This Month’s Edition « Lawyers USA Online

Jury awards $104 million to couple for hepatitis infection

By: Sylvia Hsieh
Published: January 17, 2012

Tags: Baxter Healthcare, colonoscopy, Hepatitis C, McKesson Corp., propofol, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Top Ten Jury Verdicts, Top Ten Jury Verdicts of 2011

Plaintiff Michael Washington and his wife, Josephine, speaking with a reporter

In the third trial over a rash of hepatitis C infections caused by contaminated vials of the anesthetic propofol at Las Vegas colonoscopy and endoscopy clinics in October, a jury ordered the drug makers to pay $104 million to 71-year-old Michael Washington and his wife Josephine.

$91.5 million verdict awarded for nursing home death

By: Kimberly Atkins
Published: January 17, 2012

Tags: dehydration, nursing home, nursing home litigation, Top Ten Jury Verdicts, Top Ten Jury Verdicts of 2011, wrongful death

A West Virginia jury awarded the son of a woman who died of severe dehydration after a brief stay in a nursing home $91.5 million, including an $80 million punitive damages award.

“It was like a house of horrors,” plaintiffs’ attorney Michael J. Fuller said of the facility where 87-year-old Dorothy Douglas was admitted in 2009, only to die a few weeks later.

Where are they now?

By: Tony Ogden
Published: January 17, 2012

Tags: Top Ten Jury Verdicts of 2010, Top Ten Verdicts

1. Small firm wins $505.1 million verdict Chanin v. Teva Pharmaceuticals Product liability April 5, 2010, Nevada Arguing that oversized vials of a drug were “weapons of mass infection” that led to an outbreak of Hepatitis C at outpatient surgical centers, Las Vegas plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Eglet convinced a
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Store employee wins $95M sexual harassment verdict

By: Kimberly Atkins
Published: January 17, 2012

Tags: assault, sexual harassment, Top Ten Jury Verdicts, Top Ten Jury Verdicts of 2011

An Illinois federal jury has awarded a $95 million verdict – including $80 million in punitive damages – to a store worker who claimed she was sexually harassed and assaulted by a manager while the company turned a blind eye.

“[The employer] had a policy that no one had to report complaints of sexual harassment unless they actually witnessed it,” said Benedict Morelli, the plaintiff’s lead counsel at trial. “It was a sexual harassment policy that protected the company, not the employees.”

Jury awards $89.6 million to pipefitter with mesothelioma

By: Correy Stephenson
Published: January 17, 2012

Tags: asbestos, conspiracy, mesothelioma, negligence, Top Ten Jury Verdicts, Top Ten Jury Verdicts of 2011

A 12-person jury in Illinois awarded $89.6 million – $80 million of it in punitives – against four defendants in a suit brought by a former pipefitter suffering from mesothelioma.

How to make it rain

By: Correy Stephenson
Published: December 30, 2011

Tags: law firm marketing, legal marketing

Want to be a rainmaker in a dry economy?

Try some of the tips offered by legal marketing expert and editor-in-chief of Lawyers.com Larry Bodine at a recent webinar sponsored by The Business Development Symposium, an Encino, Calif. firm that specializes in helping lawyers find clients.