Posted on 07/17/2013 8:27:24 PM PDT by OneWingedShark
In case readers missed it with all the coverage of the Trayvon Martin murder trial and the Supreme Court’s rulings on gay marriage and the Voting Rights Act, the US Supreme Court also made a ruling on lawsuits against drug companies for fraud, mislabeling, side effects and accidental death. From now on, 80 percent of all drugs are exempt from legal liability.
In a 5-4 vote, the US Supreme Court struck down a lower court’s ruling and award for the victim of a pharmaceutical drug’s adverse reaction. According to the victim and the state courts, the drug caused a flesh-eating side effect that left the patient permanently disfigured over most of her body. The adverse reaction was hidden by the drug maker and later forced to be included on all warning labels. But the highest court in the land ruled that the victim had no legal grounds to sue the corporation because its drugs are exempt from lawsuits.
(Excerpt) Read more at whiteoutpress.com ...
this is ridiculous.
I want to start a drug company and be exempt from lawsuits.
I’ll sell milk and call it a drug. They go after farmers selling raw milk for cryin out loud.
Yet they exempt drug companies. Effing morons.
The only thing the court said was the Supremacy clause was still in effect.
“Held: State-law design-defect claims that turn on the adequacy of a drug’s warnings are pre-empted by federal law under PLIVA. Pp. 6-20.”
THIS JUST IN: Mass suicides reported among trial lawyers.
That would be the supremacy-clause they use to justify making laws that are in no wise in pursuance of the Constitution —and indeed contrary to it— as being superior to the State laws?
yes, did you read the decision or just the headline? I like reading Alito.
No, they will just change their area of expertise to divorce lawyers and jump on the queer marriage/divorce bandwagon ... much money to be made by all.
THIS JUST IN: Expect 20X the goldbug commercials now the baddrug commercials will disappear.
Read the article, haven't gotten to the decision yet (it's on my queue).
Don’t get too bent out of shape over this, which actually happened in june 2012, a year ago....
The drug company was a generic maker, and the drug was a simple NSAID drug with a zillion warnings on the label but the warnings did not include the medical name for the particular diagnosed skin issue that the patient developed, although it did include many conditions like it, just not this particular one...
The Generic maker is required by state law to have the same label as the original med it is substituting...so it could not have changed the label legally should it have wanted to so it falls back on the Feds to change the label on the original and they did not do it....so....
The generic makers was found to be immune from the suit as it could not have complied because of government regs...
In any case.....frankly the woman would have gotten the condition regardless of the label...she apparently reacted to it as the warning label warned her might happen...Never heard of the med....sounds like one of those 12 hr nsaids...I never use the crap..
I'd be interested to see how Freepers with a legal background might weigh in on this.
Not a lawyer but I did stay in a Holiday Inn once.....
If you cut through all the legal crud, you find that she sued the wrong entity...she should have sued the government.......LOL
1. To rule otherwise would do away with generics and make all drugs more expensive.
2. Get used to not being able to sue in medical cases as Obama care morphs into single player and you can not sue the government.
It seems the feds have created this issue. Perhaps generic manufacturers should be permitted to add to, but not take away from, warning labels that were approved for the original manufacturer.
This suit is a lot like the one where a guy picked up his lawnmower and used it for a hedge clipper.....He cut his fingers off...
Sued the mower maker for not warning him about using it specifically as a hedge clipper...won the suit...
Now you have that idiot proof handle that you have to hold down to keep the mower running....they then discovered that this was not enough and also put a brake on it so that the blades stopped faster....
At the time I said that this country is gonna go off the cliff...and that was some 20 years ago.....I think we are over that ledge and falling, which is why we don’t yet feel the pain of the hard landing..Just a matter of time now....
I don’t object to that......lol
No doubt about it...
On top of that, you would be suing a Dr’s assistant...or PA...I doubt we will ever see another doctor in most of the more populous areas....That’s what happened in Canada..
One doctor and 4,000 helpers...
Horrendous. I rarely take any BigPharma products and now don’t want to take any at all.
Not that I want to sue the jerks. But they ARE responsible for making products that hurt, damage and kill people and need to be sued when necessary.
I believe that BigPharma should NOT be allowed to market their products to anyone but doctors. No more of these nicey nicey ads for dangerous drugs instructing people every so nicely to “ask your doctor if you need” their product. I do not EVER take drugs advertised in this way and have already put that into my doctors’ records.
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