Speak No Evil
April 27, 2006
An age-old question of Internet law has heated up the intrastate rivalry between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but this time it's not sports teams or gubernatorial candidates; it's judges. Yes, judges.<br>The question: When can an anonymous Internet speaker accused of defamation be unmasked? The combatants: Judge Albert Sheppard of Phila-delphia and Judge R. Stanton Wettick of Pittsburgh ' two of Pennsylvania's most respected jurists. If Pennsylvania can be split on the issue, so can other states. Which argument is correct?
Justices Appear Torn in eBay Patent Case
April 27, 2006
Two veterans of the U.S. Supreme Court bar argued forcefully ' and inconclusively ' last month in a high-stakes dispute over how easy it should be for a patent holder to win an injunction against an infringer.<br>From the tenor of the questioning in <i>eBay v. MercExchange</i>, justices seemed closely divided over the issue.
Wikipedia Creates Concerns Aplenty About the Web's Reliability
April 27, 2006
Although the online encyclopedia Wikipedia recently added its 1 millionth English-language article, controversy over the value of its content continues. Concerns arise because Wikipedia has no single editor, and anyone (or virtually anyone) can add a new entry or edit an existing one. <br>Reliability concerns are in no way limited to Wikipedia, but pervade legal research done on the Internet.
Verdicts
April 27, 2006
Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.
Med Mal News
April 27, 2006
Developments in the medical malpractice arena.
Accidents Don't Just Happen
April 27, 2006
In medical negligence litigation, one must understand exactly what went wrong, and when, before one may litigate a case. It is this microscopic attention that requires lawyers to dissect a case in minute detail that would inspire envy in a forensic pathologist. Unfortunately, the fact is that few physicians want to engage in such analysis. Once we understand the who, what, where, and when, however, 'why' becomes much more clear, thus leading to answers as to how future accidents and miscalculations can be prevented.
Doctor/Patient Confidentiality and Abuse Allegations
April 27, 2006
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, 42 U.S.C.A. ' 1320(d) <i>et seq.</i> (HIPAA), was meant to offer a baseline for the disclosure of individual medical information. The law, calling for standards to be promulgated by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, became effective in April 2001 and full compliance was required by April 2003. <i>Crenshaw v. Mony et al.</i>, 318 F. Supp. 2d 1015, 1027 (D.S.D. Cal. 2004). The regulations are hardly a model of clarity, even for federal regulations, and frequent reference to state law and state reporting agencies can heighten the confusion.
Jury Hits Merck With $9M in Punitives
April 27, 2006
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.
Medical Implants in the New Biomedical Frontier
April 27, 2006
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.
