ALASKA - Senior U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland of the District of Alaska Friday reinstated a punitive damages award of $4 billion against Exxon Mobil Corp, for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the original record award of $5 billion “must be reduced,” because […]

New study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine says 35 percent of physicians and 42 percent of the general public say that they had experienced a medical error themselves, or had one affect a family member. The study is the first effort to quantify the public�s experience with medical mistakes as well as […]

MISSOURI — A St. Louis jury has ordered Aerojet General Corp to pay $5.1 million to the family of a 42-year-old woman who died of asbestos-related cancer after apparently being exposed to fibers while a toddler. The verdict came after Judge Robert Dierker sanctioned Aerojet and barred defense attorneys from presenting key evidence that the […]

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency was expected to warn Americans in April that their attics and walls might contain a brand of insulation known as Zonolite, which contains a lethal form of asbestos known as tremolite. But at the last minute the White House prevented such announcement. Zonolite insulation was sold throughout North America […]

Halliburton, a pipeline services company based in Huston, is trying to resolve tens of thousands of asbestos-related health claims without having the whole company file for bankruptcy. Halliburton inherited the Asbestos liabilities when it bought Dresser Industries in 1998, when Vice President Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton. Attorneys for both Halliburton and plaintiffs […]

AMBLER, PA — An EPA test has discovered asbestos at the Mattison Avenue Elementary School in Ambler, Montgomery County. The school will remain closed to students and staff, pending further testing. Wissahickon School District officials said the square-inch piece of asbestos was not airborne but collected in a corner in the maintenance garage, attached to […]

ZURICH, Switzerland — ABB, an industrial engineering group based in Switzerland, is trying to resolve a key asbestos liability case for a U.S. subsidiary, Combustion Engineering Inc. by offering to pay plaintiffs $300 million over several years on top of the unit’s assets of some $800 million. The plaintiffs are former workers and clients who […]

TEXAS - A jury in Texas ordered Mary Kay Inc. to pay $11.2 million including $10 million in punitive damages, for firing a sales manager disabled by cancer, who, the company argued, was not an employee but an independent contractor.
“This verdict means the 920,000 alleged independent contractors working for Mary Kay have their civil […]

Regulators said Tuesday Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.; Golden, Sachs & Co.; Morgan Stanley; Salomon Smith Barney Inc.; and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. were collectively fined $8.25 million - $1.65 million each - for failing to provide e-mails during an investigation whether the firms issued misleading or false research reports to court investment banking clients. […]

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston allowed priests accused of abuse to remain in ministry of failed to persuade them to receive residential psychiatric treatment, according to 2200 pages of church documents released by lawyers for plaintiffs in a lawsuit involving the Rev. Paul R. Shanley, who is accused of molesting several boys. The church […]