Personal Injury Roundup No. 66 (2/12/10)

Reform, Legislation, Policy

• A lower pain-and-suffering damages cap for med malpractice suits under consideration in Utah.  (Salt Lake Tribune)
• FDA considers changing serving size information.  (NY Times)
• Connecticut gubernatorial candidate calls for medical malpractice tort reform.  (Stamford News)
• First Lady Michelle Obama discusses health care reform and obesity on Larry King. (CNN)
  

New Lawsuits

• 50 Indiana women file suit against Bayer over Yasmin. (IndyStar)
• Toyota lawsuits begin.  (Civ Pro Profs, National Law Journal/law.com)
• Brangelina sue  News of the World  for “false and misleading” breakup story.  (Us Mag, Guardian UK, BBC)
   

Trials, Settlements and Other Ends

• Jenny Craig settles false advertising suit by Weight Watchers.  (American Lawyer/law.com)

Appeals

• Third Circuit holds that Federal Tort Claims Act suits must state “sum certain” even if treatment is on-going.  (NJ Law Journal/law.com)
• Washington Supreme Court rejects nationwide consumer fraud class action against AT&T.  (Mass Tort Defense)

Damages

• Florida judge says he intends to reduce $224M punitive damages award to individual smoker.  (Cal Punitive Damages)
• Meanwhile, a Philadelphia judge reduced the punitive damages against Wyeth in a Preempro case from $75M to $5.6M.  (Mass Torts Profs)

Miscellaneous

•  “Online Defamation and Anonymous Defendants.”  (National Law Journal/law.com)

–SBS