Repealing Michigan’s Drug Shield Law: “A Step In The Wrong Direction”
March 19, 2009
The Detroit News published an important editorial yesterday urging Michigan lawmakers not to repeal the state’s drug shield law – which protects pharmaceutical companies from abusive litigation and which the trial bar has tried for years to reverse. A state House committee is scheduled to take up the bill today. Highlights:
Following the law’s adoption “investments in bioscience have grown in Michigan more quickly than in other parts of the country. According to a 2008 report…Michigan during the prior six years produced academic research valued at $910 million in biosciences. During that period, 2,225 patents were awarded to researchers in Michigan, primarily in pharmaceuticals. Additional venture capital investments totaling $269 million, again primarily in pharmaceuticals, were directed toward this state.”
Repealing the law “would tell all prospective investors that Michigan is a very dangerous place in which to do business….In a state with the nation’s highest unemployment rater and an economic base much in need of diversification, this legislation is a step in the wrong direction.”
As the Manhattan Institute reported in an update to its Trial Lawyers, Inc. series, life sciences companies have invested $355 million in R&D in Michigan, supporting 12,000 jobs paying an average of $60,000. But, the Detroit News points out, “trial lawyers have long chafed at the limitations imposed” by the law – a polite way of saying the state trial bar wants to turn drugmakers into a plaintiffs’ lawyer ATM machine. They don’t just want to open drugmakers up to future lawsuits, they want to make the repeal retroactive so they can sue going back to 1996.
Here’s one question legislators considering this bill might ask: How many jobs has the trial bar created in Michigan over the last 13 years? Or here’s a better one: How many jobs have trial lawyers destroyed?
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Michigan, Tort Reform, Trial Lawyers
One Response to “Repealing Michigan’s Drug Shield Law: “A Step In The Wrong Direction””
I knew I was right when I wrote this:
http://www.attorneybutler.net/2009/03/michigans-drug-immunity-law-lets-think-of-our-vial-as-halffull.html