Jury awards Miss. man $7.6M over lung disease

November 13, 2009

A Warren County jury has awarded $7.6 million to a former sandblaster who developed severe silicosis.

 

The verdict is the first silicosis case to go to a jury in Mississippi.

 

Robert Eastman sandblasted for about 25 years at Marathon Letourneau in Vicksburg and used Mississippi Valley Silica Co. Inc.’s sand from 1963 until 1978, according to his lawsuit.

 

“Mr. Eastman suffers from progressive pulmonary massive fibrosis as a result of severe silicosis,” said Tim Porter, one of Eastman’s attorneys. “There was substantial proof put before the jury that Mississippi Valley Silica Co. Inc. knew that using sand while while abrasive blasting caused the incurable, deadly progressive disease silicosis.”

 

Mississippi Valley Silica is expected to appeal.

 

Read Article: The Jackson Clarion-Ledger

 

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Utah snags $24M in drug settlement

A four-year investigation into a pharmaceutical giant’s alleged off-label marketing of an anti-psychotic drug has earned a $24 million settlement for Utah.

 

“This isn’t just about money,” Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Wednesday. “The victims were those who could least afford health care.”

 

The Food and Drug Administration had approved Zyprexa’s use for treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. But, Utah investigators say, Eli Lilly’s sales force had been encouraging, since 1999, doctors to prescribe the drug for dementia, Alzheimer’s, agitation, aggression, hostility, depression and generalized sleep disorders.

 

“The thing that was remarkable was how vigorously it was promoted and how much we spent in our Utah Medicaid program” — the state’s Zyprexa tab totaled $11 million since 2007, said David Sundwall, executive director of Utah’s Department of Health.

 

“There aren’t that many psychotic people in Utah,” Sundwall said, noting there was clear documentation of the drug’s overuse and misuse.

 

Read Article: The Salt Lake Tribune

 

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Ex-Lockheed engineer claims F-22 tech ‘defective’

A former engineer for defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. claims in a federal whistleblower lawsuit that the company knowingly used “defective” stealth coatings when building its F-22 Raptor stealth jets.

 

Darrol Olsen, a stealth engineer who was fired by Lockheed in 1999, claims Lockheed “falsely certified” the coatings between September 1995 and June 1999, saying they had passed stealth tests and concealing results that showed otherwise. Olsen said in the lawsuit he was told to “stay out of it” when he complained to his superiors.

 

The whistleblower suit was originally filed in October 2007 in California and was unsealed earlier this year. It was transferred to federal court last week in Atlanta, near where the jets are assembled at Lockheed’s facility in Marietta.

 

Read Article: Ft. Worth Star Telegram

 

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Toy maker settles sex harassment suit against CEO

German toy maker Steiff has settled an $80 million lawsuit filed in June accusing the company’s CEO of conducting a yearslong campaign of unwelcome advances toward a U.S. marketing executive and raping her, a lawyer for the company said Wednesday.

 

When the lawsuit was filed by Steiff marketing executive Jane Collins in June, CEO Martin Frenchen said the allegations were meritless.

 

Also at the time, an attorney for the company, David Rosenthal, said it is “committed to providing a safe and comfortable working environment for all of its employees” and would contest Collins’ claims.

 

Read Article: The Washington Post

 

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Dearborn family sues water park in drowning

The family of a 3-year-old Dearborn boy who drowned at the Kalahari water park in Sandusky, Ohio, is suing the resort claiming wrongful death.

 

Hassan Itani drowned Aug. 2 in a 3-foot-deep kiddie pool in an outdoor portion of the resort known as the Lagoon. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Toledo alleges that Hassan did not have on a life vest as required by Kalahari policy and the park “did not have adequate lifeguards monitoring and guarding the Lagoon.”

 

Hassan’s mother lost sight of him as he entered the pool, which contained more than 50 people, the lawsuit states. When employees found him, he was face down in the Lagoon. He died later at an area hospital.

 

The lawsuit claims Kalahari “should have known that additional lifeguards were needed to monitor the Lagoon,” with more than 50 people wading there, and “should have known that decedent was not wearing a U.>S. Coast Guard approved life vest.”

 

Kalahari brings in more than 1 million guests each year to its 250,000 square-foot water park, according to the lawsuit.

 

Read Article: Detroit Free Press

 

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