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DOJ Launches Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program

In 2024, the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division launched the Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program to combat corporate crime. The Corporate Whistleblower Pilot Program will run through 2027, before being re-evaluated, and is modeled on other successful whistleblower programs like those administered by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Pilot Program is designed …

Tabletop Fire Pits Can Explode, Cause Serious Burn Injuries and Death

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is warning consumers to immediately stop using alcohol-burning or other liquid fuel tabletop fire pits following two deaths and at least 60 injuries in the past five years. Tabletop fire pits — also called fire pots, miniature fireplaces and personal fireplaces — are small, portable fireplaces that can be placed on a tabletop or …

NHTSA Issues Final Rule for Auto Whistleblower Program

On December 12, 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published the final rule formalizing its whistleblower program, as required by the Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act. The final rule deviates little from the rule proposed by NHTSA in April 2023, which addressed definitions of key program terms, tip-filing requirements, award applications, how decisions are made on award applications, …

SEC Obtains Orders for a Record $8.2 Billion in Financial Remedies in Fiscal Year 2024

In fiscal year 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed 583 enforcement actions and obtained orders for $8.2 billion in financial remedies—the most ever obtained by the SEC in a single fiscal year. The $8.2 billion consisted of $6.1 billion in disgorgement and prejudgment interest and $2.1 billion in civil penalties. The SEC also obtained orders barring 124 individuals from serving …

When Fun Toys Kill: The Products Liability Case Against Water Beads

Water beads are sold for children as toys, educational materials, art materials, sensory tools, and as projectiles for “gel blaster” guns. Adults use them as decorative, crafting and gardening supplies. When these small, colorful beads are swallowed by children, they do not simply get digested and pass through a child’s body. Instead, they absorb fluids and expand to many times …

The Products Liability Case Against Tianeptine: The Deadly “Dietary Supplement” Found at Your Local Store

You see them displayed by the cash register. Neptune’s Fix and other tianeptine-based products promise to help brain function, treat anxiety and depression, and even manage opioid addiction. Unbeknownst to many consumers, these products have been associated with severe adverse medical events, including seizures and even deaths. This article, written by John M. Dodig and Jason A. Daria and published in …

Fisher-Price Recalls Snuga Swings After Five Infant Deaths

In a recall that one federal safety regulator has characterized as “doomed to fail,” Fisher-Price is offering its customers $25 to remove components from its Snuga Swings — which have been linked to five infant deaths — instead of offering a meaningful remedy that would get this unsafe product out of people’s homes. On October 10, 2024, Fisher-Price announced the recall …

Lawmakers Seek to Address Supersized Vehicles That Kill Pedestrians

Federal lawmakers have introduced legislation aimed at reducing the number of pedestrians who are killed and seriously injured in crashes with supersized passenger vehicles. Recent government data show that there are more than 40,000 fatal car crashes per year in the United States. Between 2013 and 2022, pedestrian fatalities increased 57 percent from 4,779 to 7,522, according to the National Highway …

CPSC Warns Against Two Cradle Swings That Pose Suffocation and Fall Hazards

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is warning parents and caregivers to stop using DNYSYSJ and OUKANING cradle swings due to the risk of suffocation and falls. According to the CPSC, the cradle swings violate federal safety regulations for bassinets and cradles. The warning, issued on August 15, 2024, states that the “folds” of the cradle swing’s segmented sleeping pad …

April 2nd, 2014

The last week in February, Michael Walsh published an article in the New Jersey Law Journal claiming that courts are “relegating failure-to-warn claims, the decades-old staple of medical products liability, to the trash bin of tort jurisprudence” in favor of parallel claims. Walsh points to three …

March 26th, 2014

Despite that Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey wrote a memo in 2011 advising all officers that civilians are permitted to take photographs or video footage of them in public places, some in the department have been slow to adapt. A year after Ramsey informed police …

March 19th, 2014

General Motors has recently announced a recall of 1.6 million of its vehicles, some of which are linked with thirteen deaths over the past eleven years. And federal safety regulators have announced that since 2003, they have received 260 complaints–two per month–specifically about how these …

March 12th, 2014

Kaiser Health News recently revealed that several hundred nursing home cases in Los Angeles County were closed without any investigation as part of the so-called “Complaint Workload Clean Up Project.” Anna Gorman, the author of the exposÃ©, notes that this is not the first time …

March 5th, 2014

In early February of this year, the Des Moines Register editorial staff ran an article attempting to confirm what this blog has been arguing since its inception: efforts toward so-called tort reform have accomplished very little when it comes to increasing the number of doctors …

February 26th, 2014

We have commented in previous blogs about the inadequacy of the self-regulation of physicians by the medical community. Apparently, only in the most egregious cases will medical boards step in to breach to revoke a physician’s medical license. Earlier this month, an anesthesiologist in Pompton …

February 19th, 2014

This blog has covered the United States Chamber of Commerce before, calling it in 2011 a“misleadingly named collection of businesses considered the largest pro-corporation lobbying group in the U.S.” We also pointed out that among its Board of Directors are executives from some of the …

February 12th, 2014

This past January, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court took up a question that had been addressed by lower courts in the state over the past few years: Does witnessing a family member’s death fall under an insurance policy’s coverage of “bodily injury to a person and …

February 5th, 2014

A new pamphlet published by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) called “How Safe Is Your Hospital for Workers?” includes some startling facts about the dangers that hospitals present not only to patients, but to their employees as well. For example, in terms of …