Graphic images of diseased lungs and other visual warnings on the dangers of smoking don’t violate tobacco companies’ free speech rights, a federal appeals court has ruled, upholding an FDA regulation that would require placement of the new amped-up warnings on all cigarette packs sold in the U.S.

The decision was handed down yesterday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. You can read the full text of the decision here. In upholding the legality of the new warning
labels, the court ruled that they “do not impose any restriction on Plaintiffs’ dissemination of speech, nor do they touch upon Plaintiffs’ core speech. Instead, the labels serve as disclaimers to the public regarding the incontestable health consequences of using tobacco.”

Yesterday’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the graphic warnings comes a month after a federal district judge struck down the FDA regulations (we blogged about an earlier preliminary injunction that was granted in that case). It would come as no surprise if the Supreme Court has the final say on the controversial warnings.

It may be time to rethink what you’re willing to do for a good night’s sleep. According to a new study, taking prescription sleeping pills like Ambien, Lunesta, and Sonata — even once in a while — puts patients at a much higher risk of dying or developing cancer.

“It looks like sleeping pills could be as risky as smoking cigarettes. It looks much more dangerous to take these pills than to treat insomnia another way,” said Daniel F. Kripke, MD (who headed up the study) in an interview with WebMD.

And you don’t even need to take that many prescription sleeping pills over time before you’re exposed to the health risks. The BMJ (British Medical Journal) Open study found that even patients who were prescribed fewer than 18 hypnotic sleeping pills per year saw “greater than threefold increased hazards of death.” (Hypnotic sleeping pills are designed to induce sleep, not merely promote sleep through relaxation, according to WebMD.)

As this ABC News article points out, however, the study may not be telling the full health story of those who participated: “the study did not say why the patients were prescribed the sleeping medications, whether the patients were evaluated by a sleep specialist, or whether they were also undergoing other types of treatment for any underlying health conditions — all important factors when weighing an increased risk of death, said Dr. Steven Scharf, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.”

The study will be published in the online-only medical journal BMJ Open (see an abstract here.)

More from Nolo: Drug Safety and the Law.

A flurry of new driving and licensing laws may be triggering an epidemic of eye-rolling among teen drivers in several states. But lawmakers in New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere have passed these laws to prevent car accidents and address some of the safety concerns that come along with putting brand-new drivers on the road. Here are a few highlights of some of the new teen driving laws:

New Jersey. A bill recently passed by state lawmakers would require teen drivers in New Jersey to log up to an additional year of driving with their learner’s permit before they can be fully licensed. This law has been passed by lawmakers in New Jersey, so stay tuned on when it takes effect. More from CBS NY.

North Carolina. Teen drivers with learner’s permits will need to jump through a few more procedural hoops in North Carolina’s graduated licensing system for young drivers. This law took effect as of the first of this year. Learn more from the North Carolina DOT.

Pennsylvania. A new set of laws puts restrictions on drivers who are under 18, including limitations on the number of passengers who may ride with the driver, if those passengers are also under 18. Other new Pennsylvania laws on teen driving make the failure to wear a seatbelt a “primary offense” for drivers and passengers under 18 (meaning they can get pulled over for it), and bump up the number of supervised driving hours required for new drivers. These laws went into effect close to the end of 2011. More here.

These are just a few of the newest state laws that target teen drivers. For a state-by-state look at similar laws, check out Young Driver Licensing Systems in the U.S., from the IIHS.

For a unique view on the impact of teen driving laws like these, read this blog plost from the New York Times website: Teenage Driving Laws May Just Delay Deadly Crashes.

The problem of distracted driving has the attention of lawmakers in every state these days. California laws on driver use of cell phones and other devices are already some of the toughest in the country. And now you can add to that set of rules yesterday’s decision from a California appeals court: Next time you grab your cell phone to make a quick call or send a brief text message while you’re waiting out a red light, you can still get ticketed for a $103 traffic violation, even though your vehicle isn’t moving. The three-judge appellate panel in yesterday’s decision held that a driver who is stopped at a red light is still “driving” under California’s Vehicle Code — specifically, the driver is merely “pausing momentarily” at the light, in compliance with the rules of the road. So, use of a hand-held device while stopped at a red light is still a violation of California’s distracted driving laws.    

Read a PDF of yesterday’s decision: People v. Nelson, from the California Courts website.  

With iPhones and Blackberries becoming more and more pervasive — and drivers increasingly unwilling to go unplugged even on a trip to the dry cleaners — distracted driving has become a leading cause of car accidents. In 2009, 20 percent of all injury-causing car accidents involved distracted driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). And a driver who is using a hand-held device is four times as likely to get into a serious-injury car accident, says the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). This is all on top of numerous studies showing that drivers who use a cell phone while driving (even those who go hands-free) have their reaction time and judgment impaired to the same level as a driver who is legally intoxicated.

Learn more about Car Accidents Caused by Cell Phone Use from Nolo. And visit Distraction.gov, the federal government’s new web portal on distracted driving.

A federal judge has blocked the implementation of a new FDA rule requiring the display of graphic images on cigarette packaging. The nine controversial photos are set to appear (along with accompanying text) on all cigarettes sold in the U.S. beginning in September of 2012. There’s no subtlety here. It’s a rotating gallery of unpleasant images meant to convey the dangers of smoking — everything from a set of diseased lungs to a man smoking through a hole in his throat. There’s even a post-autopsy sutured chest thrown in for good measure. Under the FDA rule, the warnings and the images must cover the top half of every pack of cigarettes, front and back. (More on Cigarette Health Warnings from the FDA.)    

This week’s granting of a preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon does not amount to the overturning of the FDA rule itself. What the injunction does do is block the rule from taking effect until the lawsuit over the requirement is resolved; specifically, in Judge Leon’s words, until “the constitutionality of the commercial speech that these graphic images compel” can be evaluated.

Judge Leon’s granting of the preliminary injunction means that, here in the early stages of the lawsuit, the tobacco companies have made a strong argument that the FDA rule violates free speech. That argument goes like this: by requiring the display of these new graphic anti-smoking images on all cigarette packaging, the federal government is essentially — and unconstitutionally — forcing commercial speech on the part of the tobacco companies. The granting of the tobacco companies’ request for a preliminary injunction is obviously a win for R.J. Reynolds and friends. At the very least, it’s an early indication of which way Judge Leon is leaning on the larger issue of the rule’s constitutionality; an injunction like this is only issued when the party requesting it shows a “likelihood of success” on the merits of the lawsuit.

For now, when it comes to scaring smokers straight, it looks like the old standby Surgeon General’s Warning will just have to do.

Parents who are shopping for the right car booster seat for their kids have better (and safer) options to choose from than ever before, according to testing and new ratings issued by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

When it comes to car booster seat safety, finding the right fit is the name of the game. And after its most recent comprehensive study of 62 booster seat models, IIHS has named a record 31 seats as “Best Bets.” According to the group’s press release on the study, a booster seat qualifies as a “Best Bet” when it “correctly positions a vehicle safety belt on a typical 4 to 8 year-old in almost any car, minivan, or SUV.”

Since a vehicle’s seatbelts are designed for adults, a booster seat is needed to elevate the child into a position where the belt can properly restrain the child in case a car accident happens or a sudden stop is necessary. IIHS advises parents to make sure that the lap belt lies flat across a child’s upper legs, and that the shoulder belt comes down over the middle of the shoulder — not up close to the child’s neck, and not down closer to the upper arm.

Read the IIHS press release on the study, and check out the complete ratings.

The IIHS website has a lot of useful information on child passenger safety, including this Q&A.

Before the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 people and triggered the largest oil spill in history, BP’s main priority was cost-cutting, and the company let little things — like, say, effective risk assessment and minimization — fall by the wayside. That’s the conclusion reached after a federal investigation into the Gulf Oil spill. Findings are detailed in a comprehensive report issued earlier this week.

Other companies involved in the incident don’t escape blame, including Transocean (which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig) and Halliburton (which did cement work on a well that would later explode). But the report puts the majority of fault squarely on BP’s shoulders.

A few of the more scathing findings from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Resource Management and Enforcement (BOERME):

• In the weeks leading up to the blowout on April 20, the BP team made a series of operational decisions that reduced costs and increased risk.
• BP personnel in Houston did not transfer critical information to rig personnel…[T]his communication failure, which resulted in the rig crew being unaware of increasing operational risks, may have created a false sense of security among those on the rig.
• BP personnel were compensated and their performance reviewed, at least in part, based upon their abilities to control or reduce costs.
• An “operational” performance measure for BP drilling personnel was delivering a well with costs under the authorized expenditure amount. There was no comparable performance measure for occupational safety achievements.
• In the weeks leading up to April 20, the BP Macondo team made a series of operational decisions that reduced costs and increased risks.
• A number of BP decisions were not subjected to a formal risk assessment process. In addition, the Panel found no evidence indicating that, at the time of the blowout, BP had in place any policy or practice to assess whether safe operations were being compromised to achieve cost savings.

There’s already talk that the BOERME report — and its fairly damning conclusions as to BP’s liability for the Deepwater disaster — will add tens of billions to BP’s civil liability for the spill. And the federal government’s findings may even trigger federal criminal charges against BP.

Allstate this week released its seventh-annual Best Drivers Report, ranking U.S. cities where the best and worst drivers can be found.

For the second year in a row, residents of Fort Collins, Colorado drove away (very cautiously) with top honors as the city where drivers are least likely to experience a car accident. According to Allstate, the average Fort Collins driver will go about 14 years between car accidents.

After Fort Collins, the top five stays midwest-heavy (maybe it’s those wide open spaces):

1. Fort Collins, Colorado

2. Boise, Idaho

3. Lincoln, Nebraska

4. Colorado Springs, Colorado

5. Huntsville, Alabama

And the cities where you’re most likely to get into a car accident? Steer clear of the coasts, and if you’re driving our nation’s capital, have your car insurance agent on speed-dial. In Washington D.C., drivers can expect to get into a car accident once every 4.8 years. So, for one-term politicians, getting run out of town may not be all bad.

Here is Allstate’s bottom five:

189. Hartford, Connecticut

190. Newark, New Jersey

191. Glendale, California

192. Baltimore, Maryland

193. Washington, D.C.

Where does your city rank? Check out this press release from Allstate.com, which includes a link to the full report as a PDF file.

Lawyers for the Los Angeles Dodgers have thrown a brushback pitch in response to a lawsuit filed by the family of a man who suffered severe injuries after an attack at Dodger Stadium.

Bryan Stow, a 42 year-old paramedic from Santa Cruz, attended a Dodgers-Giants game at Dodger Stadium on the night of March 31, 2011. Stow, who was wearing Giants gear, was attacked in the parking lot after the game. He suffered head injuries and has been in a medically-induced coma since shortly after the attack. A recent lawsuit filed on behalf of Stow and his two children alleges nine separate claims against the Dodgers, including charges that the team failed to provide adequate security at the stadium.

But lawyers for the team and owner Frank McCourt argue that Stow’s two children shouldn’t be able to sue the team, in part because they weren’t at the stadium on the night of the incident. So (the team’s argument goes) the kids’ negligence-based claims against the team and their requests for loss of consortium and other damages should be dismissed.

The team is also trying to limit the scope of the lawsuit by asking the judge to reject a claim for punitive damages. And not only that, the Dodgers want the court to throw out the complaint’s references to consumption of alcohol (gasp!) at the stadium, McCourt’s “lavish lifestyle” (McCourt is a named defendant, and no stranger to the L.A. county court system these days), and the lawsuit’s characterization of the incident as “brutal and vicious,” according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Over 36 million pounds of ground turkey is being pulled from stores — and hopefully, from consumers’ fridges and freezers too — in one of the country’s largest-ever meat recalls.

The fresh and frozen ground turkey is produced by Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation, and affected products include well-known brand names like Honeysuckle and Shady Hill Farms.

The recalled turkey has been linked to dozens of salmonella cases. At least 76 people have been sickened, and one person has died. Federal safety officials are still trying to pinpoint the exact source of the problem, although right now attention is being focused on a Cargill production plant in Arkansas, a facility that has been shut down as part of the investigation.

To learn whether any of the recalled Cargill turkey products may be hanging around in your fridge or freezer, check out this full list of products affected by the turkey recall, from the USDA. And if it turns out you’ve got them, toss them.

Although the problem seems to be limited to Cargill’s Arkansas facility, the affected products have been distributed nationwide, and the list of people who have been sickened so far includes residents of at least 25 states.

To learn more about the health and legal issues related to food poisoning outbreaks and recalls like this one, check out Nolo’s articles Food Poisoning and Foodborne Illness and Lawsuits Involving Food Poisoning.