Lawyer Blog

After deliberating for only about three hours, a federal jury returned a verdict in favor of Merck in a lawsuit over the painkiller Vioxx, finding there was not enough evidence to link the drug to a Kentucky man’s heart attack. Including Tuesday’s verdict, the drugmaker so far has amassed a five-and-four record in state and federal courts in Vioxx-related cases. One expert who has tracked Vioxx litigation said he doesn’t see Merck moving toward settling the many pending cases.

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A New York federal judge on Monday certified a $200 billion class action lawsuit against the tobacco industry for its marketing of light cigarettes, saying that no matter how vast and complex the claims, the U.S. Constitution demanded that a jury hear the plaintiffs’ case. The judge said he even would consider broadening the class to encompass smokers of all “low tar” brands, not just light cigarettes, suggesting that an expansion of the class could assist the parties in negotiating a global settlement.

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Dallas-based Strasburger & Price is embroiled in a class action suit in which the firm and one of its partners are accused of helping clients defraud hundreds of investors through what the plaintiffs allege was an “oil and gas Ponzi scheme.” “There are some people that were unhappy with the investments, but they are investors and sometimes investments don’t turn out the way we would like,” says Steve McConnico of Scott, Douglass & McConnico, who represents the firm and Strasburger partner Lee Polson.

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Declared a “spectacular fraud” by a federal appeals court, the collapse of Student Finance Corp. has also spawned litigation in three states, including a potentially massive legal malpractice claim by SFC’s bankruptcy trustee against Pepper Hamilton. Now a federal judge has handed a significant victory to one of the key defendants in its dispute with an insurer over the cost of defending itself against more than $32 million in claims.

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A unanimous New York Court of Appeals held last week that the Rockefeller Drug Law reforms enacted in 2004 were not meant to be applied retroactively, a ruling that dashes the hopes of many offenders serving harsh sentences under antiquated and now largely revised narcotics statutes. Additionally, the court held in a separate memorandum that in cases where a Rockefeller Drug Law defendant requests resentencing and is denied, the court has no review authority.

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Imagine that the decision of whether you could continue to receive a $10,000 annual pay raise rested entirely in your own hands. But also imagine that if you decided to retain the raise, you increased the likelihood of being fired within the next several years. Now what would you do? Columnist Howard J. Bashman examines this quandary, which is essentially what recently faced six justices on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in ruling on the constitutionality of legislation to repeal a judicial pay raise.

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Sitting by designation on a 9th Circuit panel, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton had plenty to say about what he called the “sorry state of the law.” The court ruled that while a public library cannot exclude speech merely because it is religious, it may bar actual religious services from being held in its meeting rooms. Karlton sounded off in a separate concurrence on what he sees as the high court’s misguided precedents confusing the free speech and establishment clauses of the First Amendment.

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A House Judiciary subcommittee on Thursday held a rare impeachment hearing for a California federal judge but reached no conclusions and appeared eager to let a special committee of the 9th Circuit finish its investigation before deciding whether to take up the matter in Congress again. Judge Manuel Real rebutted — for the first time in public — allegations that he improperly seized control of a bankruptcy proceeding involving a woman whose criminal probation he was overseeing.

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In upholding a San Diego County ordinance Monday, the 9th Circuit concluded that the law that makes picketers stay 300 feet away from the home they are protesting is constitutional. The picketers could have won a facial challenge if they could show the law was unconstitutional “in every conceivable application,” according to the decision. But as their own protest had shown — the home they targeted was at least 300 feet away from the street — the law was not always too restrictive.

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Any lawyer who thinks a handshake and a slap on the back are all it takes to confer partnership status should read a recent Philadelphia Commerce Court opinion. Though Samuel Mychak was the sole shareholder in Samuel Mychak P.C., firm members Mychak, Patrick Geckle and Marla Welker publicly presented themselves as partners in Mychak Geckle & Welker in, among other venues, telephone book ads. The opinion, which cited the doctrine of “partnership by estoppel,” found against Mychak.

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