Plaintiffs' Lawyers Fight Restrictions On Product-Liability Suits

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Plaintiffs' Lawyers Fight Restrictions On Product-Liability Suits
By ALICIA MUNDY
August 13, 2008; Page A3



WASHINGTON -- Since 2001, the Bush administration has steadily whittled away the ability of consumers and other groups to sue corporations for damages related to their products. Now plaintiffs' lawyers are fighting back by raising money to battle a Supreme Court case and to support candidates seen as sympathetic to their cause in the November congressional elections. At stake are billions of dollars in potential product-liability lawsuits. Some corporations are already getting tough in settlement talks. Judges have put on hold some cases, including three involving GlaxoSmithKline PLC's antidepressant Paxil, pending a Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court case, Wyeth v. Levine, which is to be heard Nov. 3, could affect lawsuits involving products such as cars, toys and flammable mattresses.

(snip)

The Bush administration has over the past few years circumvented Capitol Hill by weakening regulatory agencies' safety rules and adding introductions, called preambles, to public-safety regulations that effectively prohibit plaintiffs from suing at the state level, where safety standards can be tougher than those at the federal level. Pre-empting plaintiffs' right to sue will come under the microscope in the Wyeth case. The case centers on Diana Levine, a professional guitarist who lost an arm to gangrene after a receiving a shot to treat a migraine headache in 2000. Ms. Levine won $6.8 million in her lawsuit against Wyeth, which makes the antinausea drug, phenergan, that was given to her. A Vermont jury and that state's Supreme Court found that Wyeth hadn't sufficiently warned the public and doctors about the drug's dangers if improperly injected. Wyeth has argued that the company is protected because the Food and Drug Administration had approved its label. The government is supporting Wyeth's position, on behalf of the FDA.

Trial lawyers are so concerned about the case that in April they quietly pushed out Public Citizen, the advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader, as the attorneys for Ms. Levine, and replaced them with a legal team led by nationally known Supreme Court litigator David Frederick. Members of the trial lawyers' lobby, the American Association for Justice, are financing Mr. Frederick's fees and producing amicus briefs. The fallback plan for trial lawyers and consumer advocates is to persuade Congress and the White House to pass laws guaranteeing the right to sue. To that end, they are backing select congressional candidates who support the issue.

(snip)

The Bush administration has denied that it has a broad program aimed at pre-empting plaintiffs' right to sue. But it has tapped tort-reform supporters as legal advisers in several agencies. Jay Lefkowitz, a former general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget under the Bush administration, said, "Product-liability lawsuits challenge FDA sovereignty, undercut having one label standard, increase costs and render drugs much less safe." Mr. Lefkowitz helped recruit Dan Troy to work as the FDA's top lawyer from 2001 to 2004. "Dan promoted a more-robust pre-emption agenda," Mr. Lefkowitz said. The FDA began filing numerous legal briefs in state and federal courts favoring pre-emption, though it had previously supported plaintiffs' suits.

(snip)

Dozens of lawsuits against drug makers could be dismissed if the justices side with Wyeth. Some drug companies are telling plaintiffs' lawyers that if they settle their cases now, they won't pay as much to the plaintiffs as they would have six months ago, before the Supreme Court announced that it would hear the Wyeth case. A lawyer negotiating a settlement with one drug maker said company executives told him it wants "the Wyeth discount."


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[JeanGrey]

1. I wish this had more information.

Had it injected in my port in my chest, through iv's, and I take it in pill form after chemo. How is it injected wrong?

[question everything]

2. I don't know. Perhaps some legal eagles here

can search Nexus to find out..

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

3. In this case it seems to have been given intramuscularly.

I do some looking though. My wife has distonic muscle reactions to phenergan IV but not to the pills.

David

[Horse with no Name]

4. It was a procedural error...not the medication

Under NO circumstances do you EVER give Phenergan into the deltoid. The muscle is not large enough.
You give it in the leg muscle or the hip.
All of the drug literature tells you this.