South Dakota Legal News Articles & Interviews

Fresno, CA: The manufacturer of Monsanto Roundup is not taking any assertion, accurate or otherwise that Roundup causes cancer, lying down. To that end, Monsanto Co. has joined forces with other agricultural industry groups in a lawsuit aimed squarely at the State of California and the identification by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) that a key ingredient in Roundup is known to cause cancer.

Los Angeles, CA A jury trial in California recently ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay a record $417 million to a woman dying of ovarian cancer for failure to warn that the genital talc use could cause cancer. Eva Echeverria used J&J’s Johnson’s Baby Power on a daily basis for decades and claimed talc ultimately led to her cancer diagnosis.

St. Louis, MO: Johnson & Johnson (J & J) won its first jury verdict out of four recent Missouri talcum powder cancer lawsuits to go to trial.

Ridgeland, MS: The very first talcum powder cancer lawsuit was filed by Diane Berg back in 2009. Johnson & Johnson offered her a settlement but Berg refused and wound up with nothing. This heroic whistleblower paved the way for ovarian cancer lawsuits today.

Washington, DC Bright Water Seafood is recalling its 7 ounce packages of Buffalo Krab Dip and 7 ounce packages of Southwest Krab Dip because they have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems.

Watertown, SD Recent publications indicate a woman has settled her Paxil birth defects lawsuit, ending a legal process that began with the 2004 death of her newborn son. The lawsuit alleged her son suffered from Paxil birth defects, including persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN).

Gayville, SD "Justice, my 15-year-old daughter, was on Depakote for three years, including the first 28 weeks of her pregnancy," says Angela Lee, Justine's mother and a new grandmother. "I feel so guilty because I gave this medication to my daughter; I wish I knew more about Depakote beforehand."

Vermillion, SD: Roger Baron is a recognized authority on insurance law and subrogation. He advised attorney Maurice Graham in the controversial Debby Shank litigation in Missouri. In that case, Shank, who suffered severe permanent brain injuries in a traffic accident, was successfully sued by her employer, Wal-Mart, for recovery of nearly $500,000 in medical expenses paid under her ERISA employee insurance plan. Wal-Mart recently reversed their decision to seek recovery after a storm of negative publicity.

Watertown, SD: "Several months after my son Nathan passed away, I started to do a lot of research on PPHN and discovered there was a link between Paxil and the birth defects he had," says Jennifer Berg. "I felt sick, I felt it was my fault."