on Friday to undo a $208 million judgment for the family of Maya Kowalski, the girl at the heart of the Netflix documentary "Take Care of Maya," arguing that their claims that the hospital's treatment of Maya caused her mother's suicide should never have gone to a jury.
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August 02, 2024
6th Circ. Upholds Federal Hospital's Win In Infant Death Suit
The Sixth Circuit has affirmed a judgment in favor of a U.S. government-funded hospital in a suit by a woman alleging malpractice caused the death of her son shortly after birth, finding the evidence supported a Kentucky federal judge's conclusion that doctors did not neglect the woman or the infant during delivery.
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August 02, 2024
Judge Rejects Intervenors In Religious Workers' Vax Deal Bid
Women who opted out of or objected to a recently vacated $10.5 million deal between Ascension Health Alliance and workers who allege the company retaliated or fired them for seeking COVID-19 vaccine exemptions cannot now intervene in the renewed bid for settlement approval, a Michigan federal judge has ruled, finding their request untimely.
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August 02, 2024
3rd Circ. Backs Ex-NJ Firefighter's $50M Drug Fraud Sentence
The Third Circuit backed the eight-year prison sentence handed to a former New Jersey firefighter convicted for his role in a $50 million healthcare fraud scheme, rejecting his argument he was wrongly punished for taking his case to trial.
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August 02, 2024
Ex-Sanofi CCO Takes Legal Helm At Growing Madrigal Pharma
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals Inc. has announced that five months after hiring a new chief compliance officer, it has promoted her to general counsel effective Monday.
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August 02, 2024
Four Plaintiffs Tossed From Merck Gardasil Vaccine MDL
A North Carolina federal judge has thrown out claims from four patients in multidistrict litigation alleging they suffered injuries as a result of taking Merck's Gardasil HPV vaccine, saying three of them didn't file a petition with the federal vaccine injury program on time, while the fourth never filed his petition at all.
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August 01, 2024
Male Sex Drug Labeled As 'Natural' Contains Viagra, Suit Says
Sellers of the male enhancement drug Ryder XL, purportedly made with natural herbal ingredients, are facing a proposed class action in New Jersey federal court that accuses them of "dosing" consumers with large amounts of Viagra and Cialis without a prescription of physician oversight.
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July 31, 2024
NC Defense Attys Say Virus Law Case Can 'Unsettle' Immunity
A North Carolina defense attorney group asked to jump into a medical malpractice suit in the state's high court Wednesday, offering what it described as a warning that if a decision stands on a COVID-19 law, immunity from lawsuits will be "unsettled."
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July 30, 2024
Mich. Supreme Court Reins In Wrongful-Death Damages
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that families are not entitled to recover a loved one's future earning capacity as damages in wrongful-death lawsuits, trimming the award potentially available to parents who sued a hospital after their 13-year-old's death from meningitis.
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July 30, 2024
Mich. COVID-19 Liability Law Shields Regular Healthcare Too
A 2020 law protecting healthcare providers and facilities from liability for their response to the early COVID-19 pandemic also applies to regular care provided during that time, a Michigan appellate panel said, finding that resources diverted because of the state's response affected other areas of care.
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July 29, 2024
Cardiologist Hits Mass. Hospital With Equal Pay Suit
A cardiologist at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital says a less experienced male colleague whom she helped train is being paid $95,000 more, in violation of the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act, according to a lawsuit filed in state court.
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July 26, 2024
Ohio Jury Must Consider Brain Injury Patient's Mental State
An Ohio appeals court has reinstated a suit accusing doctors of causing a man's catastrophic brain injury due to medical negligence, saying it should be up to a jury to decide whether the applicable filing deadlines can be tolled due to the man's purported mental incompetence.
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July 26, 2024
Fired Doc Can Pursue Claims Against Atty Over Award Error
A Michigan state appeals court has ruled a doctor may pursue malpractice claims against the attorney who represented him during arbitration proceedings in an underlying wrongful termination suit after she allegedly failed to catch the arbitrator's miscalculation of the award, reportedly resulting in a $2.5 million loss.
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July 25, 2024
3rd Circ. Again Tosses J&J Talc Unit's 'Texas Two-Step' Ch. 11
The Third Circuit on Thursday affirmed the dismissal of the reworked Chapter 11 case of Johnson & Johnson's talc unit that used a controversial "Texas two-step" maneuver, saying the company still hasn't displayed the financial distress required to justify bankruptcy protection.
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July 25, 2024
Mich. Justices Roll Back Expert Limits For Med Mal Plaintiffs
A split Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday partly overturned a nearly 20-year-old standard that made it harder for medical malpractice plaintiffs to introduce expert testimony, as dissenting justices warned the change could unleash a cascade of new appeals.
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July 25, 2024
Mich. Jury Awards $8.5M For Missed Cancer Diagnosis
A Michigan federal jury awarded more than $8.5 million in damages Wednesday to a man who died of kidney cancer, finding that a doctor at a cancer clinic missed an opportunity to diagnose the cancer before it spread to his brain.
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July 23, 2024
NC's $500K Med Mal Damages Cap Faces Fight
A patient who obtained a $7.5 million jury verdict in her case against a North Carolina doctor over the loss of her unborn baby is challenging the constitutionality of the Tar Heel State's cap on compensatory damages in medical negligence suits.
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July 23, 2024
Optum Can Arbitrate Calif. Healthcare Provider's Antitrust Suit
A California federal judge Tuesday ordered certain Emanate Health entities who signed hospital services and physician agreements with Optum to arbitrate their antitrust suit accusing it of monopolizing a primary care physician market, finding the agreements encompass rules that say issues of arbitrability will be referred to an arbitrator.
Expert Analysis
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Litigation Inspiration: Attys Can Be Heroic Like Olympians
Although litigation won’t earn anyone an Olympic medal in Paris this summer, it can be worthy of the same lasting honor if attorneys exercise focused restraint — seeking both their clients’ interests and those of the court — instead of merely pursuing every advantage short of sanctionable conduct, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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Lean Into The 'Great Restoration' To Retain Legal Talent
As the “great resignation,” in which employees voluntarily left their jobs in droves, has largely dissipated, legal employers should now work toward the idea of a “great restoration,” adopting strategies to effectively hire, onboard and retain top legal talent, says Molly McGrath at Hiring & Empowering Solutions.
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New OSHA Memo Helps Clarify Recordkeeping Compliance
Based on recent Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidance on whether musculoskeletal disorders are recordable injuries under the agency's recordkeeping regulation, it appears that OSHA may target active release techniques and stretching programs during its inspections, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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A Healthier Legal Industry Starts With Emotional Intelligence
The legal profession has long been plagued by high rates of mental health issues, in part due to attorneys’ early training and broader societal stereotypes — but developing one’s emotional intelligence is one way to foster positive change, collectively and individually, says attorney Esperanza Franco.
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To Make Your Legal Writing Clear, Emulate A Master Chef
To deliver clear and effective written advocacy, lawyers should follow the model of a fine dining chef — seasoning a foundation of pure facts with punchy descriptors, spicing it up with analogies, refining the recipe and trimming the fat — thus catering to a sophisticated audience of decision-makers, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?
Last week's Eleventh Circuit opinion in Snell v. United Specialty Insurance, notable for a concurrence outlining the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate a term's common meaning, is hopefully the first step toward developing a coherent basis for the judiciary's generative AI use, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.
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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: May Lessons
In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses four notable circuit court decisions on topics from automobile insurance to securities — and provides key takeaways for counsel on issues including circuit-specific ascertainability requirements and how to conduct a Daubert analysis prior to class certification.
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Trauma-Informed Legal Approaches For Pro Bono Attorneys
As National Trauma Awareness Month ends, pro bono attorneys should nevertheless continue to acknowledge the mental and physical effects of trauma, allowing them to better represent clients, and protect themselves from compassion fatigue and burnout, say Katherine Cronin at Stinson and Katharine Manning at Blackbird.
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How Attys Can Avoid Pitfalls When Withdrawing From A Case
The Trump campaign's recent scuffle over its bid to replace its counsel in a pregnancy retaliation suit offers a chance to remind attorneys that many troubles inherent in withdrawing from a case can be mitigated or entirely avoided by communicating with clients openly and frequently, says Christopher Konneker at Orsinger Nelson.
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Using A Children's Book Approach In Firm Marketing Content
From “The Giving Tree” to “Where the Wild Things Are,” most children’s books are easy to remember because they use simple words and numbers to tell stories with a human impact — a formula law firms should emulate in their marketing content to stay front of mind for potential clients, says Seema Desai Maglio at The Found Word.
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Being An EMT Makes Me A Better Lawyer
While some of my experiences as an emergency medical technician have been unusually painful and searing, the skills I’ve learned — such as triage, empathy and preparedness — are just as useful in my work as a restructuring lawyer, says Marshall Huebner at Davis Polk.
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Lessons On Challenging Class Plaintiffs' Expert Testimony
In class actions seeking damages, plaintiffs are increasingly using expert opinions to establish predominance, but several recent rulings from California federal courts shed light on how defendants can respond, say Jennifer Romano and Raija Horstman at Crowell & Moring.
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Exploring An Alternative Model Of Litigation Finance
A new model of litigation finance, most aptly described as insurance-backed litigation funding, differs from traditional funding in two key ways, and the process of securing it involves three primary steps, say Bob Koneck, Christopher Le Neve Foster and Richard Butters at Atlantic Global Risk LLC.