Legal Wranglings

Coming from 15+ years in the corporate litigation arena, my eye is always caught by any headlines regarding interesting lawsuits. Having been on both sides of the corporate litigation ball at one time or another, I cannot peg myself either "plaintiff" or "defendant." I consider myself relatively objective when presented with ALL the facts. But there has been occasion when my desire to win created a tunnelvision so as to preclude any reasonable arguments on behalf of the opposing side.

This article is in regards to a man in Alabama suing Merck Pharmaceuticals four years after he suffered a heart attack whilst he was taking the anti-inflammatory Vioxx. He filed his suit last year - one year after Merck pulled the drug out of circulation. Apparently this gentleman suffered from many health issues before the heart attack (diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and was/is overweight). The jury found in favor of Merck and the plaintiff was denied his hoped-for payday of $5.75 million. (How this got to court is curious - - statute of limitations should have been somewhere in the neighborhood of two years.)

I have no problem with any part of the article regarding the lawsuits against Merck for what people feel are justifiable legal actions. You know where my problem is?? Look at the end of the article where it says: "A judge in one case ordered a retrial after jurors sided with Merck."

That tee-totally pisses me off!! You know why? Because that judge is essentially thumbing his nose at our jury trial system. In my book, there is no reason whatsoever that a judge should be allowed to order a retrial after a JURY verdict. I agree with the safeguards by letting judges order mis-trials due to any number of rights' violations, legal misconduct, procedural disqualifications, etc.

But if this judge (and I have no information as to specifics about the particular case) ordered a retrial for no other reason than he did not agree with its finding or he somehow felt that the jury was not qualified (and that's another argument for another day) to come to the conclusion that it did, he should be removed from the bench immediately.

That "good old boy" network crap PISSES me off!!!

Have a great weekend!!