West Virginia Personal Injury Updates

Peggie Stanford has filed a wrongful death suit against GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of diabetes drug Avandia, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Stanford claims her 60-year-old husband, Larry, had been using an Avandia variant when he died of a heart attack earlier this year. Stanford suffered the fatal heart attack the same day that the New England Journal of Medicine...

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Federal prosecutors have decided not to file criminal charges with regard to the 2006 nationwide E. coli outbreak, which was traced to fresh spinach from California. The companies being held accountable for the outbreak still face numerous civil lawsuits from consumers claiming to have gotten sick from the tainted crop, however.The outbreak, which caused three deaths and approximately 200...

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After a month-long trial, a Brooke County Circuit Court jury has ordered Massey Energy and a subsidiary to pay more than $219 million in damages to Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation. Wheeling-Pitt sued Massey subsidiary Central West Virginia Energy Co. in April 2005, claiming it failed to deliver 104,000 tons of metallurgical grade coal per month as required under a contract signed in 2002...

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U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber has upheld Virginia Cavender's claims of design-defect, breach-of-warranty, and negligence against pharmaceutical company Wyeth. Cavender, who took the weight loss combination drug fen-phen, claims that it caused heart damage in the form of "moderately severe aortic regurgitation."Judge Webber denied Wyeth's motion for partial summary judgment, ruling that...

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The family of 11-year-old Krystina Brugh has filed a federal lawsuit against ConAgra Foods, Inc., claiming that the food maker's tainted peanut butter is to blame for their daughter's kidney failure. ConAgra, who produces Peter Pan and Great Value brand peanut butter, recalled all of its peanut butter after government investigators traced a salmonella outbreak to its products. ConAgra is facing...

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Nearly 5,000 families with an autistic child have filed claims against the U.S. government, alleging that their children's autism resulted from childhood vaccinations. The first test case began in a hearing last Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and was presided over by three special masters. Should the courts find in favor of the families, they will receive vindication and monetary...

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Retired FBI agent Gerald Barnett, who claims that the painkiller Vioxx caused his 2002 heart attack, must choose between $1.6 million and a retrial of his claims, a federal judge ruled. Last September a jury awarded Barnett $1 million in punitive damages and $50 million in compensatory damages, but U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon ordered a retrial on damages, ruling that $50 million in...

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A judge in Madison County, Illinois granted final approval in late May for a settlement in a class action deal, in which parents, who purchased GlaxoSmithKline PLC's Paxil or Paxil CR for their children may seek reimbursement for their purchase of the antidepressant.The suit alleged that GlaxoSmithKline misled consumers by failing to disclose information about negative side effects, such as...

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On May 25, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration alerted health care professionals and their patients who wear soft contact lenses about a voluntary recall of Complete MoisturePlus Multi Purpose Solution manufactured by Advanced Medical Optics of Santa Ana, CA.The company is taking this action due to reports of a rare, but serious, eye infection, Acanthamoeba keratitis, caused by a parasite. ...

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On May 21, the FDA issued a warning to endocrinologists, doctors, and consumers that the Type 2 diabetes drug Avandia has been link to an increased risk of heart attack and other ischemic heart-related problems. The link was discovered in a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that the risk of heart attack was 43% greater in persons taking the drug. The study...

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