By Jaime Bochet
Of the Legal Staff
Happy Friday! Start the end of the week off right with your daily round-up of stories in today's edition of The Legal Intelligencer. Click the links below to access stories directly, or head to The Legal homepage. (Some stories may require registration or a paid subscription.)
Once again, U.S. Courthouse Correspondent Shannon P. Duffy leads the front page with a big story out of the Eastern District: In a huge victory for pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, a federal judge has dismissed all claims in a massive consumer fraud and RICO suit that accused the company of trying to hide widespread manufacturing and quality control problems that led to recalls of a slew of popular over-the-counter drugs including Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec, Benadryl, Rolaids and Mylanta.
Below the fold on the front page, business of law reporter Gina Passarella reports that Duane Morris has filed preliminary objections in a legal malpractice case against the firm and two attorneys in which a prominent local couple claim they suffered "substantial losses" after the lawyers allegedly ignored their pleas for conservative investment strategies and their money ended up in the hands of Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff.
On Page 3, we have an article from our New Jersey affiliate the New Jersey Law Journal about a recent 3rd Circuit decision. The city of Newark, N.J., was ensnared last year when it settled a civil rights case by offering $55,000 to resolve a journalist's wrongful arrest claims. The plaintiff accepted the offer, but a district judge rejected his request for fees and costs. On Tuesday, the 3rd Circuit reversed in a precedential opinion, holding that because the offer was silent as to fees and costs, they were not part of it, and the district judge erred by looking at extrinsic evidence of what Newark intended.
As always, our People in the News section is on Page 2, and the top stories from our sister publications across the country are on our Page 4 National News page, including a story from our Georgia affiliate The Fulton County Daily Report, about the legacy of a case going back 15 years to the Atlanta Olympics bombing.
Our first contributed column, on Page 5, is "Franchise Law" by Craig R. Trachtenberg of Nixon Peabody, who writes about the need for franchise financing considering the new jobs the industry creates; 194,000 new jobs in 2011, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis.
The second contributed article is a commentary by Esther F. Lardent of the Pro Bono Institute, who writes that "doom and gloom" headlines should not overshadow important pro bono data. Although it is true that major firms contributed significantly fewer hours of pro bono service in 2010 than in the previous two years, it must be noted that 2010’s law firm pro bono hours were still the third highest in history.
As always, if you have questions or comments about today's issue, e-mail me or any of the reporters directly. We hope you'll enjoy today's Legal!
Jaime Bochet is the Magazines & Supplements Editor for The Legal. Follow her on Twitter at @JaimeBochetTLI or e-mail [email protected].
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