It’s common for teenagers to gather unsupervised with friends or to throw parties when their parents are away. Often, these parties occur unbeknownst to parents and with few serious repercussions. Yet the reasons parents worry for their children’s safety when it comes to these kinds of gatherings, which can include alcohol or narcotics, are clear.

In Oakland, Calif., the mother of a teen who died while attending a party last April has filed a wrongful death lawsuit naming the hosts, their parents, and another teenager who purchased alcohol with a fake ID. Marianne Payne’s suit claims that the death of her son, Joe Loudon, could have been avoided and was caused by “negligence on the part of the students who provided alcohol and of the hosts’ mother and stepfather, Isabel and Scott Hamilton, who were out of town when the party was held without their permission.”

According to reports, Joe Loudon collapsed after attending the party for less than two hours. A fellow partygoer performed CPR on Loudon and was able to revive him. Loudon was taken to a bedroom in the Hamilton’s house so that he could lie down to rest and recover. Unfortunately, the young man was not out of the woods yet, and while alone in the bedroom, he vomited and choked. Again CPR was administered and attendees of the party called 911, but it was too late. Joe Loudon died soon after. During his autopsy, doctors found only a small amount of alcohol in his system. Physicians believe that Loudon might have suffered from a preexisting heart condition that caused his sudden death.

Patrick Gabrielli and his sister Alexandra have been fined, sentenced and ordered to complete community service for providing alcohol to a minor. The teenager who bought the alcohol using a fake ID was also sentenced and fined. Marianne Payne’s lawsuit is seeking an unspecified amount in damages to cover emotional suffering and the costs of her son’s funeral and burial.

In what could be considered the “Toyota” of pharmaceutical lawsuits, GlaxoSmithKline’s ever-mounting civil lawsuits involving the botched diabetes drug Avandia could total somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 billion when all is said and done. The United Bank of Switzerland (UBS) reported last week that the predicted multibillion-dollar estimate would cover the settlements and compensation for severe health complications caused by the company’s popular diabetes drug.

Once thought to be a super drug for type 2 diabetes sufferers, the prescription drug has been linked to serious heart problems, including heart attacks. The UBS noted that GlaxoSmithKline could be expected to pay in the $1 billion to $6 billion range and that the current total is roughly $2.5 billion today.

There are over 13,000 lawsuits currently pending against GlaxoSmithKline, as well as other pharmaceutical companies that make similar products, in the United States alone, according to a report from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee that was released last month. The Senate report alleges that Glaxo has attempted to undermine criticism of the drug. The massive 250,000-page document includes interviews, e-mails and testimony from former Glaxo employees, FDA officials, and anonymous whistleblowers.

The Food and Drug Administration, which formed a committee of medical professionals in 2007 to decide the fate of Avandia, and to determine if it did in fact cause risk of heart attack, has so far only responded by imposing that a mandatory warning be placed on the drug explaining that it was capable of causing heart problems including heart attack. Since 2007, however, more evidence of the dangers of Avandia use continues to surface. Liver failure, bone fractures, loss of vision, stroke, heart attacks, and even wrongful death are on the list of risks now associated with Avandia.  These lawsuits claim that GlaxoSmithKline failed to properly warn diabetes patients of the risks.