Kick off the week with Monday Minute—legal news headlines from the past week that you might’ve missed including our weekly Asbestos News column and Week Adjourned—the weekly wrap of top class action lawsuits and settlements.
Find these legal news highlights in the video clip below: Asbestos News Now; class action lawsuit updates for Groupon, Muscle Milk, GameStop and Lay’s Potato Chips as well as updates on Medtronic and J&J Risperdal litigation; what happened at PetSmart that left one dog dead; it’s deja vu: new McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuits; and, in honor of tax day, information on the latest tax scams.
A lot of our readers have been asking for this, so we’ve gone ahead and added a Settlements-only feed to our main news RSS feeds.
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Once again we find ourselves at the end of a year—and it’s been a pretty big year for lawsuits. So, in celebration of the year that was, we’ve compiled some of the biggest settlements—in terms of amount of the award or settlement—of 2010. My deepest thanks to the incredibly talented, wonderful, smart, beautiful, fantastic duo of Lucy C. and Abi K. for helping me compile this list…
When it came to personal injury, wrongful death and negligence lawsuits, there were some pretty large awards and settlements given out in 2010.
One settlement of $176 million was approved in a lawsuit filed after a 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island killed 100 people. The settlement money will go to survivors of the fire who suffered serious injury and to the children who lost parents in the fire.
Meanwhile, in one of the largest jury awards ever in the US, a jury in El Paso awarded $132 million to victims of a bus crash in which two people were killed and several others were injured. The vehicle reportedly crashed when the driver began speeding and eating at the same time. The bus rolled down an embankment.
Speaking of automobiles, a settlement was reached earlier this year between Volkswagen of America, Inc. and vehicle owners who said their cars leaked during rainstorms. The defective product lawsuit alleged certain Volkswagen and Audi models contained design defects that allowed water to enter the passenger component and, in some cases, damaged electronic components of the vehicle. As part of the settlement, Audi was required to pay $10,000 to each of the class representatives, $9.2 million in fees and $675,000 in costs for the class-counsel firms.
And in another defective product lawsuit, Medtronic agreed to pay $268 million to settle lawsuits regarding the company’s Sprint Fidelis Leads. The leads were alleged to have been defectively designed, allowing the wires to crack and causing unnecessary shocks to patients’ hearts.
And, in a defective drugs lawsuit, the maker of Seroquel agreed to pay 17,500 patients a total of $198 million to settle allegations that the medication caused illnesses such as diabetes.
Just taking a moment on this very quiet (thankfully) Thanksgiving to recall all those who’ve…settled! It’s often a long journey, but the legal process does work and I’m sure there are many out there today who are thankful they went through it. Take a look…it’s our rather lengthy running list of published settlements. Of course, if you prefer to see them listed by category, click here.
Here, some of the recent settlements we’ve posted to our home page (don’t forget, you can easily keep up to date on new settlements by subscribing to our weekly newsletter; hey, you never know—you just might be a part of a settlement yourself)…
If that doesn’t sound like the quintessential come-on, I don’t know what does. And it’s t.v. ads blaring that phrase that give some lawyers and the law biz a bit of a weird rep. But don’t blame the law profession, blame their ad agencies. Why? Because there’s actually some truth behind the statement that you may be owed money.
This week’s Pleading Ignorance looks at…
The strange thing about a class action is that many people are typically affected—in fact, having numerous plaintiffs is a requirement for something to be a class action. But, if there’s a settlement from a class action, many times a good portion of the settlement monies just sits there.
Why is that? There are many reasons, but typically monies sit because: Read the rest of this entry »