false advertising

The city of Chicago has beaten the argument that it impermissibly ceded its police power to the law firm it retained to prosecute a lawsuit on the city's behalf alleging that five drugmakers engaged in highly deceptive marketing of opioid painkillers, The Litigation Daily's Scott Flaherty reports. The drug companies argued that the firm's interest in earning a contingency fee from any recovery created a conflict that stripped the defendants of their due process rights. A federal judge ruled that because the city retains control over the litigation of the case the retention of a private law firm didn't violate the rights of the defendants.

A judge today rejected a putative class action in which readers of Lance Armstrong's books alleged they were subjected to fraud and false advertising in "inspirational true accounts" that "should have been labeled fiction" due to Armstrong's use of performance-enhancing drugs. Instead, the books were protected as free speech.