Features
Jury Hits Merck With $9M in Punitives
On April 11, a jury in Atlantic City, NJ, ordered Merck & Co. to pay $9 million in punitive damages to a user of Vioxx, finding the drug maker knowingly withheld data from federal regulators about the painkiller's cardiovascular risks. Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market in 2004 when a study showed it doubled heart attack risk after 18 months of use. The Atlantic City trial was the first involving plaintiffs who had used Vioxx longer than that period of time.
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Medical Implants in the New Biomedical Frontier
More than a million tissue transplants and medical device implants were performed in 2005, according to available estimates. It is reported that the organ and tissue transplantation market in the U.S. was valued at more than $11 billion in 2005. Today, the multi-billion-dollar biomedical industry continues to expand well beyond its more humble origins of blood, organ and tissue banking. These developing biotechnologies have forced courts to address novel issues and concerns regarding a new generation of biosurgical implants outside the parameters of settled judicial and statutory frameworks dealing with medical implants. The widespread usage of such new implants has also called into question the settled case law that hospitals and physicians may not be held strictly liable for the implantation of defective medical device products.
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Embedded Software-Based Cost Recovery: Are We There Yet?
Most remember the era of Wang computing, where you bought your hardware, software, service and support through one company. As the personal computer, networking, and open software platforms started taking off in the late 1980s, law firms realized the need to move away from the dinosaur and toward technology advancements offered by a broader landscape of providers.<br>A similar analogy applies to today's multi-function devices (MFDs) (compared to yesterday's copiers), and the transition from hardware-centric cost recovery devices to increasingly functional cost recovery software embedded within the MFDs.
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<b>Practice Tip: </b> A New 'Outlook' on e-Mail
<i>Learn a new way to manage your e-mail and the plethora of tasks that come with it, and most attorneys can gain a whopping 25% increase in their productivity.</i><br>It sounds incredible, but that's what my clients report. Furthermore, taking control of your e-mail is nothing less than taking control of your life.
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Litigating Matrimonial Cases
The litigation system we inherited is not well-suited to resolving marital disputes. Those of us who have litigated divorces for decades have come to understand that litigation is not the preferred route to deciding marital discord. Most family court judges overtly state that the litigants would be better served by an amicable resolution reached after each spouse's needs have been considered rather than a contested trial. In fact, one court of appeals judge in California has noted that 'family law court is where they shoot the survivors.'
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Litigation
Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.
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Sophisticated Manipulators
Custody battles are stressful to clients, and few litigators escape the psychological daggers of a tough, demanding fight. Some clients make the combat more tolerable, while others seem destined to escalate hostilities. To date, there is no established taxonomy for identifying custody litigant 'types.' Yet, every matrimonial lawyer with custody battle experience has stories to tell about particular clients from difficult cases.
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No Palimony in New Jersey
A 70-year romance is insufficient for a claim for palimony support in New Jersey. A New Jersey appeals court recently ruled that without cohabitation, an extramarital ro-mantic relationship ' even one that spanned 70 years ' cannot be a basis for palimony support.
Authenticating Electronic Evidence: From Collection to Production
In today's highly litigious society, the great deal of electronically stored information (ESI) flying around can complicate the resolution of disputes. Depending on the industry and the individual, electronic documents may exist on home computers, laptops, PDAs, voice-mail systems and flash drives, as well as on corporate-based servers, archiving systems and network share drives. Yet, many companies wait until litigation begins, or even later, to consider electronic data and preservation issues. This can result in greater expense and a higher risk of mistakes. For example, if documents are missed or if the wrong documents are turned over to the requesting party, a company can expose itself to spoliation fines or worse ' unknowingly reveal the potential 'smoking guns.'
Who Is a Grandparent?
It has been said that 'just definitions either prevent or put an end to disputes.' Perhaps this saying exaggerates the point, but it does highlight the importance of understanding the precise meanings of words. In contemporary family law practice, however, many legal definitions are not precise. Instead, they often express the essential nature of terms and concepts, underscoring the dynamic nature of domestic relations law and the need to alter or expand the legal vocabulary in response to modern social reality.
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