Quantcast

WEST VIRGINIA RECORD

Thursday, March 28, 2024

John O'Brien News


Justice-owned company settles coal mine reclamation claims

By John O'Brien |
BIG STONE GAP, Va. (Legal Newsline) - A coal mining company owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and his family has reached a settlement with environment groups over the reclamation of its former sites.

Clients of crooked lawyer lose effort to get attorneys fees from feds

By John O'Brien |
CINCINNATI (Legal Newsline) – The federal government had reason to exclude medical reports from doctors involved in a lawyer’s social security scam, a federal court of appeals has ruled even though the attorney’s former clients have been given the chance to prove the reports are accurate.

EPA prodded to approve smog pollution plans

By John O'Brien |
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – Five states and New York City are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming they have struggled to meet air quality standards because of upwind pollution.

Lawsuit: Kroger reporting inflated prices on generic drugs

By John O'Brien |
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Legal Newsline) – Kroger is accused of a fraudulent pricing scheme to overcharge customers buying generic prescription medication.

Big plaintiffs firms circle government clients to score PFAS litigation contracts

By John O'Brien |
MIAMI (Legal Newsline) – A memo from Miami-Dade County shows that the nation’s prominent plaintiffs firms are competing with and aligning to each other in the hopes of grabbing the most important clients – local governments.

Senate Democrats push link between coronavirus and favored political cause

By John O'Brien |
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – Democrats in the U.S. Senate are attempting to link one of their pet projects to the COVID-19 pandemic in the days leading to a vote on a liability-expanding measure they tried to force through last year and failed.

Fifteen states to California: Don't tell our farmers how to treat animals

By John O'Brien |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – California is trying to impose its own animal-confinement agenda on farmers in the rest of the country, say the Republican attorneys general of 15 states.

Lawyer ads in 2020 are talking less about Roundup, more about coronavirus

By John O'Brien |
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – Personal injury lawyers cut their spending on Roundup advertising by more than half in the first two months of 2020.

State AGs ask Sixth Circuit for control of opioid settlement talks

By John O'Brien |
CINCINNATI (Legal Newsline) – The top legal officials in several states are complaining that their powers have been stolen by the federal judge overseeing more than 2,000 opioid lawsuits.

Trial lawyers start search for next big mass tort, increase Zantac ads by more than 1,000%

By John O'Brien |
Recent advertising figures indicate the makers of the heartburn drug Zantac and its generic equivalents will soon be facing an onslaught of lawsuits, as personal injury lawyers have begun the process of rounding up clients.

Oklahoma wanted decades of funding from opioid verdict, but will get only one year's worth

By John O'Brien |
NORMAN, Okla. (Legal Newsline) – Oklahoma’s landmark verdict in its opioid case against Johnson & Johnson does not mean the company must pump billions of dollars into the state over the next 30 years, a judge ruled Friday.

DOJ watchdog isn't impressed with the opioid 'Whistleblower'; What will jurors in historic trial think?

By John O'Brien |
CLEVELAND (Legal Newsline) – Is he blowing the whistle or passing the buck? A badge-flashing, gun-toting bulldog, or an ineffective bureaucrat? Is he defined by an appearance on "60 Minutes," or the fact that trial lawyers pay him $500 for 60 minutes of his time?

Here are the names of lawyers whose TV ads are scaring and lying to viewers, according to the FTC

By John O'Brien |
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – The Federal Trade Commission says lawyers and legal advertisers looking for plaintiffs to sue drug companies are making false claims in their TV ads, as well as possibly scaring viewers into stopping taking their medications.

No luck for Ohio AG in attempt to halt first federal opioid trial

By John O'Brien |
CINCINNATI (Legal Newsline) – A federal appeals court has turned away an attempt to halt the first federal opioid trial by ruling Thursday against Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who is concerned cities and counties in his state have usurped his authority.

Seeing all those Roundup commercials? That's because lawyers have spent $60M on them this year

By John O'Brien |
The search for clients to file cancer lawsuits over the weed-killer Roundup has exploded – even as the EPA says the product does not cause what lawyers are alleging.

Millions are spent on ads targeting diabetes medications, but FTC worried lawyers are lying in them

By John O'Brien |
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – As a federal agency considers whether lawyers are illegally frightening potential clients who see their television commercials, research shows drugs like Invokana and Truvada are among the most popular subjects of lawyer spending.

Sixth Circuit seeks answers from judge as states try to derail opioid bellwether trial

By John O'Brien |
CLEVELAND (Legal Newsline) – The judge overseeing nearly 2,000 opioid lawsuits must address concerns that the cases over which he is presiding are an improper power grab by plaintiffs lawyers who signed up cities and counties as clients.

Jurors won't get confused during huge opioid trial, judge rules; He'll set penalties after

By John O'Brien |
CLEVELAND (Legal Newsline) – A jury will determine who, if anyone, is liable for the nation’s addiction crisis, but the judge overseeing a historic trial will decide how much they would pay.

'Business decision': Did DEA boss leave opioid distributors hanging?

By John O'Brien |
During the boom of the addiction crisis in America, opioid distributors were told to figure out a system for identifying suspicious orders but what they came up with could never be given a stamp of approval from federal regulators – even if they asked.

‘Business decision’: Former DEA official works for opioid lawyers but set standards for how many pills were made

By John O'Brien |
Now, Rannazzisi is helping private lawyers pin the blame squarely on manufacturers and distributors of opioids, as well as pharmacies. A post-DEA alliance with trial lawyers has been worth six figures for Rannazzisi, who has been hailed as a whistleblower by those cheering attempts to prosecute the opioid industry for the nation’s addiction crisis.