Opponents of health care reform have reached the brink of intellectual bankruptcy. With no original ideas or solutions, they've now resorted to bringing out a tried-and-tested bogeymen in a last-ditch attempt to derail much-needed legislation.
The Congressional Budget Office is now estimating that limits on medical malpractice lawsuits -- reforms favored by many Republicans -- could save the government as much as $54 billion over the next 10 years.
The Obama administration announced a $25 million medical malpractice initiative Thursday as part of its plan to rein in skyrocketing health care costs.
It began as the most ordinary of fender-benders. Cynthia Johnson, an office manager for a real estate company, was driving to work on Interstate 15 near the Las Vegas strip when a fellow commuter clipped the rear bumper of her Toyota Avalon, propelling it into the truck in front. No one seemed hurt, and the drivers exchanged information.
The Dallas star and the housekeeper sue each other for assault in a clash over the actress's dog
So far, public reaction to the tragic collapse of the Dallas Cowboys' indoor practice facility has understandably reflected sadness, shock and genuine empathy for the 12 injured persons, particularly scout Rich Behm, who was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Embattled surgical device maker Arthrocare announced yesterday that it is seeking an end-run around its bitter battle with short-sellers and has hired a major investment bank to explore "strategic alternatives," including a possible sale of the company.
I took up piano when I was 8 years old, after my father suggested that I use my spare time for music lessons instead of a paper route. By junior high I was joining bands. I kept at it, playing throughout college, in law school - and now in my Ridgefield, Conn., law office.
A series of lawsuits against companies that did business with the former apartheid regime of South Africa should be dismissed, the Bush administration told the Supreme Court Tuesday.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could have major implications for Medtronic Inc. and other makers of medical devices.
Opponents of health care reform have reached the brink of intellectual bankruptcy. With no original ideas or solutions, they've now resorted to bringing out a tried-and-tested bogeymen in a last-ditch attempt to derail much-needed legislation.
The Congressional Budget Office is now estimating that limits on medical malpractice lawsuits -- reforms favored by many Republicans -- could save the government as much as $54 billion over the next 10 years.
The Obama administration announced a $25 million medical malpractice initiative Thursday as part of its plan to rein in skyrocketing health care costs.
It began as the most ordinary of fender-benders. Cynthia Johnson, an office manager for a real estate company, was driving to work on Interstate 15 near the Las Vegas strip when a fellow commuter clipped the rear bumper of her Toyota Avalon, propelling it into the truck in front. No one seemed hurt, and the drivers exchanged information.
The Dallas star and the housekeeper sue each other for assault in a clash over the actress's dog
So far, public reaction to the tragic collapse of the Dallas Cowboys' indoor practice facility has understandably reflected sadness, shock and genuine empathy for the 12 injured persons, particularly scout Rich Behm, who was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Embattled surgical device maker Arthrocare announced yesterday that it is seeking an end-run around its bitter battle with short-sellers and has hired a major investment bank to explore "strategic alternatives," including a possible sale of the company.
I took up piano when I was 8 years old, after my father suggested that I use my spare time for music lessons instead of a paper route. By junior high I was joining bands. I kept at it, playing throughout college, in law school - and now in my Ridgefield, Conn., law office.
A series of lawsuits against companies that did business with the former apartheid regime of South Africa should be dismissed, the Bush administration told the Supreme Court Tuesday.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could have major implications for Medtronic Inc. and other makers of medical devices.
Do pat downs at NFL games violate the law?
Republican presidential candidates intensified their fight over which one has the true conservative credentials in a sometimes contentious debate Sunday night.
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 U.S. to a latent crisis.
Decades after Tylenol bottles were tampered with and Ford Pintos exploded, you'd think that product-safety panics would be nearing extinction.
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.
The city of New Orleans filed a $77 billion damage claim against the Army Corps of Engineers Thursday for flooding that inundated the city when levees failed after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.
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.
Most FORTUNE 500 companies employ brigades of lawyers to limit their legal liability. But how many worry about their "moral liability"? Probably not enough, if only because the lines are blurring between the two.
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.
Daniel A. Speights suffered a blow in court last week. But Speights, one of the nation's leading plaintiffs attorneys specializing in asbestos property-damage claims, is by no means down for the count.
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.
The news from Angleton, Texas, couldn't have been worse for Merck. The drug giant has been stuck with a $253 million verdict--and that's just the first of 4,200 personal-injury lawsuits filed again...
In my previous column, I raised the possibility that Valerie Plame might want to sue Karl Rove in a private lawsuit, if he indeed revealed her identity as a CIA agent. Since I wrote that column, there have been very few important factual revelations about the Plame affair. However, as recent news reports have made clear, it is not obvious that Karl Rove or anyone in the White House involved in the Plame affair broke any criminal laws.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton was almost forced from office because he lied about whether he had "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky in a deposition. The deposition was conducted by lawyers for Paula Jones -- who had sued the president under federal civil rights law and Arkansas tort law.
The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide whether a convicted murderer can present evidence at sentencing that might call into question his guilt or culpability, a case with strong parallels to an expected death penalty appeal by confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.
A two-year legal battle between Bianca Jagger and her landlord could leave the environmental activist without a home.
THE YEAR IS YOUNG, BUT ALREADY IT has been a most glorious season for business. True, the economy is a delicate flower, deficits are worrisome, and interest rates are stirring. But all that pales c...
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...
A man who accuses a Boston priest of raping him when he was a boy was himself put on the defensive Thursday as a defense attorney tried to cast doubt on his memory and his credibility.
In June 2003, in Lawrence v. Texas, the United States Supreme Court struck down Texas' ban on same-sex sodomy, holding that such a law is an unconstitutional infringement upon an individual's right to privacy.
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 battle over medical liability reform officially kicks off this week.
Illinois is either heaven or hell, depending on how you look at it.
On December 14, Ambrose Kappos -- the alleged stalker of singer Sheryl Crow -- was acquitted by a New York State jury.
Vioxx users have another scourge to worry about now: hucksters making false promises on the Internet about the millions of dollars they can get from suing Merck & Co., the drug's maker.
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...
As hundreds of lawyers pack their bags for Las Vegas to plot their legal assault on Merck, they might want to throw in some protective gear too.
Posted: 10:41 p.m. ET
Many medical professionals are upset that Sen. John Kerry has selected Senator John Edwards as his running mate. They shouldn't be.
Business advocates typically have a visceral dislike of trial lawyers. But those planning to use John Edwards's past as a litigator to discredit him as a vice presidential hopeful should proceed wi...
A little less than two weeks ago, in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court resolved the case of Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain.
FORTUNE might be expected to applaud--as did the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the insurance industry--a June U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled that HMOs can't be sued for malpractice in state ...
In late June, a Swiss appeals court decided that a group of five Gypsies could sue IBM in Switzerland. Previously, a lower court had dismissed the case on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction -- deeming IBM's Geneva office only an "antenna," and not its European headquarters. But the appeals court held that jurisdiction was proper.
What tort claims, if any, could be brought against those who were involved in the torture at Abu Ghraib prison? And what role can tort liability play in helping those inmates who were tortured pursue compensation?
Recently, in Nevada, 19-year-old Ryan Pisco drank beer at a party, got drunk, drove his car into a pole, and died. Now Ryan's mother, Jodie, is suing Coors Brewing Co. for allegedly causing Ryan's death.
A young man seeking to make a place for himself in the world gets caught up in events he can't control or even fully understand. It is a familiar premise, especially to fans of John Grisham.
GEORGE BUSH
On June 16 and 17, CEOs, government regulators and money managers from more than 100 firms, representing more than $10 trillion dollars in assets under management, convened in New York City for MON...
Strange food, hostile natives, the appalling difficulty of getting the sports scores: From Marco Polo to today's road warriors, doing business overseas has never been easy. But at least Marco Polo ...
Without a tie, wearing black jeans and brown tasseled hunting boots with brass eyelets. (Later, before lunch at the country club, he'll ask if he can borrow a pair of my socks.) "The reason I'm lat...
With a President hospitable to the idea and the current crisis in medical-malpractice insurance getting front-page coverage, tort reformers are enjoying a resurrection to rival Ozzy Osbourne's. Mor...
When Illinois state judge Nicholas Byron issued his March ruling on a class action against Philip Morris, Louis Camilleri was 945 miles away in New York City, bracing for bad news. The chairman and...
We all know that "jackpot justice"--outsized compensation for even the smallest grievance--is out of hand. But the latest numbers from insurance consulting firm Tillinghast--Towers Perrin are truly...
These days Ken Feinberg jolts awake at three or 3:30 in the morning. For a man who normally bounds out of bed at four without need of an alarm clock and considers 5 A.M. to be sleeping in, the waki...
"You indicated that you walked three or four miles a day?" a defense lawyer asked plaintiff James Curry this past October in a rural courthouse in Lexington, Miss.
Major auto insurers are changing the way they calculate premiums, and the likely result is lower rates for the safest vehicles--specifically those that protect their occupants well in an accident a...
The lawyers from hell passed the Sunday evening in Miami at one another's throats. Since last fall, every last one of them had filed multiple class-action suits against every last Health Maintenanc...
Much has been made in the past year of the wave of anti-tobacco litigation. But what has gone unnoticed in many news reports is the fact that two attorneys in particular are riding that multibillio...
Each year, Americans file about 20 million civil cases in federal, state and local courts. "But before you shout 'See you in court!'," says New York City personal-injury attorney Harvey Weitz, "you...
BY THE SPRING of 1993, the small handful of companies that had once manufactured and sold silicone breast implants were in a bad way. For more than a year, they had been ensnared in a web of litiga...
It usually begins slowly, almost imperceptibly, the first faint gust of wind that signals the coming storm. Somewhere in America, a plaintiffs lawyer files a lawsuit alleging that a familiar and wi...
SOMEONE recently asked me how I came to know Joe Nocera, one of Fortune's new contributing editors and the author of this issue's epic--and chilling--cover story on the almost unbelievable metastas...
For all the talk of tax cuts, what business really wants from a Republican Congress is regulatory relief. For decades a phalanx of powerful Democratic committee chairmen prevented meaningful regula...
These days, it seems that everybody is suing somebody-or being sued by someone else. Still, you may think that your automobile or homeowners policy already gives you all the protection you need. Bu...
ITS INITIALS are ATLA, which makes the Association of Trial Lawyers of America sound a little like the celebrated Hun who tormented the civilized world some centuries back. And that's the way oppon...
Everyone who has ever nursed a grievance against lawyers -- and who hasn't? -- will find solace in The Litigation Explosion (Dutton, $24.95). Author Walter Olson lays down a barrage of hostile fire...
My greatest hope for the 1990s is to see an end to the politicization of the law. Congress persists in passing ambiguous laws that demand judicial clarification. The U.S. courts could refuse to app...
The liability problems are no longer the news they were several years ago when insurance premiums exploded and coverage often vanished. But the effects are still with us. The playground equipment a...
Evita Peron, if one believes the stories, used to carry out a rousingly popular form of case-by-case wealth redistribution. On her radio program she would field pathetic calls from destitute widows...
One needn't be an armchair psychiatrist to see rampant strains of narcissism in America. The preoccupation with one's own importance and comfort, the abuse of alcohol and drugs by people who know b...
The emergence of clergy malpractice tort law is creating an increased need for insurance coverage. Lawsuits commonly allege . . . inadequate teaching, paternity, or improper counseling . . . While ...
FREAKISH LAWSUITS, million-dollar damage awards, and the liability insurance crisis they helped create have touched off a brush fire of lawmaking. Some 2,000 bills that would reform tort law, the p...
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