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Showing posts from March, 2009

Insurance Industry Tricks of the Trade

Want some free information on how the Insurance industry can unfairly deny your claim? The American Association for Justice has a great .pdf handout on how people become the victims of unfair and illegal insurance denials...it's called Tricks of the Trade . It's the kind of stuff that we as lawyers have to deal with sometimes, and it can be really frustrating.

Supreme Court Knocks Down FDA Preemption

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court held that FDA drug regulation does not preempt common law claims in state courts. This is a huge victory for consumers! The Court's decision in Wyeth v. Levine allows consumers to move forward with lawsuits against drug companies that sell defective drugs. I am happily surprised at the 6-3 outcome, and the Court in its wisdom found that Congress never intended for FDA labeling rules to preempt lawsuits in state courts. The American Association of Justice has more: Writing for the Court, Justice Stevens said: “If Congress thought state-law suits posed an obstacle to its objectives, it surely would have enacted an express preemption provision at some point during the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act’s 70 year history…Its silence on the issue, coupled with its certain awareness of the prevalence of state tort litigation, is powerful evidence that Congress did not intend FDA oversight to be the exclusive means of ensuring drug safety and effectiveness.” Justic