Oklahoma News

CVS Caremark Corp. has agreed to pay $11 million to settle civil allegations by the Justice Department that the company failed to keep proper records of pharmacy drug sales in Oklahoma, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

After his 12-year-old son — yes, 12 — was sued last year by a woman who got conked by the boy's errant throw at a Little League baseball game, Bob Migliaccio of Asbury Park, N.J., told his local newspaper he wasn't shocked because “people sue every day.” Do they ever.

Woe unto state jurists who think they know better than the U.S. Supreme Court. And woe unto everyone possessed of the notion that state courts have the power to undo arbitration clauses on public policy grounds.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a dispute over a noncompete clause must be heard by an arbitrator, as called for in an employment agreement, in an opinion that takes the Oklahoma Supreme Court to task for discounting federal precedent.

Abusive lawsuits are blamed for the shutdown of gas can manufacturer Blitz USA in an ad by the Institute for Legal Reform.

Crusading against what it considers frivolous lawsuits, the United States Chamber of Commerce has had no shortage of cases to highlight, like the man suing a cruise line after burning his feet on a sunny deck or the mother claiming hearing loss from the screaming at a Justin Bieber concert.

The 2012 state liability systems ranking, released in September, was conducted for the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform to explore how fair and reasonable states’ tort liability systems are and to quantify how corporate attorneys view state systems.

Three states have joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Dodd-Frank Act, complaining that it gives the government too much power to take over and liquidate nonbank companies whose failure would jeopardize the financial system.

The July 31 letter from the trial lawyers who bankrupted Blitz USA is indicative of the problem with our civil justice system. While the authors are correct that a strong and effective civil justice system provides accountability, it's clear that we don't have one. Our system is too expensive, takes too long and allows the truth to be twisted. It disregards personal accountability at the expense of the common good.

Imagine you've worked at the same job for the last 30 years. The majority of your working life has been spent helping put together red gasoline "cans," meant to safely store gasoline, and sold at your local gas station and supermarket.  Now imagine that your career and future livelihood are gone because of product misuse and lawsuit abuse.