It Figures

$500,000

Amount sought by a Maryland couple over a bedbug infestation in their apartment. Orville and Rebecca Brown say they were forced to move out of their apartment and throw away most of their possessions, including all of their 3-year-old daughter’s toys. The lawsuit, which names the owners and managers of the apartment complex, says the Browns were told that bedbugs had been found in an adjacent apartment and that their apartment would be treated as a precaution. They claim that treatment never occurred.

$200,000

Amount fraudulently obtained by a Massachusetts woman who admitted she and her husband intentionally ate glass particles as part of an insurance fraud scheme. Mary Evano has pleaded guilty to an indictment alleging that between 1997 and 2005, the couple collected more than $200,000 after filing insurance claims that they had been injured by restaurants, hotels and grocery stores that had served them food containing glass particles. Her husband, Ronald Evano, pleaded guilty in 2007 and was sentenced to more than five years in prison.

39

Number of lawsuits filed in connection with the Feb. 2009 Continental plane crash near Buffalo, N.Y., that killed 49 people who were on board the aircraft and owner of the home into which it crashed. At least five lawsuits by families of passengers who died in the crash have been settled for undisclosed sums. A wrongful death trial is scheduled for 2012.

$6.5M

The amount by which a federal judge has reduced an $8 million jury award against drug maker Merck & Co. in the case of an elderly woman who claimed Merck’s osteoporosis medicine, Fosamax, severely damaged her jaw. The woman, 72-year-old Shirley Bowles, of Florida, is among roughly 1,500 plaintiffs who have filed or given notice of planned lawsuits against Merck in federal or state courts alleging harm from Fosamax.