by Hans Bader
March 13, 2009 @ 4:53 pm
Already burdened by $8 trillion in new federal spending commitments and the likelihood of higher taxes to pay for bailouts, pork, and welfare, the economy now faces an additional threat: an explosion of litigation.
Even liberal Washington Post columnist Michael Kinsley can’t stand the Supreme Court’s liberal 6-to-3 ruling in Wyeth v. Levine, which let a patient sue an innocent drug maker for an injury caused by a physician’s assistant who disregarded repeated warnings by the drug maker. (The ruling indirectly “will cost lives“). As…
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by Greg Conko
March 05, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
I certainly take Alex’s point that libertarians can disagree about the appropriateness of federal preemption of state tort law. Indeed, Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion lays out a strong textual case against implied preemption of state law in all cases. However, there are a few points I was not able to make in yesterday’s post that better elucidate why preemption is better policy given the narrow facts presented in Wyeth v. Levine. And, Justice Alito’s dissenting opinion — after pointing out a few…
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by Greg Conko
March 04, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
The Supreme Court handed down its decision this morning in the Wyeth v. Levine federal preemption case, holding, by a 6-3 majority, that “Federal law does not pre-empt [plaintiff Diana] Levine’s claim that [the Wyeth drug] Phenergan’s label did not contain an adequate warning about the IV-push method of administration.” Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyr, and with Justice Thomas concurring in the judgment. Justice Alito wrote a compelling dissenting opinion, joined by…
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by Greg Conko
February 12, 2009 @ 11:41 am
You’ll never see Bill Gates using an iPhone or see General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner driving a Ford. So, naturally, when Novartis pharmaceuticals’ CEO Daniel Vasella revealed last year that he takes the Pfizer statin drug Lipitor to treat his high cholesterol instead of Novartis’s Lescol, it raised more than a few eyebrows.
It’s well known among doctors that people respond differently to different medications that treat the same condition. Vasella says he had some unpleasant side-effects when taking Lescol. And plenty…
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