Tag: lawsuits

Pfizer agrees to settle 10,000 lawsuits accusing pharma giant of hiding cancer risks of heartburn drug Zantac

Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits alleging it it of hiding the cancer risks of its heartburn drug Zantac.

The financial details have not been revealed but pharma rival Sanofi agreed to pay more than $100million to resolve 4,000 Zantac-cancer claims last nonth.

The over-the-counter pill was pulled in the US in 2020 after animal studies found a key ingredient released ‘probable human carcinogens’.

Pfizer was the primary manufacturer of Zantac from 1998 to 2006, when several suits claim it should have known that the drug was contaminated with NDMA.

Plaintiffs claimed the drug was contaminated with the impurity through improper manufacturing practices, and that Pfizer withheld this information from consumers.

NDMA is a chemical byproduct of many industrial manufacturing processes, including the production of rocket fuel.

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TikTok Sues US Government Over Forced Divestment Law

TikTok filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to block a new law requiring either the sale of the app by its Chinese parent company or its removal from app stores and web-hosting services. About two weeks ago, President Joe Biden signed the bill, which had passed both legislative chambers with broad bipartisan support.

In a filing with a federal appeals court in Washington, TikTok challenges the constitutionality of the new law on the grounds that the U.S. government infringed the First Amendment rights of TikTok and its hundreds of millions of users over national security concerns.

The new law sets the initial deadline for a TikTok sale by January 2025, and President Biden can decide to extend the deadline by another three months to allow the deal to be completed.

Lawmakers supporting the new law argued that it was not a ban but a divestiture aimed at preventing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from accessing American consumer data and the algorithm owned by TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, from potentially influencing Americans.

However, the company has maintained that it has not and will not share American user data with the CCP. According to China’s counterespionage law, ByteDance must hand over data on American users if requested.

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NYPD union sues over officers’ rights to use steroids

Lawyers from the Police Benevolent Association have filed a lawsuit against NYPD Police Commissioner Edward Caban and Mayor Adams over recent policy changes relating to the use of performance enhancing drugs such as steroids by active duty officers. From NY Daily News:

The 2011 contract prohibited officers from ingesting or possessing any anabolic steroid or other forms of human growth hormones without a medical prescription. However, the old standard didn’t require officers to run any such prescription by their NYPD district surgeon before starting to use it.

The new protocol — which was enacted on Dec. 26, 2023, and described in an internal memo reviewed by The News as a “zero tolerance drug policy” — beefs up the old rule by affirming that officers must “immediately notify their district surgeon” of any steroid prescription they receive and provide “all supporting medical documentation” to the surgeon backing up the need for the drug.

If officers are caught violating the new rule by, for example, deviating from a prescribed dosage, they can face firing, the memo says.

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Biden Files Lawsuit Against Gas Station Chain Sheetz the Same Day He Was Mocked for Shuffling Into It

President Joe Biden stopped by a Sheetz location on Wednesday to purchase snacks while on a campaign swing through Pennsylvania on the same day that his Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit against the company and two of its subsidiaries.

Apparently, no one informed the president that his administration considered Sheetz guilty of racial discrimination against applicants. Or someone did tell Biden that, and he just didn’t care.

It might not matter, given the questionable nature of the claim against the company.

“According to the lawsuit, Sheetz has maintained a longstanding practice of screening all job applicants for records of criminal conviction and then denying them employment based on those records,” the EEOC said in a news release (available below).

Those screenings resulted in 14.5 percent of blacks being turned down for jobs, compared with 13.5 percent of “multiracial” applicants, 13 percent of Native Americans, and nearly 8 percent of whites.

The EEOC did not accuse Sheetz of active racism, but said federal law prohibits hiring practices that impact minorities differently than non-minorities.

Even if the criminal background checks are shown to be necessary, an EEOC lawyer said, they could still be unlawful if some other means could be employed that would provide safety without the allegedly discriminatory effects.

The EEOC statement suggested no such alternatives, however.

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Biden Admin Sues Sheetz Over ‘Discriminatory’ Hiring Practices Days After He’s Torched Online Over Botched Photo Ops At Other Gas Stations

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under the Biden administration took legal action against the Sheetz convenience store and gas station chain on Thursday.

The lawsuit, which comes one day after Biden made a campaign stop at a Sheetz in Pennsylvania, and on the heels of the president’s “scripted” Wawa stop in Philadelphia last week that was widely blasted online, alleges that the Sheetz’s hiring procedures “disproportionately screened out Black, Native American/Alaska Native, and multiracial applicants.”

The EEOC asserted in a press release that the Sheetz chain’s utilization of criminal conviction records as a basis for screening and rejecting applicants constitutes a breach of Title VII’s prohibition on “disparate impact discrimination.”

The EEOC, however, did not allege that the convenience store chain “was motivated by race when making hiring decisions.”

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CDC is Sued For Scrubbing Digital Records

AFL this week sued two federal departments and their chiefs alleging that they illegally destroyed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) records.

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its secretary, Xavier Becerra, as well as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan have been named in the filing, which states that their actions amount to a violation of the Federal Records Act.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

Namely, AFL claims the two departments under the current administration illegally deleted emails of former CDC employees, which constitute federal records.

The case, the non-profit hopes, will serve to highlight what they say is the Biden White House “partisan two-tier justice system.”

This is because, at the same time as NARA and NHHS are going about destroying the said emails without, up until this point, being held accountable, former President Donald Trump is being prosecuted over possession of presidential records.

However, if federal records are no longer kept based on allowing individuals over at the CDC to evaluate which emails to delete and which to keep (this was, in a nutshell, the NARA justification of the situation) – then the accusations against Trump made by NARA and picked up by the Department of Justice have no merit.

All the more so since in Trump’s case, AFL continued, those were documents that were either personal records or non-records.

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Teacher sues after he’s convicted of putting ‘For Sale’ sign in truck window

A retired Pennsylvania teacher is suing his local government after he was convicted of a criminal charge for putting a “For Sale” sign in his truck window.

Will Cramer teamed up with the Institute for Justice last week to take legal action against the borough of Nazareth over its ordinance, claiming that it’s a violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the nonprofit law firm.

Cramer had put the sign in his 1987 Chevy Deluxe last October and received a ticket stating that parking a vehicle in public “for the purposes” of selling it was illegal.

“It made no sense to me that I could park my truck on the street legally, but as soon as I put a ‘For Sale’ sign in the window, it became illegal,” said Cramer, who was found guilty by a judge after trying to fight his ticket.

“This lawsuit is bigger than me, it’s about standing up for the free speech rights of everybody in Nazareth.” 

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Georgia Independent Bookstore Sues Jail Over Policy Banning Book Shipments

A Georgia jail is refusing all books shipped to inmates, except those that come from major retailers. One local bookshop is suing, saying that policy is unconstitutional.

In May 2023, two different people visited Avid Bookshop, a progressive independent bookstore located in Athens, Georgia. Each customer purchased three books to mail to an inmate at the Gwinnett County Jail. Both packages were returned, with papers from the jail listing the reason as “Not from publisher/authorized Retailer.” The shoppers asked Avid if the store could mail the books directly.

Each time, Luis Correa, Avid’s operations manager, packaged new paperback copies of the same books and mailed them directly from the store. Aware of the jail’s stated policy that shipments “must have a packing slip or receipt stating what is in the package,” Correa included both. (Correa declined to be interviewed for this article.)

Again, the packages came back, with a sticker saying they were “not sent from publisher or authorized retailer.”

Gwinnett County’s website states that “magazines/non-local newspaper subscriptions and books will be accepted as long as they are mailed directly from the publisher or authorized retailer,” but it gives no clarification on what an authorized retailer is or how to become one.

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Lawmakers in San Francisco Want to Allow Residents to Sue Grocery Stores for Closing

Stores throughout greater San Francisco have been closing for months. Major retailers have ditched the city, as well as pharmacies and grocery stores. All mainly due to crime and theft.

Now lawmakers in the city want to allow residents to sue grocery stores for closing.

This is completely backwards. The city could stop all of the theft tomorrow if they wanted to by simply enforcing the law. Then the stores wouldn’t close in the first place. But that would entail admitting that the left’s policies are wrong and don’t work, so they’re going after the stores.

The New York Post reports:

San Francisco lawmakers want to let city residents sue grocery stores that close

A pair of progressive San Francisco lawmakers are pushing a bill that would allow residents in the crime-ravaged city to sue grocery stores that close up shop if they don’t give six months’ notice.

The proposal by San Francisco Board of Supervisors members Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin would require business to either find a successor grocer or work out a plan with residents in the neighborhood to ensure the availability of supermarket options.

The Grocery Protection Act – which is based on a proposal the board approved in 1984 that was vetoed by then-San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein — comes amid a rash of retail theft fueled by the city’s drug and homelessness crisis that has led to several business closures.

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LA’s District Attorney Sued By Game Of Thrones Actor Over Dismissed Pedophilia Charges

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón is facing legal action after a “Game of Thrones” actor filed suit over dismissed pedophilia charges.

Joseph Gatt—best known for his role as “Thenn Warg” on the popular HBO television series—is suing the city of Los Angeles, the LAPD, and the District Attorney’s office.

The 52-year-old is seeking $40 million in damages, and says the allegations made against him were not only career-ending, but ruined his reputation by branding him as a “serial pedophile.”

The charges stem from a 2022 arrest after Mr. Gatt was accused of engaging in sexually explicit online communication with a minor across state lines. He notes the claims were inadequately investigated prior to his felony charges being publicly announced in an LAPD press release.

The alleged interaction resulted from a video on Cameo Mr. Gatt recorded for a fan’s 16th birthday, before being contacted by the teenage girl via social media on multiple occasions. Mr. Gatt did respond, but according to the suit it was in a manner that was “wholly appropriate and consistent with typical celebrity-fan exchanges.” The two, however, never met in person.

Cameo is a video-sharing website often used by public figures. Users can purchase a personalized video for the individual receiving it. This gives fans a chance to connect with their favorite celebrities with a video message for any occasion. A crucial bit of information the lawsuit says backs claims that the teenage girl was an “admittedly obsessed fan of Gatt.”

The 16-year-old went on to claim to have pictures of the supposed inappropriate conversations, but the defendants failed to “interview or even remotely assess for credibility.” Mr. Gatt was arrested in April of 2022 following a search warrant on his home. He called the act an “invasion of privacy” that deprived him of his “liberty and freedom.”

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