Atlanta, Georgia Personal Injury Lawyer
Ransdell Pierson of Reuters reported that Merck & Co (MRK.N) announced today that more than 97 percent of eligible U.S. claimants had elected to participate in its $4.85 billion proposed Vioxx settlement.
To be eligible for the proposed settlement, patients or their survivors had to have filed a Vioxx product liability lawsuit in the United States for alleged heart attacks, stroke or death or have signaled officially their intent to do so.
Vioxx had generated sales of $2.5 billion a year before the arthritis and chronic pain pill was withdrawn from U.S. drugstores almost four years ago after a Merck study showed that long-term users had twice the risk of heart attack and stroke.
A very large clinical trial of Vioxx conducted almost a decade ago showed the medicine caused about a fourfold higher risk of heart attack than the widely used painkiller naproxen.
Despite the results, the FDA allowed Vioxx to remain on the market. Then Merck heavily advertising the drug despite its knowledge of the risks.
Some good news is that many industry analysts feel the FDA has become far more careful about approving new medicines since Vioxx was taken off the market.
To be eligible for the proposed settlement, patients or their survivors had to have filed a Vioxx product liability lawsuit in the United States for alleged heart attacks, stroke or death or have signaled officially their intent to do so.
Vioxx had generated sales of $2.5 billion a year before the arthritis and chronic pain pill was withdrawn from U.S. drugstores almost four years ago after a Merck study showed that long-term users had twice the risk of heart attack and stroke.
A very large clinical trial of Vioxx conducted almost a decade ago showed the medicine caused about a fourfold higher risk of heart attack than the widely used painkiller naproxen.
Despite the results, the FDA allowed Vioxx to remain on the market. Then Merck heavily advertising the drug despite its knowledge of the risks.
Some good news is that many industry analysts feel the FDA has become far more careful about approving new medicines since Vioxx was taken off the market.
Labels: brain injury, death, injury settlements, pain, vioxx
In 2005, Ms. Kathleen Donovan was stopped in traffic north of Ventura, California, when her sedan was rear-ended by a pickup truck driven by Patrick Gallagher, an employee of Gold Coast Erectors. Larry Johnson, another driver and an employee of Weatherford USLP, had been driving between Donovan and Gallagher, but swerved out of the lane when Donovan stopped. Ms. Donovan sustained fatal injuries and died at the scene of the wreck.
Her mother, Constance Donovan, sued Gallagher, Gold Coast Erectors, Johnson and Weatherford USLP, alleging negligence.
Gallagher and Gold Coast Erectors admitted liability but argued that Johnson and Weatherford were also negligent. Both Johnson and his firm denied liability. Gallagher contended that he was driving behind Johnson’s vehicle, which blocked his view of Ms. Donovan. Gallagher argued that Johnson did not slow appropriately, forcing him to swerve out of the lane when Ms. Donovan stopped and that this was negligent, because it compromised his opportunity to avoid the collision.
Constance Donovan did not seek any economic damages, as she was not financially dependent on her daughter at the time of her death, but asked the jury for $3.5 to $4.5 million in noneconomic damages for the value of her daughter's life. The jury awarded her $1.2 million in noneconomic damages, with 90 percent of the fault to Gallagher and Gold Coast Erectors and 10 percent to Johnson and Weatherford USLP.
Even though you may be among the safest drivers on the road, you never know when the actions of those around you can cause injury and death. The Law Offices of Michael L. Neff ask you to drive defensively; and if you or a loved one has been injured in a Georgia car or truck accident that was someone else’s fault, call us or email us immediately before evidence is destroyed. Let us help you get the settlement you deserve.
Her mother, Constance Donovan, sued Gallagher, Gold Coast Erectors, Johnson and Weatherford USLP, alleging negligence.
Gallagher and Gold Coast Erectors admitted liability but argued that Johnson and Weatherford were also negligent. Both Johnson and his firm denied liability. Gallagher contended that he was driving behind Johnson’s vehicle, which blocked his view of Ms. Donovan. Gallagher argued that Johnson did not slow appropriately, forcing him to swerve out of the lane when Ms. Donovan stopped and that this was negligent, because it compromised his opportunity to avoid the collision.
Constance Donovan did not seek any economic damages, as she was not financially dependent on her daughter at the time of her death, but asked the jury for $3.5 to $4.5 million in noneconomic damages for the value of her daughter's life. The jury awarded her $1.2 million in noneconomic damages, with 90 percent of the fault to Gallagher and Gold Coast Erectors and 10 percent to Johnson and Weatherford USLP.
Even though you may be among the safest drivers on the road, you never know when the actions of those around you can cause injury and death. The Law Offices of Michael L. Neff ask you to drive defensively; and if you or a loved one has been injured in a Georgia car or truck accident that was someone else’s fault, call us or email us immediately before evidence is destroyed. Let us help you get the settlement you deserve.
Labels: car accidents, car wreck, damages, dead, death, injury attorney, lawsuit, pain and suffering, truck accident
A decision was made a couple of weeks ago in the case of a cheerleader from New Jersey who died in 2004 while she was in Hawaii to perform for the Hula Bowl.
According to court testimony, the teenager had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the state’s legal limit for driving when she fell to her death from a hotel balcony in Hawaii. The chaperone of the cheerleader has been ordered by an arbitrator to pay the family and estate of 18-year-old Lauren Crossan nearly $700,000.
With summer here, teenagers will be heading to beaches and vacation spots to party. The Law offices of Michael L. Neff ask you to please counsel your teens on the tragic circumstances we see all to often when kids drink alcohol. And as always, if someone you love is injured due to someone else’s negligence, call a personal injury lawyer right away. For more information call us at 404-531-9700 or email us now.
According to court testimony, the teenager had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the state’s legal limit for driving when she fell to her death from a hotel balcony in Hawaii. The chaperone of the cheerleader has been ordered by an arbitrator to pay the family and estate of 18-year-old Lauren Crossan nearly $700,000.
With summer here, teenagers will be heading to beaches and vacation spots to party. The Law offices of Michael L. Neff ask you to please counsel your teens on the tragic circumstances we see all to often when kids drink alcohol. And as always, if someone you love is injured due to someone else’s negligence, call a personal injury lawyer right away. For more information call us at 404-531-9700 or email us now.
As reported by ANDRIA SIMMONS The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/06/08
A few minutes after dusk last Monday, five drivers made their way north from Atlanta on I-85, unaware their lives were about to intersect.
Adekunle Akinmola, 42, had just finished checking a rental property he owns in Stone Mountain. He expected a quiet evening at home in Dacula with his wife and four children.
Scott Hoeft, 45, a roofing contractor, had left the VA Hospital to join his wife and son in Suwanee.
Mehboob Hashim, 49, and his 11-year-old son had just come from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where he met his two sisters, in town from London to attend a relative's wedding. The sisters and Hashim's wife rode in a separate car.
"My son was talking about his school, what he wanted to do on spring break," Hashim recalled. "I was telling him hopefully we'll go out somewhere."
They were the lucky ones — Akinmola, Hoeft and Hashim. They made it home at the end of the night, badly shaken and emotionally devastated, but nevertheless alive.
At about 8:30 p.m. Monday, those three drivers were caught up in a five-car, chain-reaction collision that state DOT officials said was the deadliest to occur in northeast Georgia in the past 15 years.
The fates of the remaining two drivers — Mark Anthony Gay, 44, and Carmon Cody Rhoden, 20 — were about to become intertwined.
A baseball fanatic, Rhoden was driving home to Gainesville from the Atlanta Braves home opener, which he attended with a buddy he worked with at the Rhoden family's tire shop in Gainesville. The two young men were discussing fishing and baseball to pass the time on the hourlong ride home, said Jeffrey Sliz, Rhoden's lawyer.
The atmosphere was lighthearted that evening in Gay's Ford Excursion limousine.
Seated in the back, the Randle family was reminiscing happily about a recent trip to their former home near Salt Lake City. The mother and father, the couple's two children, future son-in-law and baby grandson had gone to catch up with old friends and attend a wedding.
Gay, a widower and father to a 15-year-old son, had taken the family to the airport about a week earlier. Now he was taking them home to Lawrenceville.
One family member, Falleen Randle, 43, was talking on a cellphone with her brother, "laughing and joking" as she described the trip, her sister Sulianna Chandler said.
The limousine approached the intersection of Indian Trail Lilburn Road in Norcross, about eight miles from its destination.
In a split-second, the lives of the five drivers converged.
Brakes screeched, glass shattered, metal crunched and a sea of cars traveling behind them ground to a halt as a chain-reaction wreck unfolded.
Police said Rhoden was driving recklessly, speeding and weaving in and out of lanes when he clipped the SUV limo.
The limo slammed into the back of a Toyota Corolla driven by Hashim and flipped several times. A few feet away, Akinmola's Mercedes and Hoeft's Ford F-150 pickup truck collided in the center lane.
Killed were Gay and three members of the Randle family: Alexander Randle, 14; his sister, Whitney Randle, 21; and Whitney's 13-month-old son, Kayden Alexander Randle-Finley.
Demetrius Randle, 45, Alexander and Whitney's father and the baby's grandfather, suffered a severe head injury. He was in critical condition Friday at Gwinnett Medical Center.
Rhoden was arrested the following day on multiple charges, including first-degree vehicular homicide.
The drivers who survived say they are still haunted by memories of the accident.
Hoeft's left knee was banged up in the crash, and he had to take a few days off work because the truck he uses on the job was impounded. Flashbacks keep him awake at night.
"I've seen it every night in my sleep," Hoeft said. "I haven't slept more than two hours a night since it happened."
Hashim considers himself lucky, even though his car was badly damaged and his son suffered a bruise from the seat belt.
If Hashim's wife had not lost her parking receipt at the airport, causing a 10-minute delay, she and his two sisters probably would have been involved in the crash, too.
"Thank God that she wasn't there. It would have been very bad," Hashim said.
Akinmola's neck and back are sore, and he keeps visualizing the grisly aftermath of the crash.
Like the other drivers, Akinmola has been turning the events over in his mind, trying to find answers to the difficult questions of life and death, suffering and salvation.
"I keep thinking about it, how it could have been me," Akinmola said. "People like me and the other people that survived, it's not because we're special or anything. I believe it's just God wants to keep us alive for whatever the reasons are. It's by his grace that we're alive."
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/04/05/metwreck_0406a_3DOT.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=13
Published on: 04/06/08
A few minutes after dusk last Monday, five drivers made their way north from Atlanta on I-85, unaware their lives were about to intersect.
Adekunle Akinmola, 42, had just finished checking a rental property he owns in Stone Mountain. He expected a quiet evening at home in Dacula with his wife and four children.
Scott Hoeft, 45, a roofing contractor, had left the VA Hospital to join his wife and son in Suwanee.
Mehboob Hashim, 49, and his 11-year-old son had just come from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where he met his two sisters, in town from London to attend a relative's wedding. The sisters and Hashim's wife rode in a separate car.
"My son was talking about his school, what he wanted to do on spring break," Hashim recalled. "I was telling him hopefully we'll go out somewhere."
They were the lucky ones — Akinmola, Hoeft and Hashim. They made it home at the end of the night, badly shaken and emotionally devastated, but nevertheless alive.
At about 8:30 p.m. Monday, those three drivers were caught up in a five-car, chain-reaction collision that state DOT officials said was the deadliest to occur in northeast Georgia in the past 15 years.
The fates of the remaining two drivers — Mark Anthony Gay, 44, and Carmon Cody Rhoden, 20 — were about to become intertwined.
A baseball fanatic, Rhoden was driving home to Gainesville from the Atlanta Braves home opener, which he attended with a buddy he worked with at the Rhoden family's tire shop in Gainesville. The two young men were discussing fishing and baseball to pass the time on the hourlong ride home, said Jeffrey Sliz, Rhoden's lawyer.
The atmosphere was lighthearted that evening in Gay's Ford Excursion limousine.
Seated in the back, the Randle family was reminiscing happily about a recent trip to their former home near Salt Lake City. The mother and father, the couple's two children, future son-in-law and baby grandson had gone to catch up with old friends and attend a wedding.
Gay, a widower and father to a 15-year-old son, had taken the family to the airport about a week earlier. Now he was taking them home to Lawrenceville.
One family member, Falleen Randle, 43, was talking on a cellphone with her brother, "laughing and joking" as she described the trip, her sister Sulianna Chandler said.
The limousine approached the intersection of Indian Trail Lilburn Road in Norcross, about eight miles from its destination.
In a split-second, the lives of the five drivers converged.
Brakes screeched, glass shattered, metal crunched and a sea of cars traveling behind them ground to a halt as a chain-reaction wreck unfolded.
Police said Rhoden was driving recklessly, speeding and weaving in and out of lanes when he clipped the SUV limo.
The limo slammed into the back of a Toyota Corolla driven by Hashim and flipped several times. A few feet away, Akinmola's Mercedes and Hoeft's Ford F-150 pickup truck collided in the center lane.
Killed were Gay and three members of the Randle family: Alexander Randle, 14; his sister, Whitney Randle, 21; and Whitney's 13-month-old son, Kayden Alexander Randle-Finley.
Demetrius Randle, 45, Alexander and Whitney's father and the baby's grandfather, suffered a severe head injury. He was in critical condition Friday at Gwinnett Medical Center.
Rhoden was arrested the following day on multiple charges, including first-degree vehicular homicide.
The drivers who survived say they are still haunted by memories of the accident.
Hoeft's left knee was banged up in the crash, and he had to take a few days off work because the truck he uses on the job was impounded. Flashbacks keep him awake at night.
"I've seen it every night in my sleep," Hoeft said. "I haven't slept more than two hours a night since it happened."
Hashim considers himself lucky, even though his car was badly damaged and his son suffered a bruise from the seat belt.
If Hashim's wife had not lost her parking receipt at the airport, causing a 10-minute delay, she and his two sisters probably would have been involved in the crash, too.
"Thank God that she wasn't there. It would have been very bad," Hashim said.
Akinmola's neck and back are sore, and he keeps visualizing the grisly aftermath of the crash.
Like the other drivers, Akinmola has been turning the events over in his mind, trying to find answers to the difficult questions of life and death, suffering and salvation.
"I keep thinking about it, how it could have been me," Akinmola said. "People like me and the other people that survived, it's not because we're special or anything. I believe it's just God wants to keep us alive for whatever the reasons are. It's by his grace that we're alive."
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/04/05/metwreck_0406a_3DOT.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=13
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