More than 44,000 people have signed up for shares of a $4.85 billion settlement over the withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, a sign that the deal is on track to go forward, Merck & Co. announced Monday. Of roughly 47,000 people who registered for the settlement earlier this year, more than 44,000 have submitted all or some of the paperwork necessary for enrollment in the deal, Merck said in a news release.

A New York City jury awarded $2.25 million in the case of 73 year old Leonard Shafer who had exposure to asbestos in his workplace as a civilian employee at the New York Naval Shipyard (Brooklyn Navy Yard) in the 1950's. Attorneys for the family of Mr. Shafer helped prove Shafer developed pleural mesothelioma, which is an aggressive, incurable cancer during his career at the Shipyard.

A jury on Friday determined that Monsanto Co. polluted an Alabama town with PCBs, a verdict that sets the stage for more trials on claims that the contamination harmed the

A recent story about how an insurance company refused to pay for a procedure that could have saved a young girl's life is very sad.

The pending Merck Vioxx settlement appears to be on track, as more than 95 percent of possible Vioxx claimants have signed on to Merck's $4.85 million settlement offer.

A federal judge overseeing a $4.85 billion settlement with Merck & Co. involving its withdrawn Vioxx painkiller expressed confidence Friday that lawyers have resolved ethical concerns about the agreement.

A wrongful death lawsuit resulting from a fall through the roof of a building at Georgia Pacific has settled out of court.

The billions that state officials had once coveted from the largest jury verdict in Alabama history is now a scrap over millions.

Beasley Allen has written on a practice existing in Corporate America known as "dead peasant" insurance. This is the label put on a practice where an employee takes out life insurance policies on their employees without approval of the employees.

As deadlines near on the settlement Merck & Co. has proposed for cases related to its Vioxx painkiller, it looks highly likely enough plaintiffs will sign on to seal the deal.