In Your Face . . .
Last month, an Orange County Superior Court jury decided against the mother of 7-year-old daughter (Kristen Spears) who sued Allergan, maker of Botox, for daughter’s death. The suit alleged that daughter died as a result of therapeutic Botox injections, apparently predicated on negligence and product liability theories.
Now, Allergan has filed a costs memorandum with the court requesting around $460,000 in costs because mother rejected a Code of Civil Procedure section 998 offer, a costs-shifting mechanism that is triggered when a settlement offer is rejected. (For more on the operation of this mechanism, see our category “Section 998” on the left hand side of our web home page.) We would surmise that the costs are as high as they are because Allergan is attempting to recover for expert witness costs and deposition expenses—costs categories that can be very high in cases such as the Spears case.
For more on this story (including reactions from parties and attorneys to this costs memo filing), see Colin Stewart’s story “Botox maker sues dead girl’s mother” in the April 21, 2010 edition of The Orange County Register.