Verdicts & Settlements

Allergan to Pay $375M in Criminal Case Over Off-Label Marketing of Botox

A federal judge in Atlanta yesterday okayed a $375 million settlement of a criminal case by Allergan Inc. concerning the company’s marketing of Botox drug for off-label purposes not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Although Allergan denies wrongdoing, aside from one misdemeanor count over its marketing of…

Oct 6, 2010 5:05 PM CDT

Inmate’s Letter Seeking Forgiveness Didn’t Have Intended Effect

A jail inmate awaiting trial on sexual assault charges wrote an apology letter to the 87-year-old victim, asking her to forgive him and drop the case against him. The letter didn’t have its intended effect, the Virginian-Pilot reports. Instead it became another piece of evidence in the criminal case against…

Oct 6, 2010 10:30 AM CDT

Israeli Attorney Is 1st Foreign Law School Grad to Become Wis. Lawyer, Under New Rule

An Israeli attorney who earned her law degree from Bar Ilan University Law School in her home country is the first graduate of a foreign law school to win admission to the Wisconsin bar under a new rule that no longer requires graduation from an American Bar Association-accredited institution. Deborah…

Oct 6, 2010 12:00 AM CDT

Court’s Sentence Makes Rogue Trader Kerviel a Six-Billion-Dollar Man

Jerome Kerviel was sentenced to what is locally considered a hefty three-year prison term today by the main criminal court in Paris, and ordered to repay his employer, Societe General, nearly $7 billion in a record-breaking rogue trading case at the bank. Although the 33-year-old defendant and some observers blamed…

Oct 5, 2010 11:41 PM CDT

Apple Seeks Stay of $625.5M Infringement Verdict, Cites ‘Triple Dipping’

Apple has filed an emergency motion seeking a stay of a jury verdict that is one of the nation’s largest-ever awards for patent infringement. On Friday, a jury in Tyler, Texas, awarded technology company Mirror Worlds $625.5 million for Apple’s willful infringement of three patents related to how files are…

Oct 5, 2010 12:04 PM CDT

Fla. AG Can’t Probe Law Firms in ‘Foreclosure Mill’ Investigation, Judge Says

A probe of four “foreclosure mill” law firms by the Florida attorney general’s office suffered a setback today. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jack Cox not only quashed a subpoena against one of the firms as overbroad and unduly burdensome but suggested in his ruling that the AG lacks power to…

Oct 4, 2010 10:38 PM CDT

‘Die Hard’ Director Gets 12 Months for Lying to Feds in Hollywood PI Wiretap Case

John McTiernan, who directed Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October, among other well-known movies, has been sentenced to 12 months for his peripheral role in a celebrity wiretap case that also brought down a private investigator and a California lawyer. McTiernan, 59, who is apparently appealing, was also…

Oct 4, 2010 7:41 PM CDT

Newspaper: ‘Weak-Kneed’ Discipline Council Stumbled in Probate Judge Matter

In a 2004 will, Josephine Smoron left almost all her considerable assets, which included a dairy farm, to her longtime caretaker. A subsequent estate document in 2006 explained that she had expressly disinherited several churches. But as she lay dying in 2009 her court-appointed conservator transferred her assets to two…

Oct 4, 2010 6:58 PM CDT

Law Firm in ‘Deliberate, Willful & Flagrant’ Contempt Fined $49K for Missing Foreclosure Hearings

A judge has found a Florida law firm in “deliberate, willful and flagrant” contempt and fined it $49,000 for setting—and then missing—two foreclosure hearings. The action against Smith Hiatt & Diaz by Manatee County Circuit Judge Janette Dunnigan followed three previous incidents in which the law firm either canceled a…

Oct 4, 2010 4:51 PM CDT

Defunct Debt Collection Law Firm Found Liable for Nearly $24M

A shuttered debt-collection law firm has been found liable for $23.7 million in a suit claiming it withheld money from a onetime client: an Illinois agency pursuing debtors who defaulted on student loans. The Illinois Student Assistance Commission had claimed the firm, Friedman & Wexler, failed to turn over at…

Oct 4, 2010 11:31 AM CDT

Jury Convicts Manhattan Lawyer of Online Crime for Impersonating NYU Prof in Academic Argument

A New York real estate lawyer contends he was simply contributing to an academic debate when he sent out e-mails in the name of a New York University professor who supported the position of his father, a professor at the University of Chicago, on the origins of the 2,000-year-old Dead…

Oct 1, 2010 10:01 AM CDT

Would-Be Lawyer’s Case Helped Pave Way for Brown v. Board of Education

A little-known case brought by a would-be lawyer in Texas helped pave the way for the famous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. But it gained some traction yesterday at a a symposium at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law, reports the Houston Chronicle,…

Oct 1, 2010 9:27 AM CDT

Plaintiff Must Provide Access to ‘Private’ Facebook & MySpace Pages, Judge Rules

By placing her physical condition at issue in a tort claim over a fall from an office chair at work, a woman effectively waived any expectation of privacy in her nonpublic social networking posts relevant to show the extent of her injury and damages, a New York judge has ruled.…

Sep 29, 2010 8:36 PM CDT

Ain’t No Dividing Wall High Enough to Keep Battling Couple in Shared Home Away From Litigation Fray

Chana and Simon Taub love their house. But they loathe each other, the New York Times (reg. req.) reported in 2008, after a court-ordered wall was constructed in thelr lavish Brooklyn home. It was intended to allow both to continue living there in the midst of a litigation war. Already,…

Sep 29, 2010 5:04 PM CDT

Woman Wins $75K for 1-Day Jail Stay + $25K for Strip Search in ID Theft Mix-Up

A Florida jury deliberated only about two hours before awarding a 32-year-old woman $100,000 for being jailed overnight in an identity-theft mix-up. Kimberly Shields Hesketh, 32, was arrested in 2002 on a Charlotte County warrant after a car thief stole her identity and violated probation. Although the mistake was clear…

Sep 28, 2010 10:01 PM CDT